David Yow Vs Live from The Barrage

David Yow Vs Live from The Barrage

Live from the Barrage Illustration by Mr. King

Illustration by Mr. King


We’re personally not into sports that much but get why people do and we don’t think David Yow has dialed up the Friday night radio show yet called Live from The Barrage but I’m sure he will soon. Would be funny as hell if he got to talk acting chops and get in a eloquent discussion about the finer points of acting methods with the fake Christopher Walken who frequents the show as well. This past week “Princetron”, New Jersey music personality Jon Solomon from Comedy Minus One and WPRB rang in discussing a Silkworm release coming out on his label; so you know adult alts are slowly paying attention to the show. Even Howard Stern apparently is ripping off bits as they just featured the band My Dick. Anyway, they curse and swear, freely discuss with no advertisers or FCC to be concerned about what regular NewYawkers or cabbies are thinking about or reading in the papers that week. It’s free for all that somehow is surrounded with great tunes that they barely announce when they do feel like playing music so they can take pee breaks and grab a cold one. This is a 2 1/2 hour show and are up to episode #33 which is a very big milestone for a podcast in such a short amount of time since April this past year. They are totally tuned into the New York music scene and pretty safe to say any hipster that dares to step foot in or call the show which takes places in John Houlihan’s garage in Queens better be prepared to piss themselves or leave crying. This is not a place for weak anonymous commentators alla brooklyn vegan. It’s authentic radio and I hope siriusxm radio comes knocking — I really do. Forget the old radio waves your mother-father listened to as there would be more bleeps than if R2D2 were getting raped in the back of the Jawa van for the show to be enjoyable by anybody.

Tune to their Live Stream Friday’s 8PM EST to join the chat while they gab away or subscribe via iTunes.

Here’s David Yow’s Acting reel in case you know the next Terantino I’m sure he’ll be in your next indie movie or television show.

Some music you might hear on the show:
Against The Grain MP3 by Raven from Walk Through Fire
Jailbreak MP3 by Thin Lizzy
Angel Of Death MP3 by Slayer from Reign In Blood
Fire MP3 by Venum
Tonight We’re Meat MP3 by Silkworm from Blueblood
Night of the Living Baseheads MP3 by Public Enemy from It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

Related links of interest:
Check out John and Pat’s band Risk/Reward
Stalk them on the Electrical Audio forum
Support their beer supply and buy a T-shirt
Jon Solomon’s record label Comedy Minus One
Vist Mr. King. www.herooflove.com for more drawings.
Also subscribe to Conan Neutron’s band’s Victory & Associates podcast: You Can’t Stop the Signal who is also a regular caller.

Scratch Acid Just Keep Eating

Scratch Acid Just Keep Eating

Just Keep Eating

I guess I was a David Yow fan before I even knew what a Yow was. I was a lucky enough young hipster to have a great local record store called the Music Staff that put all the cool looking records on the walls. Discovered all sort of bands randomly this way. Some total fails like this major label band called Eat or maybe i picked that one up at Vintage Vinyl — the point being when you moved the cover it changed colors. Pretty psychedelic man. Anyway, here was this group from Austin Texas that had this trippy album cover called Scratch Acid which from the first note was just noisy and didn’t care too much about the vocal melodies. It was a revelation that you could have music with no solos just interesting jagged compositions. Even felt a little seedy at times; creating this whole whirling atmosphere of reverb and yelping. So this is what punk from Texas sounds like? So be prepared sometime this coming fall the original line-up will tour and bedazzle you with their Texas-pysch punk and not in a flashy kind of way. More flesh off the bone where your tender spots will be exposed to some incredible music one more time. When the band broke up a couple of them went and played with Steve Albini in Rapeman and then reconvened with Yow to form The Jesus Lizard. The rest is loosely covered music history as carried out by David Yow (yelping), David Wm Sims (Bass), Brett Bradford (Guitar) & Ray Washam (Drums) in different bands below. Enjoy & Explore.

Crazy Dan MP3 1st track from Just Keep Eating
Superpussy MP3 by Rapeman from the Budd EP
Gladiator MP3 by The Jesus Lizard
Filth Pig MP3 by Ministry (Featured Washam on drums during this era)
Cold Light of Day MP3 by Dennison-Kimball Trio from Walls in the City. Funny thing about this one is they are a duo and playing jazz to boot. Jim Kimball played drums in Mule and Laughing Hyenas and later toured as the drummer in The Jesus Lizard for one of their reunions tours.
Valentine MP3 by unFact is the experimental solo bass playing of David Wm Sims. This spacey jam reminds me of Hugo Largo with the use of delay and melody on this track. From the EP Bleached Valentine (2010). The other tracks have some distorted ambient things happening. Pretty cool -always love the crisp tone he gets out of his bass.
Di Di Mao MP3 by Dangerpuss features Duane Denison, Jason Wolford (from Teledubgnosis, Machme), and Wm Sims. Basically whoever shows up to jam with Sims. More here ยป

Duo Rock Bands like Local H

Duo Rock Bands like Local H

Local H at The Brighton Bar Long Branch NJ


The duo tradition of musicians goes back a long ass ways. Local H is one the greatest unknown bands who are cocky in their own right and maybe a little pissed they weren’t as cute as Jack White’s counter part. Alas on album their records sound just as full as their live show. They started their thing pre-grunge in 1986 and have been somehow managing to keep bringing the music post Cobain. Tonight this working band will jam it out at Brighton Bar in Long Branch New Jersey 4/23/11. You should go but if you can’t it’s alright. On album they simply just rock like superdrag and have more hooks than your standard tacklebox. This is not your mom’s boring alternative music. If you go scream for them to play “Puss” by The Jesus Lizard for me.
Fine and Good MP3 by Local H from pack up the cats [BUY]
Blood Stains (Agent Orange Cover) MP3 by Local H from their Awesome Mix Tape #1 release (2010) Lets just hope they don’t become a glorified cover band. That would be sad. Most great bands like this one know their influences so it’s cool to hear them pay homage to the music embedded in their sound because they do it damn well! [BUY]
Puss MP3 by The Jesus Lizard [BUY]

Other Rock Duo Bands:
Water Is Better MP3 by Bubble/Gum from their self-titled debut (2003). Wish this local Jersey shore band were still around. They had such heart and really wrote some amazing songs. Big Fan.
Miner MP3 by No Age from Nouns [BUY]
Noel, Jonah And Me MP3 by The Spinanes from the LP Manos (Sub Pop 1993). At some point Ted Leo made them a trio for a short stint. Regardless this album is amazing. Singer Rebecca Gates did some back-up vocals on Elliott Smith’s song “St. Ides Heaven”. Great simple bare-bone songs and thirsty like voice on her in the vain of Liz Phair. [BUY]

What is Indie Rock anyway?

What is Indie Rock anyway?

Documentary: It’s a lofty goal to try and answer the question “What is Indie Rock?” and capture the whole of the late 80’s to early 90’s scene before the great music blog plague that is upon us now. Indie rock splintered pretty much as soon as it was born into all sorts of sub-genres.

…We had paper zines back then to rely on and the internets was not accessible to everyone – it was a discreet affair. Sure in there were music scene curators like epitonic who were listening, and many amazing fanzines and then there were dickheads like pitchfork who were not always so praising to deal with but underneath the airwaves was a sense of community. Somewhere in-between the music was exploited and well the rest is loosely documented history. Brad Katz, Myron Kerstein, Linda Cohen and Tricia Halloran want take this challenge and make a Indie Rock documentary. We all have our opinions. I know I tried my best on the east coast writing zines and playing in bands of merry-men. I think there has to be more stories out there right? I Know there is and it’s one of things doc people are looking help in. I personally think it would be an interesting story to talk about the transformation and answer the question: What happened to Indie Rock thru the eys of some of the fanzines? Under the shadow of Nirvana were all these bands that did not have a chance in hell of making a living out of their music. Just do a quick search in your iTunes for “indie rock”. The genre is used loosely to describe all sorts of shitty bands. I think alternative or “Other” is more appropriate sometimes. That’s a sign of something good when you can’t quite put a label on something.

The over-celebrated term at some point splintered into and then gentrified into a corporate rock category where Fleet foxes and the kings of Leon reside but that shit ain’t indie rock at all. Here’s a few things that distinguish the genre with community in mind. (1) DIY self releases e.g. bandcamp in modern terms for you youngsters. (2) You sold records/cds, 7″s and tapes not free downloads (seems absurd no?) (3) It didn’t matter what your band sounded like it as long as it did not sound like anything on the mainstream radio. Once you got major airplay you crossed the line into having an actual job. (4) Slacker was a fun thing. No promises. The thing is about the music is that there was no defining sound but lyrics and pieces by a variety bands like some of the ones below who actually knew what a melody was and they used it with their other tricks and was always part of their diverse delivery.

Some of my Indie’s Heroes:
Sense Of It MP3 by Polvo from Cor-Crane Secret I saw Polvo a couple times and they were the quirkier version of SY. Almost songs re-interpreted as noise or vice-versa. Hard to explain but the music is backwards but still had hooks. Great music and totally worth a deep dive. [BUY]
Slack Motherfucker MP3 by Superchunk from Tossing Seeds Singles (89-91) This is one of the Anthem’s of Indie Rock. [BUY]
Plumb Line MP3 By Archers of Loaf from Icky Mettle More hits on this record than any noisy record of it’s kind maybe since mission of Burma or Husker Du. “She’s an Indie Rocker and nothings gonna stop here” [BUY]
For Respect MP3 by Don Caballero from S/T Blown away the first time I heard and saw Damon Che play the drums like some drunken bull on a folding chair. So much energy with no singing ever to be had. [BUY]
What Goes On MP3 By Built to Spill (Live) I was a treepeople fan before a BTS. In fact I had no idea they were both Doug’s bands. Fact that 4 guitar parts can inhabit one band’s sound and without that magic it would still be cool. Always discovering some counter melody in this music. [BUY]
Gimme Indie Rock MP3 by Sebadoh from III One of the funniest things that random people always told me is that I sounded like Lou on bass with the free use of distortion. Happened a few times. Then they’d describe him to me as the dickhead who played with J in Dino. Always came across as an ass to me when I’ve seen him. Maybe he’s perpetually uncomfortable with his talent? Funny impression but there it is. [BUY]
(I Got A) Catholic Block MP3 by Sonic Youth from Sister SST.
Silver Rocket MP3 from Daydream Nation. [BUY] In 86-87 I had all of Sonic Youth’s releases to date. I was a indie rock kid. In to everything really. First time I saw SY was a pre-release show of Day Dream nation one hot summer night at CBGB’s in 88′. Lunachicks and Skunk(Aka Mighty Joe Young) were playing with them which was fronted by Matt Sweeney of the epic guitar band Chavez. They played the album front-to back and it was like being on drugs. All the guitars had letters on them and they just whipped through this huge wave of sound. I’ll never forget it. [Our Band will shine tonight]
Boilermaker MP3 by The Jesus Lizard from Liar – If you don’t break your neck listening to this music something is wrong with you. David Yo his singing sounds like somebody is slopping paint over the mic. [Buy] Nirvana tried to champion them just as much as the Melvins. I have the 7″s to prove it but sometimes the drunken ranting is just not fit for radio… allas the problem with Indie Rock. Corporate Alternative Rock wanted something easy to sell and most of these bands just weren’t handsome enough.