G.A.Y.

Gay Against You are from Glasgow Scotland.

According to the press release they "inhabit the middle ground between Cyndi Lauper and the Locust." I'm not sure that fits, but they do put on an insane show. Last night at Spasibar there was wire strangling, blood and spastic dancing. This show was organized by the good people at http://www.redyellowcab.com/

Check out Gay Against You - Sooo Heat

Band info and more downloads: www.myspace.com/gayagainstyou

Buy: http://www.adaadat.com/

Locust

So the Locust played here the other week. Good energy and a pretty good turnout. Opener was Otto Von Schirach who's insane disco metal was filled with references to farting, puking, buttsex and zombies. In other words, real sophisticated humour.
Somebody filmed some of the Locust show.
Take a look:



I've been a bit burned out lately, so I've missed alot of shows (including the Oslo jazz festival), but I promise to destroy more of my hearing for your reading pleasure very soon. Added a link to http://www.redyellowcab.com/ on my list. This is a new booking company you will hear alot about in the future. Lots of exciting stuff on the way...

Øya Festival wrapup.

Well, the festival is over; people are back to their boring lives at work. What a letdown. I started my week of loud noise watching GTUK at Spasibar who also played later at the festival. He's a wild German guy who screams over insanely fast Nintendo beats....great stuff. Tuesday Magnus Moriarty, Ranheim and Bungalow Ranchstyle rocked Internationalen. Wednesday it all started in the park with expensive drinks and lots of good music. Boredoms were fantastic. 3 drum sets and a wall of noise. Fuck hippie drum circles, Boredoms are the real shit. Tinariwen played heartwarming African desert blues, followed by Woven Hand who's intense singer ...always gives a good performance. GTUK put on a great second set of the day followed by about 3 NIN songs before I left. Thursday opened the day with a Norwegian band called Real Ones and one called Deadends...a nice suprise. Followed by Gogol Bordello. Man, this Balkan rock thing has really catched on lately....where were everyone like 5 years ago? It was just as good then. Malajube played a solid set (not as wild as at garage, but still good) followed by CocoRosie who frankly annoyed me. I like it on record, but got bored quickly live. Justice then put on a great set of hits...the kids went wild. Would have been much better in a club though...they pretty much got kicked off stage for playing too long. The sad thing about festivals is that when a show is great and the crowd is dying for an encore, they cant do it because of the tight time schedule. New Young Pony Club followed Justice....then Tool played. I lasted 3 songs before I left. (I was a fan ca. 1995...I guess I'm getting old) Later that evening I witnessed one of the best shows I've seen in years: (and if you've been paying attention, I've seen alot). Patrick Watson at Øya Night. (Come back to oslo Pleeease) Patrick Watson is a genius...enough said. Norwegian singer songwriter Ingrid Olava opened up and put on a touching show. This turned out to be a brilliant combination and a fantastic night. Woke up Friday really hungover and made it just in time for Architecture in Helzzzzzz.... Later, Spoon put on a good show, although they looked confused by the sunlight in the middle of the day. Can't be the most fun time to play.... Next up Devandra Banhart bored me with mumbling burnout hippy music and I quickly moved on to the best show of the day: Battles. I first saw Helmet in...91-92 wish I'd seen him more often. Hypnotic intense beats. Tight like a drum machine. Other members are from Don Cabellero who I've been a fan of for some years. These guys can play! Next, ...And you won't know us by the sound of our songs played and it didn't do much for me. Keep in mind at this point I'm a wreck so I'm alittle extra critical. The Jesus & Mary Chain was disappointing, yet played an ok set. The sound was horrible and they looked like they were sleeping onstage. They seemed to just be going through the motions. I guess I would do the same if I got alot of money to reunite and play...OK maybe not. Rocky Erickson finished off the night. Where the hell did all these Norwegians hear of this guy? The crowd was insane. Personally I've only heard the 13 Floor Elevator stuff....This guy got to play 3 encores and people would not leave the area. Even the stagehands and people in the back were frothing at the mouth. Good to see and old rocker get his day. I ended the night at a local club where Shining played a"secret" gig. Intense and great as always...as far as I can remember. Should have stayed at home Saturday...hungover and the music was not as great as the previous days, but I fought on trying not to loose the little sense of youth left in my body. Listened alittle to Rockettothesky followed by a set by The Melvins (including Big Business). Good mix of old and new, but the guitar and vocals drowned a bit in the 2 drum sets. Canadian band The Besnard Lakes who I'd never heard of were pretty decent, so was The Go! Team afterwards, but I was mentally and physically far from enjoying live music by that time. The obnoxious Lady Sovereign; who was the only English solo artist that showed up (Lilly Allen was sick, and Amy Whinehouse was hanging out at a rehab in London) played something while I tried to sleep; followed by more female hip hop with Yo Majesty who are famous for playing topless.....meh. I stayed the entire day to check out Primal Scream but I went home after 3 songs this night too. Seems like I cant handle a full week of music and drinking anymore. Oh well, I'll be back next year.
Below are a bunch of pictures and crappy video clips that I took.
Better videos are on Youtube and several full show are here: http://rita.nrk.no/community/oya07/ (read post below for how to see them if you don't speak Norwegian) You can watch em and tell me I'm wrong about some of the shows if you like.



Patrick Watson:

Woven Hand:

Tinariwen:

Spoon:

Rocky Erickson:

Ingrid Olava:

Melvins:

Malajube:

Justice:

GTUK:

Gogol Bordello:

Battles:

Vidoes are below.....

Øya wrapup 2: The grainy/bad video cliporama!

Here are a few short clips I took at this years Øya festival:

Battles:
Tiiight!




Justice:
This kids went crazy even in the afternoon....



Boredoms:
Definetly not boring.



Patrick Watson put on the best show of the festival:



Patrick Watson:
Record out in Europe very soon.



Spoon:
Great, but too early in the day.



Only 11+ months until the next Øya festival...

Øya video!

Go to http://rita.nrk.no/community/oya07/
and click on your favorite artist (not all were filmed unfortunately.)
Listed by day (onsdag, torsdag, fredag, lørdag) on the right.
Then click on "spill" and woahla! there you go.
I'll post my own 30 sec crappy video clips and some nice pictures later this week.
I've got to catch up on email at work first.
Bonus: If you click around on the same page you can also find live shows from the Hove Festival...but then again who wants that? Oh you do? OK.
The quality is good....but it's not up for too long. Rip the audio and video for fun.
They festival was pretty good; lots of solid performances and some not so solid.
Highlights included: Patrick Watson, Spoon, Battles, Boredoms, Woven Hand, Malajube, GTUK, and Justice among others... Pictured above: Battles.
A good week had by all...more soon.

Øya Festival

Ok, so it's finally time for the Øya festival here in Oslo. Øya has one of the most eclectic lineups on the festival circuit. Basically, they have good and varying taste.
Some of the highlights for me this year are Bordoms from Japan, Tinariwen from the desert in Mali, Spoon, Gogol Bordello, Justice (FR), Shining, Patrick Watson (CA), Woven Hand, Battles, Malajube, plus a whole bunch of bands of different styles and sounds from all over the world (plus a bunch of local bands I'll be skipping...well most of them). Headliners are Tool, NIN, Primal Scream, The Jesus and Mary Chain etc. go here to check it out. Monday I'm starting with GTUK at Spasibar followed by a dj set at International before the serious fun starts on wednesday.
If you feel like watching some of these sets live on your computer http://www.nrk.no/ will be streaming a good portion of the gigs online. Some of it will be available afterwards as well. I will post a link when I wake up sometime next week.

Good and bad news...

Yup, still here... The bad news I just found out my parents have to put my dog to sleep. She was a great dog who really saved the family though some tough times. I'm not gonna make you cry now so I'll get to the good news. The good news is I'll be deejaying at Internationalen in Oslo on tuesday during Øya Festival Club night. More about Øya festival very soon. Tuesday, Bungalow Ranchstyle (ex- cato salsa experience / ex-Fairfuck.) and Ranheim (Norway's answer to shellac) are playing. Gonna be a insane week. 6 days of music and drinks.

This one is for Marte:
Miles Davis - Blue in Green

Silver Daggers

OK, so I've been asleep at the wheel. NO post for over a week? I'm sure you're crying yourself to sleep. So I've decided to post about the Silver Daggers, or as I like to call them, the silver dags. "Joy" is the new "single" from the new record on Load Records. I saw this band a few years ago in Seattle, and they rule. Spazz Jazzcore from LA or something....I'm too drunk to write any more info, they are just great.

Just look at this: JOY Yes, lots of balloons.

And dl the track here: Silver Daggers - Joy
Rate this track:

Band info:

http://www.silverdaggers.tk/

www.myspace.com/silverdaggers

Purchase: http://www.loadrecords.com/

Crash Normal

Crash Normal is another great band from Paris France. If you liked my Cheveu post earlier, this is for you. This band is all over the place. From speed metal, to electro noise, to art punk.
Here is a little taste:

Crash Normal - 2 Bonsaïs Dans Mon Assiette
Crash Normal - Nothing I Can Tell
Crash Normal - Cook Some Meat
Crash Normal - Audioradio 2
Crash Normal - Pink Panty

...and the number one hit on all the top 40 charts (at least mine):
Crash Normal - Flying To New York (demo)
Go here to download it yourself (sorry, can't link to it)
This post is really just about this great track.

Purchase from Byte Burger Records.
and rococorecords.com and s-srecords.com

Band info:
crashnormal.free.fr (with a lot more mp3s)
www.myspace.com/crashnormal

Enon

New Enon record October 9th 2007 according to uber-indie pitchfork.
You heard it here last.

The record is called "Grass Geysers...Carbon Clouds" and is guaranteed to rock.

Read the article.
Listen to some old hits:

Enon - Natural Disaster

Enon - Conjugate The Verbs (temp link)

A tour is in the works (hopefully here)

Go see this excellent live band.

Band info: Enon.tv

www.myspace.com/enonmusic

Kongsberg Jazz Festival (Ornette Coleman, Offonoff, Wilco etc etc)

So, it's been quiet here, I know. I've been at 15+ konserts last week in a little Norwegian town called Kongsberg. The National Guard was called in to try to limit damage from flooding. It was the biggest flood in 50 years. It did not ruin the festival though. I got what's called a "særings pass" loosly translated a weirdo pass. This gets you in to all the avantgarde shows. First up was Gjerstad & Nilssen-Love 4tet. Frode Gjerstad started Ultralyd, a great Stavanger band. (Some of the people in Ultralyd play in Noxagt)
Paal Nilssen-Love is one of the best drummers I've ever seen.
(Han Bennink beeing my other favorite.)
Anyway, lots of free jazz and a good start to the festival. Saw a Kurt Weil cover band also that day.
Ornette Coleman kept asking people to come join him on stage. Pretty cool stuff; they even played a Vivaldi cover/interpretation. This was followed by Norwegian band Huntsville, part jazz, part country, part techno, part noise. Joining them onstage was couple of guys from Wilco for a one time colaberation...pretty cool. More avantgarde jazz by Big Satan, some great stuff by the drummer from Shining (Lofthus/Eilertsen/Storløkken), Bull of the year, Triacria (metalheads enslaved+Fe-mail) and Erika Stucky Trio who rocked the house tuba and jodeling style. I don't listen to free jazz on cd, but live it is a pretty amazing experience.
Wilco played a fantastic 2 hour+ set with a ton of extra numbers. You can get the show here or on http://www.dimeadozen.org/ (or so I read).
Here is the Wilco setlist:

01. Side With The seeds 02. You Are My Face 03. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart 04. Kamera 05. Muzzle Of Bees 06. Handshake Drugs 07. A Shot In The Arm 08. Impossible Germany 09. Sky Blue Sky 10. Shake It Off 11. Hummingbird 12. War On War 13. Jesus, Etc. 14. Walken 15. I’m The Man Who Loves You
Encore 1:
16. The Late Greats 17. Via Chicago > 18. Spiders (Kidsmoke)
Encore 2:
19. Heavy Metal Drummer 20. Hoodoo Voodoo 21. Outasite (Outta Mind) 22. I’m A Wheel

Not bad eh?
Jeff Tweedy seemed to enjoy himself immensely, wearing a king Olav T-shirt and proclaiming himself the king of Norway...which people seemed to be OK with.

The festival highlight for me was OFFONOFF. Offonoff is Paal-Nilssen Love (The Thing, Atomic), Massimo Pupillo from the Italian band ZU and Terrie Ex from Amsterdam's The Ex. Hard to describe this stuff, but its great. Part jazz, part punk, part noise, all good. Seen them a couple of times before, plus I'm a huge fan of their other projects as well.
According to Paal, the record will be out in November. I didn't ask what label, but my guess is on Smalltown Superjazz. (They released Original Silence with Love, Thursten Moore, Terrie Ex, Massimo Zu, Jim O'Rourke and Mats Gustafsson..check it out.)

If you ever find yourself walking around Norway in July, I highly recommend this festival. A lot of variety of excellent quality.

Here are some photos and videos from Kongsberg:)

Huntsville and Wilco

Paal Nilssen-Love w/ Offonoff

Terrie Ex

Massimo Pupillo


Terrie/Massimo

Offonoff

Offonoff

Offonoff

Ornette Coleman and band

Wilco


Wilco "Heavy Metal Drummer"

Wilco

Erika Stucky Trio



Erika Stucky Trio.

They also did My Sharona and a Brittney cover.

Sounds horrifying, but it was great.

(I can post more if someone requests it)

So that is just a taste of the great week I had at the Jazz festival.

Good times!

Deerhoof at Cafe Mono, Oslo

OK, I'm back from vacation. I've gotten millions of angry letters wondering why I haven't written anything in a while so here goes. Lets start with the great Deerhoof show last Tuesday.
The atmosphere was top notch. They played both old and new "hits". Some of the most intense and wild drumming I've ever seen. It was Deerhoof's first time in Oslo, and they seemed to have a great time. They did learn one Norwegian syllable: "Takk".
Here are some short video clips and random photos I took.

Photos!

Videos!

HJ and I deejayed before and after the show and had a blast...looks like we will do it again soon. We played what we wanted, got paid and got drunk for free. Yeah, I miiiight be up for that again.

Stuff on the Kongsberg Jazz Festival and other news soon.

Vacation/Jazz/Deerhoof

Deerhoof were fantastic. A fun night had by all. Today I am heading to the Kongsberg Jazz Festival to see Wilco, Ornette Coleman OFF ON OFF and many many others. I promise lots of pictures from both Deerhoof and the jazz festival. Probably no update until next week...I've got the rest of the week off from work. Meanwhile, spend some time looking at my links or something....

ChooChooChooChooBeepBeep - Hello, this is DEERHOOF

Tuesday July 3rd here in Oslo, Deerhoof is playing at Cafe Mono.
I'm excited like alittle schoolboy chasing an ice cream truck.

I am also lucky enough to get to DJ with my friend HJ at this show.
I'm no DJ, but I look forward to playing all kinds of shit.
I would think Deerhoof fans have an open mind.
So get ready for Japanese noise, art punk, Balkan, Ethiopian Jazz, French sleaze, beats, indie rawk etc etc. This could be my first and last "gig" so I'm going all out. You might find my bloody and beaten body outside in the gutter for playing the wrong thing at about 3am. (What? You don't like Hungarian digital folk-hardcore?!?)

If you don't know Deerhoof, they are a San Fransisco band who have been around forever putting out top quality art pop. One of my favorites.
You can listen to a ton of tracks in good quality here:
http://puzzle.suchfun.net/deerhoof/
I recommend "This Magnificent Bird Will Rise", "Gore in Rut" or "Milk Man" for a first listen.

Band info:
http://www.myspace.com/deerhoof
http://deerhoof.killrockstars.com/ Buy from Killrockstars.com

A post on Hungarian digital folk-hardcore at a later date. Enjoy your weekend!

Pecola

Alright. It's time for some Canadian music eh.
Pecola: probably the best screamo noise punk jazz band ever....what ever that is. I guess it's classified as "math rock". Whatever. Anyway, I've literally worn through my copy of the Dat Hoang 12" and only got mp3s left of it. I have The Mexican on cd, but its also seen better days.
I think both are out of print at this point.
I've worked really hard to get my tinnitus to where it is today thanks to those records (and a split 7 inch or two).
Pecola was Gideon Steinberg, Zak Hanna, Craig Thompson, CATL and were based in Toronto.

So here are Pecola - Class XXX from Dat Hoang on www.teenageusarecordings.com/

Guess all the words and win a prize!

Buy it if it's your thing, or just buy it for me. (I like gifts)

The band went on to projects such as Picastro, No No Zero, Minaret, Shut-In, etc.

All worth checking out as well.

Read aboot Pecola here:
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:0nfwxqrkld0e~T1

If anyone wants to hook me up with the cassette release or any demos or dvds feel free to contact me. I will pay you lots of money or wash your dishes.
I wish I had a copy of the Tag Team Anniversattack live show on Brave New Waves (Canada's best radio show...with sexy voiced Patty Schmidt - ...is it still on the air?)

I don't use torrents and I'd hate for you not give them any money (they are no longer welcome at the Rush mansion) but I'm not sure where else you can find it. Check ebay or some shit or contact Phil Klygo over at teenageusa.

Bonus:
I have been bugging this guy in Toronto about sending me stuff, but I never got anything. Happened to run across a live show on the same guys website. Hope he doesn't mind me posting a track.
It's not great quality, but you can hear the intensity and rawness of the live show; which they were famous for I read somewhere. Haven't spent much time in Canada, so I never saw them play.

MP3:
Pecola - Track 5 (live Atop a Hill January 1995)

You can listen to some other songs from Dat Hoang here:

www.myspace.com/pecolatheband

The full length cd The Mexican was released on Kosherrock Records. I think it's out of print, but you can try to email Alex from Deep Dark United who runs the label. The Shut-In record was also released on Kosherrock.

The Vaz

Originally from Fargo ND; Vaz started as 2 thirds of the Amphetamine Reptile band, Hammerhead by Jeff Mooridian Jr. (aka Deft Garlands) and Paul Erickson(aka Apollo Liftoff). They have been a two piece for most of their almost 10 years of existence but have been playing as a (three or?) four piece for a while now. This is noise rock at its best. You like noise don't you? Of course you do.
Here are a few cuts:

The Vaz - Collar

The Vaz - White World Of Death

The Vaz - Treble Noir

The Vaz - The Infinity Club

If you really feel like it you can download a live video of Unfinished Pair Of Brains and watch Jeff hit the skins like a madman. (Right click save this puppy it's 94 megs) or just go to youtube....

They have been on Load, Golden Standard Labs, Essay, 5rc and Narnack Records to name a few. Spend your crack money at the websites mentioned above.


As a bonus here are Seawhores who are on a split with Vaz on Essay Records.
Seawhores - Sweaty Men Attack

and why not, here is a Vaz youtube clip:



Remember to give them money, lots of it.

Band info:

http://www.thevaz.com/

http://www.myspace.com/thevaz

http://www.geocities.com/vazhead/main.htm (I helped make this site a few years ago, neat-o eh? well not really....not been updated this century)

15 minutes of fame

I can't remember a show when the opening act played longer then the headliner. Granted 3/4 of the opening act was on stage with Jay Reatard so I can understand the first set is short, but the second?
Boston Chinks played for 20 minutes. Jay Reatard played for a disappointing 15. No encore, no nothing. Weak.
Still it was a good show with alot of energy (at least on stage).
Here are a few clips and pix:


Boston Chinks



Jay Reatard

Boston Chinks:

Jay Reatard:

Get out and enjoy some live music eventhough you might be hung over at work the next day.

Lots more shows coming up...