Live Review: Triclops! @ Sugar Mountain

Triclops!
crushes
Emeryville
earlier
this
year.





By Tyler Corelitz

As this democracy unravels to the sound of a thousand welcome groans, from the mouths of a thousand angry rogues, the bristle of a violent electricity can be felt amongst the standing hairs on our collective neck. Some change is about to happen, some change is necessary, and the passive about to become active wait and watch for a sign from the great machine. Will it destroy itself rather then adapt? Is the status quo, heavy with years of negative karma, incapable of apology, never ready for forgiveness? And we few peasants, toeing the line between huddled mass and bourgeois fan club, look to our artists for guidance, and far too often there is none. (more >>)

There seems to be complacency not only among my fellow plebeians, but also among the normally rebellious fringes. Talking with no listening, listening with no action, nodding heads agreeing to the way things are, acknowledging the possibility of something different with no desire or course to take. We should all be so lucky as to have been born longshoremen.

I have been thinking about these things, no more than mental abstractions, for some time, but then I wasn't really thinking about them until I saw San Francisco's Triclops! play to a decimated warehouse crowd in a friendly neighborhood of Oakland. There are many things worth mentioning about this show (opening act Crystal Antlers played a great set of loud, rolling acid rock) that won't be mentioned because they are easily trumped by the fact that in the span of one song, the unnamed and un-recorded closer, Triclops! managed to channel the chaos of my thoughts and misgivings into a clearer understanding of the time we are living in; of the things about to happen, and those that have already begun.

Triclops! opened the set like so many bands close theirs, not waiting till the last minute to actually perform, to take chances. Beginning with something to the effect of, "I, like many of you, fear what will happen if John McCain becomes president. This song is about the end of the white man, and as a white man I am glad to see that happen," the band proceeded into a song that was perfect in its ferocity. It was a post-punk ballad of sorts, and I could hardly make out the lyrics through the effects-laden screams. For the entire song, all the performances and antics, by band and audience alike, became a unified protest against all the worries that had been troubling me. Something was happening and someone was doing something about it, and even if that energy remained only in that room, the notion of possibility gave me pause, and I listened hoping the song, the mood, and the sentiment would never end.

With all these chances and drunken violence, body contortions, and self-inflicted pain, it never faltered. Triclops! was almost flawless, stopping only once after the drummer was hit with the fragments of a smashed chair, the leg already lodged within the singer's darkest orifice, pants around his ankles and daring the crowd to one-up him.

In their refusal to succomb to whatever expectations the crowd seemed ready to place on them, or the fact that many had left after the opening acts to pay ten dollars for the show next door, Triclops! proved that "staying the course" can be a good thing. There was no way for me or the others in my party, who had never seen the band or their other projects (mainly the Fleshies) to know what we were about to be hit with. I had to question whether or not I was willing to go as far as the band wanted me to. Those who were willing to act seemed capable only of the predictable: a few intelligent people realizing they will never be what they hoped to be, childlike tantrums disguised as the side affects of alcohol.

And those who stood on the fringes, unable to participate as we clung to our hopes, could feel the tension between realizing our passions and our eminent deaths. I may not have been able to join in the often absurd displays of expression, but I can and will accept the mental challenge placed before me that night, and am waiting for those other silent observers to acknowledge and do the same.

CD Review: Imperfect i's Groopoloops

By Tyler Corelitz

Imperfect i is a project by Oakland-based singer/songwriter Gery Tinkelenberg. His new CD, titled Groopoloops, is a collection of songs performed spontaneously and based around guitar looping, with some sparse atmospheric percussion mixed in. The guitar playing is good, if not a little "new age," and the recording quality is excellent. In fact, all of the production on the CD comes across very well. The album's ten songs are more or less Gery jamming with himself over loops, and as free, improvised songs they actually work quite well. With no set structure, however, their length lends them to being more of an ambient soundtrack to a nice long drive in a big expensive car then out and out songs. The opening lines are usually lost in a wash of layers lapping up against one another, stirring the musical pot. (more >>)

The album is best when it breaks from its acoustic guitar roots and introduces darker, distorted, almost noisy sounds over the top in a manner that is very Frisselian. Considering that Oakland is home to much of the Bay Area's noise scene, these more aggressive elements make perfect sense, and would be a welcome point of expansion in Imperfect i's future.

Much like the East Bay, which manages to balance the SUV yuppie moms and college fraternities of Berkeley with urban sprawl and often shocking poverty in the Oakland flatlands, Groopoloops is half contained and peaceful, half struggling and on the point of outburst. Considering the first half of this equation, it is strange to note that Imperfect i's bio makes note of Tinkelenberg's inability to settle down, as much of this music seems to be the perfect tantric love song to woo unsuspecting yuppie moms out of their yoga outfits and into whatever.

CD Review: Warren Teagarden's Across the San Joaquin

By Camden Andrews

Following up his debut self-titled EP, Warren Teagarden released his first full-length album, Across the San Joaquin , in mid April. Combining elements of country, punk, folk, and indie rock, his relaxed style is both simple and eccentric at the same time. (more >>)

The album opens strong with “The Deal,” a fun, upbeat tune with a simple two-chord melody. It's not only a pretty good song, but a solid representative sample of the album's tone: bare-bones rock and roll with hints of folk and punk influences, and words about ... well, it's hard to say sometimes. Warren Teagarden has been known for his playful and somewhat abstract lyrics, and his new album is no exception. Many of the songs on Across the San Joaquin offer a vague sense of a subject, but the lyrics are often too random to figure out the details. This can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your preference. The story or theme is not always clear, but his unusual imagery leaves plenty of room for a good imagination to put the seemingly random pieces together.

Most of the songs on Across the San Joaquin have a pretty basic instrumentation of drums, bass, and two guitars; one strumming fuzzy or acoustic power chords, the other playing basic clean leads. The music is nothing groundbreaking, but there is a relaxed, quirky sort of vibe that sounds a lot like a mellow Pixies record, with Teagarden's voice even resembling a deeper, gruff Frank Black. Even his lyrics possess a level of weirdness that almost parallel the Pixies. A verse in “Light as a Mouse,” for example, goes I've got my treasure maps and we will go down to Mexico, but I won't take my pants off to skin-dive / Hey Barry, pass me a match.

There are, however, different levels of strangeness throughout the album. At his weirdest, Teagarden goes on some silly maniacal rampage on “Haircut,” screaming, Hey, come here get a haircut / Look I got a razor, I'll cut you, I'll cut your hair! / Hey, come here. It can also be sweet and playful, as in “Chapter 21,” a song about love and A Clockwork Orange, teasing, You're one to bitch about a tacked-on happy ending / Who doesn't love a heartwarming tale of murder? The title track itself is much more solemn, with the chorus stating Out on the freeway there are days nothing changes but the waving fields / Big change from corn to grain / Out on the freeway there are things no one wants to see or believe / A wooden boy rolls up his sleeve.

Yeah, Teagarden can be a bit odd, but the weirdness is presented in a way that encourages a sense of curiosity rather than confusion. Across the San Joaquin is a refreshing combination of simple rock music singing about the basics (love, loss, drugs, loneliness) without the lyrical cliches of we're all used to.

CD Review: Battlehooch's Unabashed Nonsense

By Tyler Corelitz

Battlehooch's debut EP OOF OWF has already garnered much-deserved respect within the Bay Area and beyond. It is a self-made wonder-work of psychedelic rock, funk, and unabashed nonsense. All four of the disc's creations are heavily orchestrated movements featuring all manner of percussion, guitars, and driving bass, with some classy Zappa-inspired horns popping up whenever necessary. Vocals are present but one gets the feeling that the listener is less expected to sing along than they are to dance. (more >>)

Opener "Boog Woogily" is one of the highlights, both live and recorded, and begins with a few stuttering yells and instrumental guffaws, on its way to becoming what on first listen could be mistaken for a more lucid reworking of The Simpsons' theme song. All of the "kitchen sink" percussion, plus the band's live theatrics (headbands, face-paint, sillystring?) bring to mind acts like Man Man and their own musical influences. Unlike Man Man, who seem locked to an indie-rock adaptation of Captain Beefheart et al, Battlehooch isn't willing to become pegged to a single sound or even a singular grouping of sounds, as OOF OWF closer "When We're Trying to Be Quiet" is rooted half in '60s psychedelia and half in early-'90s grunge. This last track had me coming back for repeated listens, most likely due to the strong vocals and because it sounded vaguely similar to San Francisco psych project Sleepy Sun, of who I am very fond.

Taken as a whole, the most impressive thing about OOF OWF is that as such an ambitious first release, it still manages to leave room for further exploration and growth. Furthering this is the fact that in order to really understand and appreciate the album and the band you can't merely listen to one song on MySpace. OOF OWF demands to be heard from front to back, back to front, and then only with an accompanying trip to a live performance will the listener truly be able to understand and appreciate one of the most unique and talented bands the Bay Area has to offer at the moment. Battlehooch is definitely going to continue to ask for, and get attention.

CD Review: Mia and Jonah’s Rooms for Adelaide

By Julia Cooper

Americana tag team Mia and Jonah may be the musical equivalent of mac and cheese: Just as hearty helpings of the comfort food offer a simple but soothing cure for empty stomachs, the spare, commiserative melodies composing the Oakland duo’s second full-length, Rooms for Adelaide, transpire as the recipe to fill empty souls. (more >>)

In finest folk tradition, the twosome’s lush harmonies and minimalist guitar, bass and drums instrumentation (with the occasional dobro and harmonica squeal) take a backseat to quaking vocal delivery and consoling lyrics that show empathy for tales of woe. Mia’s ruddy growl naturally resonates with hard luck cases on rollicking opener “3 Stories High,” while Jonah’s countrified drawl constructs an unconditional beacon of hope on “Dance” (And even when the bottom feels like it’s dropping out in the middle of the ocean / Won’t you pull close to me?).

The plucks and jangles of Jonah’s acoustic guitar capably drive most songs, but the duo also throws in non-folksy stylistic surprises. The demented “Junkyard Dog,” which saunters on drummer John Hanes’ slack, trash-can beat and Mia’s roughneck attitude, channels visionary, experimental booze-blues curmudgeon Tom Waits -- apropos considering guest musicians Seth Ford-Young (bass) and Myles Boisen(electric guitars) have also collaborated with Waits.

Rooms for Adelaide peaks when Mia and Jonah hit lyrical hell on the album’s strongest melodies: the bluesy lament “Morning Hymnal,” which enmeshes Mia’s burdened lyrics (I don’t got no head / Got a 50 pound lead weight instead) with Jonah’s mournful hum; and “Rooms,” a hushed duet reminiscent of Irish troubadour Damien Rices collaborations with Lisa Hannigan, where Mia dwells in vulnerability while coping with life’s lingering troubles (Pardon me for smoking this old abandoned cigarette / But I got miles o' trail to squander and not enough time to forget).

With their heartfelt revelations, Mia and Jonah’s complementary musical coupling would make a most welcome guest to any whiskey-soaked pity party. And in troubled times like these, who isn’t in need of a cathartic soiree?

Live Review: Railcars and Handsome Furs @ Bottom of the Hill 4/15

By Matthew Jordan

Oh, deceitful memory! Every show seen at protean Bottom of the Hill leaves an entirely different impression. Bottom of the Hill is not the seedy den of patched woolens and greasy-headed rockulidge of Sebadoh shows past! It is not the brightly colored, enthusiastic pop brilliance of AC Newman and the yuppies, blazered and bangled, cheerfully listening, smiling, ecstatic! Bottom of the Hill could be anything to anybody. (more >>)

It would be no surprise to hear somebody say through grinding, spotted teeth that they saw the best Gwar show of their life there, and to hear their strange bedfellow companion respond that they, too, saw the show of their life there, but this one was the Blue Man Group. The club could be set down in Anytown, USA, and not lose a step. It has the dusky, boxcar feel of a small rock club in the Midwest -– picture Chicago, Cleveland, Duluth -– without the hulking corn-fed fans and exposed brick walls. Globular art deco lights running the along the spectrum of red from bubblegum to burgundy hang from the ceiling, and kitsch Christian iconography sits atop the ledges lining the walls above black and white prints of buxom burlesque stars. The graffiti on the inside of a stall door in the women’s room reads:

FUCK
if your [sic] true to yourself, the rest will follow
PENIS PENIS PENIS
only death is real ...

The crowd for the April 15th, 2008, DJ Bagel Ted, Railcars, and Handsome Furs show was notably assorted. What a delightful change of scene after years of shows populated exclusively by coke-addled waitresses and bartenders in dangerously tapered jeans, or lanky white kids in garish multi-colored sneakers and oversized ballcaps, or fist-pumping fratguys and their vapid toadying girlfriends. The crowd was somewhat spare, but vibrant and lively, and somewhat homely (the beautiful people, of course, were at Cat Power). Lesbians held hands and leaned against the bar. Self-hugging nerds, just out of view of slender and knock-kneed lovelies sulkily drinking Pabst, watched the ground in front of their feet. Some middle-aged couples chatted animatedly while other middle-aged couples chatted calmly. The odd bearded outdoorsman wandered around in conspicuously labeled fleeces and Danskos. For an indie show in San Francisco, there were shockingly few Asian girlfriends (probably at Cat Power).

Aside from a vinyl poster hanging from the wall announcing something called “Bagel Radio,” DJ Bagel Ted was nowhere to be found. It could be that he had calmly pressed “Play” and walked around rubbing elbows, as the music between sets was the all-too-accessible indie riffraff that Ted apparently loves. But it could be that he was at Cat Power.

Railcars (formerly Aria C Jalali) opened. The band is front man and guitarist Aria C. Jalali (now Railcars), multi-instrumentalist Dasha Bulatova, bassist and laptopist Shaw Waters, and guitarist Biljana Mirkovski. All four are undergraduates -- Jalali and Bulatov at Cal, the other two elsewhere -- but it seems that they might not make it to graduation: opening several shows on the California leg of the Handsome Furs’ tour is a great way to get noticed. Clearly, people like these guys enough to give them a shot. Their set Tuesday night is in the eye of the beholder. That dumbshit axiom, of course, goes for anything, but it is particularly applicable to Railcars.

The scathing, sputtering critic might condemn Railcars for being painfully derivative, for pinning their indie du jour influences to their threadbare t-shirts, for a lack of charisma and gravitas, for Jalali’s underwhelming and grating and imitative voice, for sounding like they learned their instruments by diligently mimicking Arcade Fire and Sunset Rubdown records, for being long on earnestness and hipster adorability and short on songwriting and musicianship. Sneering, this critic would mock (“fumbling idealist crusaderism”) Jalali’s wan announcement that they were passing out free condoms and that he wants the crowd “to fuck each other” but he also wants them “to be safe.” “If you knew the foggiest fact about semi-anonymous rock club venery, son,” this critic would say, “your music would be a hell of a lot better.”

The sympathetic critic -– that rare contemplator who weighs her beer in one hand and her turns of phrase in the other, who with capped pen is able to smile and revel, who can grant the benefit of a doubt -– will call that first critic a dick and say he listens to rock music for the wrong reasons. She might point to Railcars' massive upside: with a few more gigs under their belt and a bit more confidence, their brilliant pop sentimentality will shine through. Railcars, providing they can establish a voice for themselves that doesn’t echo whatever flash in the pan your journalist friend was cluing you into three years ago, has the potential to be a great band. Though their only real percussion was Bulatova’s glockenspiel, occasionally dark and crunching synth lines would power through -– subduing Jalali’s voice and letting it become a part of the song rather than its focal point -– and really get the crowd moving. It was certainly not the case all the time, but every few songs the band demonstrated a real talent for compelling, sonically interesting, challenging musicality.

Give these kids (Jalali’s 21, and Bulatova’s only 19) a chance to mature as musicians and songwriters, and let them develop a sound that isn’t so perceptibly pick-pocketed from the staff picks at insound.com, and you’ll have yourself a great little band. Hopefully their forthcoming full-length debut will find them heading in the right direction, but either way, Railcars has demonstrable talent that should emerge more and more as they mature.

A brief note on the Handsome Furs: they totally ruled. See them live. If you’re, say, a young synth-pop band looking to make it, take notes on how energetically they perform and interact with the crowd. Note how much they enjoy themselves, how much they move around, the sexiness of Alexei Perry's concussive dancing, how that infects everybody else in the room. Note how each sound in their songs is distinct from the next, and how there’s a reason that guitar is up there.

CD Review: Grip Grand's Brokelore

By Tyler Corelitz

Great hip-hop albums leave the listener with a desire to go out and buy the samples that they use, and Brokelore is no exception. It is filled with beats, hooks, and harmonies from a variety of genres, reflecting the multitude of styles and influences Grip Grand brings to the table. His press materials paint him as a recluse keeping music as his only company, so it comes as no surprise that Grip also produced many of the tracks himself. (more >>)

The music is subtle and rolls along nicely beneath Grip Grand's flows. More scrutinizing listens reveal the obsessive placement of big dark piano chords, horns, blips, and beeps, which present themselves fully before fading out, never to be heard from again. The tight tracks, combined with Grip's strong delivery, feel more mature than the second-effort status the album carries, and left me double-checking the press release to make sure it was true.

If, however, you believe the story Grip is trying to tell, then this maturity will come as no surprise, as the rapper uses Brokelore's 14 songs to spin a tale of urban struggle in the face of the declining dollar. "Out of Service" just might be the best thing so far to help get through the difficulties of a sub-prime mortgage; while "But Anyway" provides comfort to the masses as Grip flatly states "Life sucks just as much as it's beautiful." Despite their darkness, the lyrics are never whiny -- but heavy reliance on the "balling on a budget" motif can be tiring after four or five tracks. As one friend I showed the album to said, "We get it: you're poor!"

Unlike many rap albums penetrating the airwaves these days, Brokelore is complete in its movement, diverse in its sound, and seems to come from a need to create music for reasons other than mere product, as evidenced on standout track "Hip Hop Classic." Here, Grip Grand uses an old-school West Coast sound to ask a question that defies genres, and is worth thinking about for any member of the music industry: "I'm trying to create a hip hop classic ... is it something you can sell in a package?" Even with the smart and memorable lyrics, Brokelore is unable to deliver one stuck-in-your-head, singing-it-at-work, catchy-to-the-point-of-annoying single, preferring to earn its keep by withstanding multiple, often sequential listens, each providing new lyrical and musical areas to explore.

Grip Grand may be destitute, but you can help the cause by buying Brokelore. And if he suddenly goes triple-platinum, lands a HUMMER sponsorship, and starts making his own energy drink, it won't matter; Grip Grand will keep turning out solid material, broke or not.

CD Review: Maldroid's Oakland Lad's Club

By Julia Cooper

Maldroid’s history would make any new band jealous: the quick courting by music industry honchos; the backing of local radio; the appearance on Good Morning America -- all surfaced without a single recording or live show to speak of. Winning a YouTube music video contest in 2006 propelled the Oakland seven-piece into the national spotlight, leaving behind a trail of listeners eager to see just what these guys are made of. (more >>)

With the April 15 unveiling of their debut full-length just around the corner, the Oakland Lad’s Club EP, released in September, offers a brief two-song, two-remix appetizer of pop anthems fit for rock airwaves. On “You Wanna Touch It,” Maldroid transforms into sexed-up robots, fusing a soaring Bon Jovi chorus (“Turn off the lights and take off your clothes/ I’ll show you mine if you show me yours”) with spaceship synth sounds and a thick ‘80s hair metal thump of guitars and drums. “Heck No! (I’ll Never Listen to Techno)” continues the band’s let’s-party spirit with a page taken from Devo’s deviant new-wave songbook in, oddly, a Radio Disney-friendly burst of bouncy keyboard blips.

The robot and tech overtones of lyrics and instrumentation transition well into remix treatment. Both reimaginings by fellow Oaktown artists -- “You Wanna Touch It” by Scott Blonde (the Lovemakers) and “Heck No!” by Amp Live (Zion-I) -- tender groovy beats that would shine brightly amid any dark nightclub dinge.

Led by frontman Ryan Divine who, in a thoroughly modern approach to the music biz, formed the group to focus more on creating artistically vibrant videos à la its YouTube hit rather than on the music itself, Maldroid still has some catching up to do, song-wise. The music-by-numbers, three-minute-length structures prove catchy enough, but lack the rawness and heart for the songs to stand on their own. They’re still developing, though, and the impending LP will likely provide a better clue about Maldroid’s sound.

But with energy that oozes fun and a compelling visual spectacle, Maldroid has certainly earned the cast of watchful eyes -- and ears ...