A few months ago I went to the Folk Yeah! Festival in Heaven-On-Earth (Big Sur, California) for a low-key, stony weekend of camping with a bunch of hipsters in idyllic woods and watching a variety of folky-rock bands play this small roadside tavern. For the most part the music was pretty okay and mellow but I was totally unprepared & blown away by one of the last acts on Sunday night, a San Francisco band called BRONZE. They consist of vocals, drummer, and live electronics and have a very psyched-out dense sound that brings to mind Silver Apples if they had access to less primitive electronics. Accompanying their live show was some amazing lasers and projected visuals, but the absolute best part was the drummer: wearing an über-stylish neon green speedo, his nards kept falling out to the beat of the kick drum, but dude was so into the hypnotic grooves he did not care! Anyway these guys are killer, and are sure to blow us away with whatever they decide to record (hurry fellas!) but for now you can check out a live song and video on their-space. For those of us in 'Sucka Free, Bronze are playing this Saturday at a benefit for the El Rio along with other local luminaries & groove-hustlers Tussle, Paradise Island, Lemonade, & more.

Bronze - Scene Saw (Live) (link to MySpace)

Monday Movie [Parte 1]

The apparent death-knell of the whole first-wave of "let us entertain middle America with urban culture" movies has to be Body Rock. Tellingly, this was released in 1984 along with such heavyweights as Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. Starring an all-singing, all-dancing Lorenzo Lamas as Chilly D, enthusiastic street dude extraordinaire of the Body Rock crew, and his trials and tribulations of being tempted by the fame and money of a swanky Manhattanite club, prompting a re-evaluation of his musical passion, friends, and ambition. In this devastating scene, he encounters his old crew on the street wearing his new duds, and must tell his mother (Grace Zabriskie, the sour-faced grandmother from Big Love) that he is moving out so he can be surrounded by other artistes. The eventual epic, saw-it-coming reunion scene occurs in front of a giant friggin' boombox at the Rapstravaganza. Soundtrack ranges from new-wave soft rock to terrible electro and freestyle and includes Maria Vidal, Ashford & Simpson, and Laura Branigan.

Blank-Eyed, Nose Bleed

This weekend in the Yay we are blessed with another delicious event from the Gun Club party people -- the dark disco genrefuck of Padded Cell from D.C. Recordings. It's not an underground location this time, but the newly rejuvenated Fat City will do just fine. As for Padded Cell expect scuzzy basslines, loads of crisp conga percussion fills, dark bouncy synths, a touch of Feedelity-style comsic swerviness, and plenty smeared eyeliner debauchery. If me trying to pull out all the stops on that description wasn't enough, here is a sampling of their 2007 efforts:

flipside from their D.C. 12" Moon Menace
Padded Cell - Faces Of The Forest

and remix of
a long dormant,
former ambient d'n'b,
UK-based Planet Dog artist (!?!),
that appeared on a recent DJ Harvey bootleg mix
Future Loop Foundation - The Sea And The Sky (Padded Cell Remix)

Todd Terje - Eurodans (Audiowhores Edit)

Traveling In My Mind

Claude VonStroke - Who's Afraid of Detroit? (Audion Remix)

Turzi - Amadeus

Roy Ayers - Chicago (Edit de Prince Language)

An Indian Too Digs On (& Mislabels) Non-Electronica

Just in time for the tenth anniversary of Jeff Buckley's death, and all the attendant posthumous releasing mania, I remembered this incredible gem. In my obsessive Radiohead collecting days some years ago, I stumbled across this "unknown piano song" which had been mislabeled as Thom Yorke solo work. I believed it too, for a while -- both their voices possess that same haunting vibrato, which is in full effect here. It starts with a minimal Ligeti-esque piano refrain and Buckley extending out these spooky phrases, slowing building with insane spiraling feedback and then crashing into a full band death-metal-funeral-dirge. I have no idea what it's call or what release it's from, and I don't have the patience to wade through a bunch of his work to figure it out, but I am hoping some Buckley maniac out there will stumble on here and alert us to where we can find more. Until then....

ADDENDUM from Friday June 22nd:

Turns out I was completely offbase and the song is from angsty Brit-stadium-rockers Muse! Thanks to some intrepid readers out there for their skepticism. It is a b-side from 1999 single "Muscle Museum" and it is completely unlike anything else I've heard from this group. (Admittedly, I do indulge in an occasional listen to the let-me-upgrade-Queen-with-arpeggiators-and-kickdrums-bombast of "Take A Bow" while not endorsing the band on the whole.) Here is a reposted version of the song that both enchanted & tricked me (sorry Jeff Buckley, I still love you more).

Muse - Con-Science