señor taco’s travels

It’s actually been a while since I got some new music so I went over to

Interpunk and ordered a few things.

• 
  A Wilhelm Scream: mute print & benefits of thinking out
  loud
  Coming out of New Bedford, Massachusetts these guys pump out some really good
  melodic hardcore. They used to be known as Smackin’ Isaiah, but changed
  names when the lineup changed a bit. Both albums are good. mute print
  is definitely more polished, but it has the benefit of being newer too.
• Nekromantix: Dead Girls Don’t Cry
  Once again the psycho-billy goth rockers from Denmark hit the mark. Providing
  a great sound with a stand-up bass and solid lyrics the Nekromantix will take
  you into the dark places you are curious about. When I listen to it I get a
  feeling of old buildings and little understood customs of some long gone
  underground group. Good stuff. I’ve never been disappointed by them, although
  the 30+ minutes of “Outro” was a bit much.
• Alkaline Trio/
  One Man Army:
  Split Series Vol. 5
  The BYO Split Series has been pretty popular so far. Generally it
  brings two bands that aren’t that close onto one record. This time it’s
  Chicago rockers Alkaline Trio (Alk3) and Frisco’s One Man Army (OMA).

  In the past I’ve been a big fan of Alk3 and I still listen to those albums
  all the time. I neglected to pick up their last couple of releases because
  the few samples I heard off of them just didn’t seem to have the same passion
  in them. Well, now that I’ve heard the Alk3 half of the split I’ll have to
  re-evaluate that position. They have just as much passion as before and just
  as solid lyrics. I’m glad to hear the same heart in the music as before.

  OMA, what more can you say. OMA rocks and there is not much more one can say
  about it, there that’s out of the way. The songs on the split are well
  rounded and classic OMA. I would say if you like one or the other of these
  bands you should just pick up the split and be done with it.

• Various Artists:
  Rock Against Bush Vol. 1
  Fat Wreck has pulled together 26 bands and gotten a lot of unreleased or rare
  tracks for this compilation. There is a DVD included too, but I haven’t
  had a chance to watch it yet. In the liner notes are 40 reasons not to vote
  for Bush Jr. It’s a nice way for these guys to take a stand on what they
  believe in and for you to hear some good rock.

So, today is Grey Tuesday. For those
not in the know:

DJ Danger Mouse created a remix of Jay-Z’s the Black Album and the
Beatles White Album, and called it the Grey Album. Jay-Z’s
record label, Roc-A-Fella, released an a Capella version of his Black
Album specifically to encourage remixes like this one. But despite praise
from music fans and major media outlets like Rolling Stone (”an
ingenious hip-hop record that sounds oddly ahead of its time”) and the
Boston Globe (which called it the “most creatively captivating” album
of the year), EMI has sent cease and desist letters demanding that
stores destroy their copies of the album and web sites remove them from
their site. EMI claims copyright control of the Beatles 1968 White Album.

So today many, many sites are posting the Grey Album for download. I
think this is the right thing to do, but I don’t have the bandwidth to do
it and I’m sharing it for today, enjoy. I have heard the Grey
Album and while I’m not a huge fan of rap
and hip hop I do find it intriguing. That EMI thinks they can stifle such
innovation that appears to be legal under the fair use clause of our copyright
code is just deplorable. What do they have to loose? How many people that
would purchase or download that album are now going to not buy the White Album?
Zero. Could someone that hears the Grey Album go on to buy the
White Album? Possibly. Ah, retarded corporate culture
strikes again.

While looking at downhillbattle.org,
the folks that created Grey Tuesday and a music activism site, I found a cool
interview with
Ian MacKaye from Fugazi and Dischord. Great stuff, specifically this quote:

When people who are songwriters say ‘That’s my property and if you give it
away for free then I’ll lose my incentive,’ then, well, good riddance.

More new music, of course.

• Mudhoney - March To Fuzz: Many bands came from Seattle,
  especially during the “grunge” era. One of the ones that was making noise
  before the scene blew up was Mudhoney. The guys made some nice music and
  this is a collection of it. Disc 1 is a best of which is hard to put down.
  There are so many songs on it spanning their entire catalog and not a one
  doesn’t belong on there. Disc 2 is a rarities and b-sides collection. I
  didn’t know if I would get into this one, but I have really found it to be
  a great collection of stuff I had never heard. If you ever liked Mudhoney
  this release is one to get for sure.
• Misfits - Box Set: I like the Misfits. I hadn’t picked up this
  set in the time since its release so getting it now seemed like a good idea.
  Now that I have all the Misfits back albums I could ever want there will be
  no need for me to complain internally that I don’t have a certain song to
  listen to.

Last night I went with my friend Keith to his Landlord’s club, href="http://www.elisblues.com/">Eli’s Mile High Club for a mostly
unadvertised show by the band Cake.
I believe they told their loyal fan base because there was a line of about
400 people by the time we got in. Not everyone got in, but we got lucky
knowing one of the owners so he got us in early.

The band came on later than I would have expected and played some already
released songs and some new music that they are writing while working on
a new album. Of the new stuff I’d say it was on par with their albums, I
liked about half of it (same as the albums).

It was a good night, except for the getting home late and being tired today.

One of my favorite bands is the title="The Toadies Site">Toadies. I’ve mentioned them href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2004/01/14#burden-brothers"
title="Burden Brothers entry">before but I don’t think I can express how
much I like them. Seeing them many times in Texas while I was in college and
the fact that they just have really great music helped to cement my love of
this wonderful band. Strong lyrics (albeit very dark at times) and catchy
hooks make listening to the music over and over very easy to do. The band was
also quite approachable (as opposed to other Texas bands of the era like
Tripping Daisy, bastards. However many bands were approachable and are some of
my favorites. Hagfish, Rev. Horton Heat, Beefmasters. They all love and
respect their fans).

So, There are four releases from the Toadies: Pleather EP (1993),
Rubberneck (1995), Hell Below/Stars Above (2001), and Best
of Toadies: Live From Paradise (2002). Notice the rather large gap
between Rubberneck and HB/SA. That’s a long time to wait for a
sophomore effort and unfortunately many people gave up on the Toadies in those
intervening years. They were definitely hot with a platinum album and
appearances on many soundtracks (Cable Guy, Escape from L.A., i
Basquiat, Crow: City of Angles, and X-Games Volume 1). Sometimes
I wish there was a collection of those B-sides, but I guess if I want them I’m
just going to have to hunt for them (ahhhh, href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2004/01/05#amoeba-death">Amoeba

Music will be the death of me :).

I just recently picked up the Live From Paradise album and I must say,
it’s one of the best live albums I have now (It will easily rest at the top of
my live list along with the
Dropkick Murphys Live on St. Patrick’s Day). For anyone that liked
Rubberneck and has listened to it once in the last two years you should
so get this album. Also, if you like Todd Lewis’ vocals and singing you might
want to check out the href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2004/01/14#burden-brothers">
Burden Brothers where he sings and writes some of the songs. It’s a bit
different though just so you’re warned.

And now I must start my day and wonder why some of the best albums I have are
all the final release from excellent bands with short careers.

Once, long ago in the land of Texas there was a band called the href="http://www.toadiesmusic.com/" title="Toadies, great rock from Fort Worth">
Toadies. The Toadies toured near and far and I was lucky enough to see
them about 10 times in the course of my time in university. I really liked
all of their music. Todd Lewis wrote songs and sang for them. The subject
matter was often dark with songs like Possum Kingdom discussing
bodies found in the Texas lake of the same name or Tyler about breaking
into the house of a girl that the narrator was in love with. When I saw them
in Nacogdoches during school I got to talk to the band a couple of times. It
was brought up once that the lyrics were really dark and Todd just said “Yeah,
I’ve got issues.”

So, many years have passed. In between the Toadies released a second album
after a long hiatus and much waiting for a followup to Pleather.
Then after a while a live album came out and that marked the end of the
Toadies.

This brings us to my latest new music acquisition, the href="http://www.burdenbrothers.us/" title="Todd + Taz == Burden Brothers">
Burden Brothers. They hail from Texas and the people I know in the band
are Todd Lewis from the Toadies and Taz Bentley, formerly the drummer for the
Rev. Horton Heat (amongst other rocakabilly outfits). It appears as though
the bass player, Corey Orr, was in Chumbawamba, intersting. To continue, this
album is very reminiscent of the Toadies thorough Todds singing and lyrics, but
because the writing includes Taz the sound is different in a good way. This
is definitely a good album and is quickly finding a place in my collection.
Now I just have to wait until I’m in Texas near where they’re playing or they
make it out to California. It will be worth it.

I was sitting at home on Saturday when dode called. He then proceeded to twist
my arm into going over toe San Francisco and meeting him and Andre at Amoeba
Music. I figured since I had just been to the Amoeba in Berkeley I’d be safe.
I was wrong, very wrong. Luckily I only walked out with 7 discs:

• Cold - Year of the Spider: mmmm, Weezer song
• Crimpshrine - The Sound of a New World Being Born
• Gas Huffer - One Inch Masters
• Hatebreed - Rise of Brutality
• Rival Schools - United by Fate
• V/A - Halloween Hootenany
• V/A - Punk Goes Acoustic

After that we went to see House of Sand and Fog. I will just say I’m
not too impressed with it. Both Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley gave good
performances, but the pacing was slow and the story was not that strong. I
just don’t see what people see in it. Oh well.

Utilizing one of my gift certificates I stopped by Amoeba Music in Berkeley and
got myself into more trouble with new to me music:

• Crimpshrine - Duct Tape Soup: one of the influential East Bay punk
  bands from the late 80’s/early 90’s. These guys are the sound that defines
  the Gilman scene of that period. No longer around this is a good thing to add
  to my music collection.
• Pennywise - From the Ashes: These SoCal hardcore rockers have had
  a good long career and with From the Ashes they return to the sound
  that I first started listening to them for. Ferocious and timely songs fill
  this album. The lyrics are good and exactly what I expect from Pennywise.
  The album also comes with a bonus DVD that has some live footage, lots of
  antics backstage and on the road, and a little about each person in the band.
  Good stuff all around.
• Primus - Animals Should Not Try to Act Like People: A new EP from
  the band that is a category all it’s own. This iteration of the band is back
  to the lineup that made them famous: Les, Ler, and Tim. The 5 songs on the
  music disc are all classic Primus. They amaze me with the sounds they can make.
  The best part of the whole thing is there is a DVD that has most of the bands
  videos. A lot of high quality stuff is on the DVD making this a must have for
  anyone that likes Primus.
• The Clash - The Essential Clash: I found myself wanting one single
  group of Clash songs that I could haul around without taking every single album
  with me. This is it. Remastered and well worth it. I’ll admit a few songs
  swapped out here or there would be better, but I’m not complaining.

Last night I ventured to Slim’s once again. On the bill for last night were
(in performance order) The Vacancy, title="part of the remains of Kid Dynamite">None More Black, href="http://www.againstme.net/" title="wacky rockers from Gainesville">Against
Me!, Rise Against, and title="more Pitt, PA rockers with a message">Anti-Flag. I knew this was
going to be a good show when I first stepped into Slim’s. All the bar stools
had been removed and the house music was the Beatles all night.

Having been to a few shows in the last few months I was starting to hate (a)
large numbers of opening bands and (b) the quality of said opening bands.
Mostly I was just wanting them to not play. Last night, however, that was not
the case. I will now give mad apologies to my friend CB for taunting him
about my attendance to this show that he could not be at. While I was there I
wanted for CB and my other friend Matt to be there so bad it hurt. This was
the best show I’ve seen in a long time and to not be able to share it with them
was a real downer (ignoring the fact that I was at the show by myself). So now
I will recap the bands in greater detail.

The Vacancy was surprisingly good. They rocked really hard and I wish they had
a CD for sale with them. The only criticism I have is that the singers could
have been a bit more direct into the mics to come across a bit better, but it
was still good. None More Black was up next. I was already familiar with
their material and I think live they were nothing short of excellent. Tight
and very much in sync with one another. The only drawback was that the entire
time I kept thinking that I should be seeing Kid Dynamite up on stage. How
I wish they had never broken up. Such is life I guess.

Against Me! then took the stage. I had only heard one or so song from them
before. I was blown away. These guys know how to rock and do it well. They
have a good silly style and good lyrics. They were so good I bought the CD
right there. After Against Me! played the band I really came to see was up,
Rise Against. I just have one word to describe them: whoa! They were
everything I hoped to see and more. The amount of energy coming out of the
band was just incredible. Every song they played was a great one (which isn’t
that hard when all their songs are great), and even the new song they played
rocked. They had so much energy going and imparted it to the crowd that
during a couple of songs the pit looked like a giant pack of rabbit weasels
on some sort of accelerant. It was nutty to see.

After that Anti-Flag was up, but during the set change they played a
documentary about the San Francisco war protests and some Iraqi war stuff. I
couldn’t see it too well and the audio was a bit drowned out by the people so
I could only make out some of it. Anti-Flag was another energetic group, but
not quite to the level of Rise Against. It was also kind of funny that the
drummer looked like he was in pain the whole time.

Well, I don’t have any more shows planned for a while, and that’s fine by me
after this last stint ( href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2003/11/03#hepcat-slims"
title="the past">Hepcat and href="http://danimal.org/SenorTaco/2003/11/07#rancid-warfield"
title="more past stuff">Rancid included).

Last night was a rainy crappy night. I went to the Warfield theater in San
Francisco to see Rancid. Unfortunately my friends with the tickets were
running late so I missed the opening acts of the Necromantix and Tiger Army.
Such is life. We got in and saw an amazing set from Rancid. They were so
on. I love how well those guys play together. Tim is goofy, Matt is super
solid (probably one of the best bass players around), Brett is solid on the
drums, and Lars anchors the band so well. I’m just glad I got to see them
again. They played a lot of stuff off of all albums (except maybe
Rancid(2000)) and even one song off their first album! All in all it was a
good time. The Warfield was good for seating because you could see the stage
from every seat.