by David | Mar 12, 2014 | Album Review, Free Mp3s, Indie Rock
We’re not going to call a EP sized music offering a EP anymore. We’re just going to thank the artists for omitting the 2nd half of the album or maybe the bad bits when we can. Pet Names lead off track “Empty Fortune Cookie” from their release Missed Connections and following “Something I said” are a good intro to this band. Has the formula and “unpunk” hooks we liked so many moons ago about Green Day. A working mans band that leaves off the fluff but keep the nuts and bolts of the tune in tac. If we hate it we’ll just talk about the “single” and then ask for the check. Pet Names is straight up good indie rock. Rock from Wilmington North Carolina to be precise. Little did they know (maybe they did) that their beach town has a special place in our heart. We learned what Indie rock was all about from our friend Kenyata Sullivan. What good friends you could make 100’s of miles away from your home eventhough they live 10 blocks away.
Anyway, Missed Connections is totally about unpunk connections we make -either by chance or dumb fucking luck. Basically indie rock well disguised as song craft in wolfs cloths. This record makes it count but that is the stuff you cant describe until you get into it a few laps. Vaguely familiar story lines that don’t throw a jab and don’t undermine your choice of brew at the bar. Throw in a acoustic song and before you know it your not cool like us. It’s better -They will be huge so don’t forget to breath in the proces because it will be over before you know it and you’ll hit play again or flip the tape– Whatever happens in the future. You ‘ve just been consumed by a good band laying it down. No gimmicks. Just rock-n-roll. What music discovery is supposed to be like here at the review stalker music blog. We look forward to more. You can totally name your price on their bandcamp page so throw them a couple bux in their guitar case. They deserve it. Alright Fifi?
RIYL: Green Day, Garden Variety, knapsack, GBV
DOWNLOAD:
Pet Names –Empty Fortune Cookie MP3
Here’s some tunes to mix in with Pet Names and your next mixed tape to listen to on whatever device you prefer.
REVIEW STALKER COMPILATION:
00. The Anderson Council –Gardening Man MP3 from Looking at the Stars
01. Knapsack –Less Than MP3
02. Silver Scooter –Pumpkin Eyes MP3
03. Hurl –This Numbness MP3
04/ Burning Airlines –The Escape Engine MP3
05. The Queers – Punk Rock Girls MP3
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by David | Mar 12, 2014 | Punk Rock
MUSIC REVIEW: We love the idea of having a ton of meaningless short songs hit you one by one instead of long as winded punk drama. The Ramones made it ok and these tunes are half the length. When it’s good the fact that it’s the same melody over and over and the same progression means there is room to grow. Enter LA’s Girl Tears with no keyboards to be heard and where size/length/width does not matter. Just good old buzzcock like sing-song tunes where it goes by so fast you can’t even pretend to know the lyrics. The same 4/4 beats hit you on the head like highschool popularity contest. Sometimes faster. Sometimes slower. Sometimes in double time. The attitude has the simple energy where one song just runs into the next for no apparant reason other than they want to do their job and get back to the bar. Job well done and thanks for not snuffing out punk and smothering it with all the extra stuff. Total running time is faster than teenage sex.
Also check out the Dirty Laundry TV casette compilation. Only $6.00 dollars.
by David | Mar 5, 2014 | 1990s, Bubbbllegum Thunder, Music Scenes, New Brunswick, Steve Albini
Photo: 223 Livingstone Ave – home to BGT, Aviso’Hara & a few basement shows
PART 1: Before todays bustling New Brunswick, NJ basement scene, Screaming Females and Don Giovanni Records there were 6 clubs to play a gig at that were not sequestered or are hard to find in the 1990’s. The times o’ plenty. We had The Melody, The Roxy, Plum St. Pub, Budapest, Bowl-o-drome and the still standing Court Tavern. This might seem like ancient history. For every club there were about a 100 bands that frequented the clubs in rotation. Some of them made broader strokes playing gigs down the shore, Hoboken, Philly, NYC and beyond. If you told somebody you were playing Brooklyn they looked at you strangely because there were really no places to play there. Although a gig at a old mustard factory comes to mind but still blurry. Bands that played basements like Louis St stayed there for the most part unless they were a hardcore outfit of which case we know of the success stories there ranging from lifetime to deadguy then those pesky and annoying emo bands. Now the scene has changed to an extreme 180 degrees in 2014. The balance of “official” live venues that served alcohol slowly have long been eaten up by Johnson and Johnson and UMDNJ to a eradication of mass proportions. New Brunswick is down to one place that we know of. Yea you probably know a guy who blathered this to you. In turn underground places started to have a insulated affect on the scene. It’s totally foreign to us suburban outsider now but we know it exists. we hope it does. Maybe not as publicly as it once did but we feel the force. What is amazing to see is that the caliber of bands has not changed. There’s kooky bands, to downright terrible ones too. They just happen to do things differently with a tremendous output from just one label (that we know of). Plus that whole internet placebo effect. (We will get into this later.)
The point of this pointed post series is to shed some light on the swath of bands we enjoyed watching, much thanks to a couple long threads on the FB’s led by queen-scene bee Amy Saville from Prosolar Mechanics and Jim Testa from the ever present Jersey Beat. Gigs were happening all the time. Actually, when we started doing the zine thing back then; we always wanted to have a local point of view and bring to our readers new bands they have not heard of yet from inside or outside of the scene. All in an effort to make things less insular –you know hippie-dippy punk. Not just for our knowledge but for all. Not much has changed as far as our special purpose in life. You can read our about section if you want. Hopefully we can go as deep with a lot of bands and include friends (jim/amy, etc) doing the writing to give you a different perspective. I’m sure we seem like aliens because in the era where anybody can have their first debut “EP” release in a matter of one weekend is deeply confounding and troubling. There were a lot more hoops to cross to get people to check out your music, record it, etc. Again, we can dive into this trouble in a later post but for let us drag you to the water.
BGT recording in Steve Albini’s old studio basement, Chicago. Turning knobs.
So lets kick this off with BubbleGum Thunder. Here’s a video of a song that was recorded by Steve Albini at his home studio in Chicago. Plus a bunch of tracks that were never released “officially” on any LP or CD. Here is a posthumous video premier. The band had released three 7″ singles before it’s demise. The best official release was Coward b/w Cheater 7″ on Model Rocket Records. Trust me the irony of posting mp3s of the tunes Steve recorded is not lost on me. He mixed the tracks identified below. They were never mastered properly but herein are the best of tracks from my point of view that the band did. What was great about this band is the chord progressions were bit complex but the playing was ballsy. Joseph the guitar player/singer used lots of open chord tunings to make his life simple and stupid. The results were a very unique sound you rarely hear in my humble opinion in bands today. There was songwriting at work.
RIYL: Cows, Hum, Unsane, Helmet
DOWNLOAD:
01. Bedwetter MP3(basement recording)
02. Cheater MP3(Albini)
03. Coward MP3 (Albini)
04. Ghost Town MP3 (Albini)
05. Sad Man MP3 (Albini)
06. Safe from Me MP3 (Albini)
07. Acid Gravy MP3 (Albini)
08. Swallowed MP3 – Basement recording. Probably one of meanest sounding bass parts I’ve ever played. This is nasty and will rip you up like the little music whore you are. Wait for it at the :46 second mark to feel what I am talking about. You might want to amp up this up in iTunes a little for playback.
If you never had to pay Mark your entry fee to see a band at The Court Tavern. You really are part of the new generation of bands.
“If you ain’t playing. You are paying.”
by David | Feb 27, 2014 | GoPro Chronicles
GOPRO CHRONICLES: Nobody looks up into the sky. Lets admit it. We might glance up at the stars every once in awhile but during the day we either see clouds or blue skies. The reality is that this real-estate is managed by air traffic controllers, the Airforce and known flight patterns that we know of; but besides that we the people are not really aware of any thing else that goes on up there in our airspace. Who is doing things that affect our environment? Our necks work and we can see when the weather man confirms it’s going to rain or snow. But they say never anything. They just read what is in front of them. That is what “news” anchors do. This video was shot last week, february 20th & 19th 2014. There are a lot more questions than answers. Watch this video.
Background music by My Bloody Valentine “No More Sorry” from their album Isn’t Anything (1988)
Last winter we experience about 25″ of snow in the New York/New Jersey tri-state area. This year it’s double the amount of snow. The reality was though that it was very warm and we’ve had these crazy catastrophic and paralyzing storms like Sandy, etc and down in Atlanta that have never had snow. This year it’s dramatically different and I wonder who is driving the weather? And Why? What is in the stuff that is in the sky? What aren’t we being told? We hear about global warming and slowly people are starting to wake-up but is our “government” doing something the issue without causing wide spread panic and recognizing the facts. The technology has been there to create man made snow on sky slopes for decades but not at this scale.
fIREHOSE –Chemical Wire MP3 from Ragin’, Full-On (1986)
Pretty Girls Make Graves – Chemical, Chemical MP3 from The New Romance (2003)
Aviso’Hara –Better Living Through Chemistry MP3 from goodnight sweetheart (1999)
Related Articles:
Geoengineering – This video explains the issues of aluminum in the sky pretty well. Even fox news is asking questions.
Resources: http://geoengineeringwatch.org/
by David | Feb 17, 2014 | Documentary, Film, GoPro Chronicles, Mp3s, Soundtracks
The GoPro Chronicles: I got introduced to Captain Beefheart in high school by a friend who was really into The Greatful Dead but I didnt’ really appreciate this type of music till much later. I went more prog then onto punk/alternative. The jury is still out on the Dead though. It’s these weird herky-jerky type of moody tunes that will make for great GoPro or movie soundtracks, when the cuts are quick and disorientating so your film seem to cruise along.
Anyway, here’s a few other songs I think that might be good for a variety of camera moves. The sound bed you lay down in the background is essential to your edit for your family film. Sets a mood you can’t put into words and sets expectations. The subtle way you transition to each scene from verse to chorus will make your edit seems like it’s moving faster or slower. When shooting don’t forget to pan left and right, up and down slowly and steadily for the best B-Roll. The GoPro is much more forgiving when you shoot a fast frame rate. Which on the silver is between 30-60 FPS. You can never have enough B-Roll. Ever.
Obviously, you might not be able to easily afford clearing these songs but to practice yours skills they are great; the point is its a important to be familiar with the song. Not everybody is going to be able to score their own music. That would be ridiculous. Obviously unless you are making a rock video and shooting specifically for that song. There are millions of songs that you can lay-in while you find the perfect one. But there is always the risk of falling in love with something that just does not work. Anyway, here’s some ideas to get you thinking for something moody. This was also my first GoPro shoot. There are just 25-30 transitions in this one(guestimate). So as always enjoy the tunes and thanks for watching!
DOWNLOADS:
Captain Beefheart – Zig Zag Wanderer MP3 from Safe as Milk (1967)
Frank Zappa –Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow MP3 from Apostrophe (‘)(1974)
R.E.M. –Camera MP3 from Reckoning (1984)
Throwing Muses –film (2013)
Residents –Boots from Meet The Residents(1974)
The Plugz –El Clavo Y La Cruz MP3 from the Repo Man Soundtrack (1984)
Built to Spill –I Dim Our Angst In Agony MP3 from The Electronic Anthology Project (2010)
Here’s some other edits that I did after first one that worked brialiantly.
MUDDERELLA 2014 NEW JERSEY – The Joy Formiddable w/ “Whirring”
UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF FIREHOSE – EASTERN ANCHORS
RELATED:
More: Documentary films on Review Stalker
Check out the Eastern Anchors: Rockumentary
by David | Feb 14, 2014 | Music News, The Wrens, Uncategorized
The Wrens – album working title is Prepare To Be Disappointed. Sarcasm yes. Is Charles Bissell busy. Yes. But it’s coming… revisit The Meadowlands and remind yourself why you love them deep in your heart because they live to keep you waiting. Yes we used this joke twice but seriously they tour this fall to help shape your expectations.
We have no clue what the hell the “Digital Prophet” David Shing is talking about. Let us know if you can decipher what he’s saying because he seems to be made of spare parts and bits the way this is edited. It’s so out of context. The editor botched this up or there really is no saving this dudes haircut. He’s just fried. He needs to actually unplug for a decade!
Hello europe folks can get Mike Watt’s picture book ‘on and off bass’ more econo now (saving big time on shipping) as reported via the press room. On and Off the bass on Amazon. Apparently lots pelicans and his hometown of Pedro. For hardcore fans of firehose and minutemen according to the reviews.
DOWNLOAD: arrow-pierced-egg-man MP3 by Mike Watt from hyphenated-man(2011)
Sludge popster Torche sign to our favorite metal label Relapse Records. Currently recording in Florida on the next release as of yet untitled. Playing show at St Vitus Bar in NYC Feb 26th. Guest listy please!
Radiohead launch a official app called Polyfauna. That is pretty normal as they have more concerns with being a art project and not a band anymore. Do you guys remember King of Limbs at all? Because that was awhile go. So this is like them releasing the song “Bloom” as an app, as a very tardy single. Try it and let us know. Other devoted fans seems to dig it.
Speaking of which. Here’s the SLINT BREADCRUMB TRAIL THEATRICAL TRAILER – this were just crazy kids from Kentucky. Emphasize kids. Super young dudes. Check out this trailer.
RANDOM DOWNLOADS:
Lefty’s Deceiver –Ex-Patriots MP3 from Cheats 92003) on My Pal God.
Anderson Council –Don’t You Think_ MP3 from Looking At the Stars (2013) Great NJ guitar pop via The Sinclair Recording Co. Check them out.
Lightouts – The Eloise Suite MP3 from Want(2013)
What else happened this past week?
We reviewed new grungsters Vomitface‘s 7″ and a even younger band from buffalo called Made Violent
Posted a bunch of free singles + MP3s by Pedal Distorsionador, Arc Rev One, Martin Van Ruin, Saintseneca, Emil and Caroline
Last weeks Rock news: RIP Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Criminal Hygiene Releases a new 7″ and much more interesting bullshit.
by David | Feb 9, 2014 | Free Mp3s, Indie Rock, Industrial, Mix-Tapes
A great assortment of free mp3 for you today. We have music from Poland, Chicago and Sweden. Something for everybody here from Americana to soul crushing gothic pop all mixed up. Some of these tunes will make for that awesome mix-tape of yours that you’ve been dying to make for that hot chick or dope dude.
SINGLE: Pedal Distorsionador – Is like godflesh went all disco on you. Lots of thick noise manipulation if you can imagine. A dark looming guttural gothic voice is put in place to scare you, but you don’t scare. You love horror films. You like Leatherface or latex. You think he’s sexy and it’s the only way you get off. You’ll like this but first we must tie you up. You don’t like blood but like being constrained. You are weird. This music takes you to the edge. To that dark place down you go straight away. I think this place may be Gdynia, Poland. Facebook
DOWNLOAD: Detroit MP3
Arc Rev One – On the other end of the spectrum of late nights. Which are really when the rest of us are going to work. I imagine people go and listen to music like this. Also wearing latex underneath their cloths, trippin and talking about their vampire implants. Seriously this is space sound track music for lunar spaceports. Let play in the background and it will elevate you.
DOWNLOAD: Sala Daeng MP3 from Twiggy Scratch & the Miders from Spars (2013)
Martin Van Ruin – Bob Dylan meets Neutral Milk Hotel in a mid-western bar submerged in violins and whiskey. This is a great jam. Uplifting how this type of music should be. These Chicago-ians throw it down. The rest of the release is heavy folk rock and I don’t use that term loosely because most that music is pure garbage. On other tracks with big drums laying down on a track called “Wilderness” which has well balanced backing female vocals and slides to support their slithering tempos (solid timing). Good musicians making quality Americana for the people like you and me order beers within our budget for the week. Somewhat reminds me of Los Halos.
DOWNLOAD: Gold and Love and Gin MP3 from Every Man a King.
Emil and Caroline – Make music something like Bjork, disjointed but in sync. I might even hip my daughters to this dreamy Swedish single “Singing In A Choir” because it’s not a regular type of song but you will probably hear it in the club tonight — somewhere around the world. Apparently they were singers who in their younger years were part of a black gospel choir from Camden, New Jersey. Weird Swedes. There is some sense of soul in here. Listen follow them on the facebooks.
Saintseneca – “Happy Alone”From Anti Record. Debut album Dark Arc coming on April 1. I love this video. Bubble head man stuck with his bubble head doing every day things a man with a bubble head will do. Well done. The song is good too!
RELATED:
More Free Singls + MP3s by: Gloom Balloon, Dead Waves, Tri-State, Futuristic Blast, Panes, Night Surgeon.
Themes: Songs about Bacon, Songs About Ghosts
Latest Interview: Meet UK Mary Kelly – Modus Operandi of gore-core
by David | Feb 8, 2014 | grunge, Music News, RIP
RIP Phillip Seymour Hoffman (1967-2014) – Heroin sucks kids. He was the actors, actor. He was a father and a dumb-ass.
The big game was a disappointment but we’re glad grunge triumphed once again. Congrats to Seattle on handing the Broncos their ass. Maybe less pot for Colorado next time?
Videogum.com calls it quits. Oh well. We never went there. Did you?
More from Fugazi live series was released with shows between 87-02 from Dischord Records; as well as Henry Rollin’s band S.O.A “First Demo 12/29/80”. This is for all you DC hardcore freaks. The band released 13 songs — three on the Flex Your Head compilation record and ten on the No Policy EP, which was Dischord’s second-ever release — and performed a total of nine shows before calling it quits in July of 1981.
DOWNLOAD: Henry Rollins – Henry Rollins- Fun With Ian MP3 Spoken word from live at luna park album. Funny stories about working with Ian MacKaye.
“How could posterity be heard in a box?” – Ian Mackaye
We can’t make this up and this knocks the crap out of any dark music placements we could ever think of — as reported, Skinny Puppy Invoices US Government For Using Their Music For Torture. via Synthotopia.
Criminal Hygiene release three new songs via Cultist on something they call Withdrawn and we review it. The are playing a crap load of West coast shows.
RELATED:
Best of Rock News – Shit that happened w/o Jan 27th 2014: Macaulay Culkin, New Helms Alee,The Afghan Whigs, Slint!
How to: How does Hype Music work anyway?
RIP: Five Musicians who died in 2013
[ VISIT: OUR SHOWS PAGE ]
by David | Feb 7, 2014 | Album Review, Free Mp3s
Under a freeway, under the dank bar-matt, under some rock-n-z-roll plaque, is a band with their name etched on the bathroom wall who are willing to put in the man hours it takes to keep a bar open for you; in the good faith they will blast out a good cover or two, while mixing their set with this new material of theirs. Here’s three new ones from the Criminal Hygine dudes from Los Angeles. Still a little Westerbergy on it’s edges. Ruffing out a finer version of their rocknroll with some of the schlitz beer instincts of Sorry Ma’ along with a sabbath-esque guitar riff on the cut “Sold in the City”. The lead track “Withdrawn” is a drinker bar ballad with discernible chorus part amongst the story telling verses. “Bye Bye” is probably the most straight forward song they’ve released to date. The bass leads in this dancy dance number. I don’t know maybe working to appeal to the yipsters? They do a lot of residency gigs, drop kicking one fan out of the bar or in and it seems to be working for them. This is a much “tighter” band. The material runs the risk of being too clean, dare i say more mature, maybe, but I’d still have to card them. Respect to the live at the barn release they put up. Check them out live. These crackers fight for playing gigs between delivering pizza and their non-olympian skating. Order it on 7″ vinyl via Cultist Records here.
GO SEE THEM PLAY WEST COAST:
2/6: Santa Cruz – MetaVinyl w/ Cigarette Bums
2/7: San Francisco – Milk Bar w/ Cigarette Bums
2/14: Los Angeles – Origami Vinyl
2/21: Los Angeles – Bootleg Theater w/ Tropical Popsicle
3/8- 3/17: Austin – SXSW
3/20: Santa Ana – The Observatory w/ The Orwells and Twin Peaks (all ages shows)
3/21: San Diego – Che Cafe w/ The Orwells and Twin Peaks (all ages shows)
3/22: Los Angeles – The Troubadour w/ The Orwells and Twin Peaks (all ages shows)
3/23: San Francisco – Slims w/ The Orwells and Twin Peaks (all ages shows)
3/25: Seattle – Neumos w/ The Orwells and Twin Peaks (all ages shows)
3/26: Portland – Star Theater w/ The Orwells and Twin Peaks (all ages shows)
3/28: Santa Cruz – TBA
3/29: Santa Barbara – TBA
Related shit:
Debut full length Review: Criminal hygiene rearrange your record collection
DOWNLOADS: ( if you dig these you’ll like them)
Fireside – Headacher MP3
Grander – 88 Cubic Meters MP3
by David | Feb 3, 2014 | Free Mp3s, mp3 blogs
EDITORIAL: So, how does Hype Machine work? Every once in awhile somebody will ask a question on how they charted on Hypem or how does somebody get on the Hype Machine Music blog. It’s a easy question to answer so here you once you understand some pretty passionate people put this together to be best place to discovery music on the web.
First step Is you have to create user account. Either as a user who wants to participate on every day posts or as user who wants to submit a new blog to them for consideration. They looks for users who post unique content and by bloggers who or not just fly by night. In particular MP3 blogs who offer links of the file on their site like reviewstalker. On your site they provide a code snip which is a link that tells their servers to ping your site for new content. [Here is how they pick blogs] Once they do a miracle will happen. You will start to see HYPEM sending web traffic to your site! Just takes a little curiosity from a music lover. VIOLA!
DOWNLOAD: Dum Dum Girls –Evil Blooms MP3 from Too True.
Regarding charting
I will be honest, I have had not paid much attention to how charting works recently but here is how I understood it to help you. The hypem technology is such you can provide the twitter link or their direct link for people to vote your songs up, “heart”/Like them. The more users who like the tune, Re-tweet it will add points to the chart and in turn you can listen and check it out. The trick is the window is time sensitive so points go down if there is no action on a song. Really tests the limits of what it means to be viral in real time; unlike youtube for instance which counts all views. They have recently added in time machine functionality so you can see what was popular in 2012 if you wanted, or what is being tweeted about on twitter, best remixes, most popular artist and all sorts of combos. What was blogged a lot of and on and on.
This is also a user acquisition play for them so they want new users to create accounts who can vote so in turn they can have unique visitors and display their ads and traffic to them the latest from the Dum Dum Girls is available in order to make a sticky site people use.
Their site keeps track of who posts songs, how many blogs have featured a tune and turn have a real time charting system for every genre of music. It’s about sharing and discovery.
Anyway not sure if this helps explain it but idea is people who go on there have something in mind and will ultimately find it. The site historically has driven about 25% or more on average the traffic to my site. It’s gone down less lately because we have not been posting as many downloads as we used to since we also now do reviews with streams only.
There were also similar aggregator sites elbow.ws (RIP) and shuffler.fm who drive traffic but not as much as hypem does or did for us. Google is taking over the albatross searches more and more replacing their once organic results with their own properties. Can you say conflict of interest? My theory is more than likely traffic is affected because of bandcamp and soundcloud being popular channels for music discovery, same as emusic and other music doing a good job editorializing music you can buy on the site. Or China is just taking over…
DOWNLOAD: Atkins, Martin’s China Dub Soundsystem – Radio China MP3 from Made in China (You know the guy from Ministry)
The cool thing still though is that hypem is about all of the independent music bloggers who take the time to write about things they dig; can all be basically found in one place. So it’s more than some random comment on individual pages no one will really see. The good news they are smart and also sniff for soundcloud and bandcamp embedding. So takes care of less DMCA notices.
Ok hope this helps you a little bit. I’m sure google and facebook will have more surprises for us this year but we’ll survive.
Related:
Best of Rock News – Shit that happened w/o Jan 27th 2014
RIP – Five Musicians who died in 2013
Eclectic Method brings you – A Brief History of Sampling
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