Filed under: Activities, Upcoming Events | Tags: Shedding, Skull Alley, Talk Normal, Tiny Fights, Upcoming Events
SHEDDING (from Louisville)
TALK NORMAL (from Brooklyn, New York)
TINY FIGHTS (from Lexington/Louisville)
Wednesday, December 2nd
at SKULL ALLEY
1017 E. Broadway
$5, 7 PM, ALL AGES
SHEDDING has been a solo project for Connor Bell since 2001, though in 2009 Tim Furnish (Parlour, Crain, Papa M, The For Carnation) and Joey Yates (The Loved, Parlour, Sapat) joined as the rhythm section in SHEDDING’s new lineup. Solo, SHEDDING has already released a few albums, and the new band lineup plans to release a 7″ or 2 over the winter and spring of 2009-2010.
Sarah Register and Andrya Ambro allied as TALK NORMAL in 2007, after years of friendship, and haven’t stopped moving. Since their lightning-strike first appearance, TALK NORMAL’s sound has stormed upward and outward, referencing few and relating to many, a jarringly songful gale of rhythm and noise supporting pleas and plaints, signal-calls and marching orders. Each show builds on past ones: up-to-the-moment updates of ideas previously stated, new phrasings of old upheavals delivered with increasing focus and joy. Darkness and light; fury, silence, space and sound. ”Brooklyn-based duo TALK NORMAL create a nice racket that does a deft job of splitting the difference between harsh sonics and the essential song-oriented structures required of noise rock. Neither a band in which noise is merely a bi-product of a savage attack nor an overtly experimental outfit steeped in this or that high concept, TALK NORMAL come off as an organic self-contained unit that extracts as much as they can from their explicitly minimal approach. Sure, there are some obvious touchstones here – Sonic Youth, Magik Markers, Ut, Teenage Jesus – but the songs never feel derivative. Though various sorts of processed sounds work their way in and out of the picture, the bands aesthetic is built on a basic foundation of guitars, drums and vocals. They can sound both hyper and dirgey, calling to mind heat-soaked basement shows and cold moldy practice spaces alike… TALK NORMAL are making their music amidst an increasingly cluttered underground landscape, and the duo’s seeming intrepidness in the face of that fact shines through. They’ve cultivated their own voice that, when combined with that strange festering energy, should make for solid stuff with each successive release.” – Nate Knaebel/Dusted
TINY FIGHTS is an up-and-coming band with members from both Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky. Their recent performance at the Boomslang Festival in Lexington was astounding, and it’s quite possible that this show may be their Louisville debut. Not really sure about that, but either way, they’re definitely not to be missed!
Check out the Facebook invite: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=332581415433.
For more information, check http://othersideoflife.wordpress.com/upcoming-events. To join our email list, send an email to hstencil@gmail.com.
Filed under: New Releases, Record Review | Tags: Group Doueh, New Releases, Sublime Frequencies
LEO Weekly ran my review of Group Doueh’s Treeg Salaam today:
Released in conjunction with their first-ever European tour this past June (the first time that audiences outside of Western Sahara saw them perform), Group Doueh’s second album, Treeg Salaam, on the always-intriguing Sublime Frequencies label, is an achievement. Discovered by label founders Alan Bishop and Hisham Mayet in 2005, the group is built around the relentless, driving electric guitar of main man Doueh, joined by his relatives on various other instruments (some of which are homemade). Fans familiar with the Mali “dry guitar” style propagated by Ali Farka Toure will hear some similarities in Doueh’s technique, but will be blown away by his amazingly fast fretwork and the distorted nature of the group’s DIY recordings. Yet on Treeg Salaam Doueh occasionally showcases a mellower form of his guitar heroics, and the album’s side-long ender “Tazit Kalifa” displays an almost-tender lyricism otherwise rare in Doueh’s desert music.
Buy the CD here from Sublime Frequencies (the LP sold out ages ago).
(Image of Jerry Fuchs from the New York Times.)
By now, the unfortunate and tragic death of Jerry Fuchs on Saturday night is common knowledge. However, I felt I had to write some sort of obituary, though late, if only to acknowledge how great a friend Jerry was to me.
Maserati, one of Jerry’s main music concerns, played here in Louisville at the Zanzabar back in September, and I was lucky enough to be able to DJ the gig. Doing so meant a lot to me, as Jerry and I had been friends since I lived in Brooklyn in the middle part of this decade. Unfortunately, I hadn’t talked with Jerry since I left Brooklyn to come home to Louisville in October, 2007, but the minute Maserati’s van pulled up to the Zanzabar, it was like only a few days had gone by since we’d last seen each other. We partied on into the night, then lunched at Zanzabar the next day, then Jerry and his compatriots were nice enough to drive me back to work for my double shift.
Strangely enough, we didn’t meet originally through music, but through football: we both used to watch Steelers games over at Doug Mosurock’s apartment. It only dawned on me later that Jerry missed a week or two of games here and there because he was on tour. But, again, when we’d run into each other on the street, at a party, at Daddy’s or Sal’s Pizza or wherever, it always seemed that time hadn’t passed at all, due to Jerry’s generosity of spirit.
A number of Jerry’s friends have written some fantastic remembrances of him, and for a wonderfully detailed portait of an excellent person, please read Henry Owings’ entry over at Chunklet. I don’t have much more to add, other than I miss my friend very much.
UPDATE: If you’re in New York City, there will be a memorial service for Jerry at Enid’s in Greenpoint, Brooklyn this Thursday, November 12th, between 7 and 11 PM. Enid’s is located, of course, at 560 Manhattan Avenue, at the corner of Driggs, right by the park. Wish I could be there.
