Sonic Youth / Jay Reatard Split single - Record Store day

Just wanted to give another record store day single it's proper coverage today, this one the Jay Reatard / Sonik You*h split.

Sonic Youth' 'No Garage' is completely rehearsal space recorded. The bass notes rumble the snare. The high hat is unbalanced, the crashes flattened in the distance. But it's completely alive. The guitar leads a deep groove, that gets more minimal by the measure, until it's just bass and kick working together in time while Thurston wails. It's a roller coaster...the groove comes back and they immediately break it down again. The only vocals are Thurston just barely audibly yelling 1,2,3,4 to lead into the real disintegration, total freakout.
This is rumored to be a demo of 'Anti-orgasm' from their unreleased new album The Eternal, I'm hoping there's more of this raw sound like the 'Helen Lundeburg' track from Ripped. It's hearing them like this that I completely re-appreciate everything....like listening to a live show, to be able to spontaneously create this noise, and to hear the control they have over an amp and a guitar, looking back at their vast catalog, it just continues to get better and better.
The best part of course is in exploiting the format itself, the track spirals out into an endless loop of feedback that's easy to get lost in for a few minutes afterwords. It's a shame when eventually you have to pick up the needle. But I have to hear the new Jay Reatard after all.

Jay offers up 'Hang them all', which is right in line with Blood Visions. It's brief, the hook is over way before it should be.
A weird synth sound creeps in before it's power ballad Cars influenced. The most processed, gated guitar sounds that would sound ridiculous anywhere else.
The rhymes are obvious, it all sounds vaguely familiar, but he's a master creator of choruses, just pure genius, it's all forgotten. Harmonizing with himself, two snare hits on the beat are setting up the chords to pound it home again and I'm screaming along at the top of my lungs. He's going to make me look like a reatard listening to it utterly happy with myself. It's a small price to pay.
There is a weird break of a cappella 'oh un ah oh' which the guitar mirrors and the snare suddenly takes on a march beat. Jay shys away from the ballad, thank god, and this is as sensitive as I've heard him sound in this section.
Not to be predictable... the track ends with some kind of layered acoustic flamenco guitar.
But that's Jay's unique genius, to mix all this up and come up with the perfect power pop punk every time.

Beck / Sonic Youth split 7" - Record Store Day

So I heard about all these exclusive releases from Matador and all the email's from every record store announcing Record Store Day. I thought I might be missing out in NY...no one I checked with was a part of this except Permanent Records, thank god, where people were actually waiting outside the store for it to open. There were two boxes of brand new singles...everything I'd been hearing about, including this split single from Beck and sonic youth, or should I say Sonik You*h, covering each other.

Sonic Youth covers 'Pay No Mind', one of the classic Beck tracks from Mellow Gold. It starts out with their trademark looping distortion which changes when Kim Gordon's sultry whisper kicks in. She's backed by Thurston or Lee, I think, both giving their own melodic take on the stream of consciousness... a little out of sync and tune. The crunchy distortion changes key and then a slow tom beat finishes the chorus. Then the time signature completely changes, rounds of fast tom fills ending in piercing feedback and then they repeat the whole thing ending in a wave of reverb feedback. It's perfect Sonic Youth, their amazing take on this insanely recognizable song, that's almost impossible to separate from the original. Sonic Youth does it, and in a totally original way. Lyrically they even make complete deliberate sense. Not enough credit is given to Steve for ever providing the perfect rhythm, keeping everything always together, a little something to hold onto in Sonic Youth's world, keeping Thurston's experimentalism accessible, but unexpected as this cover illustrates perfectly.
It's amazing this was recorded 3 months ago in what must be their new digs in NJ.

Becks cover of 'Green Light' is pretty old school acoustic Beck, I don't recognize the original from EVOL, so he's doing a pretty good job making it his own as well. You can hear him sitting on a stool adjusting the acoustic, hitting it with a hollow thump. He's focused on the vocal delivery, singing it with all kinds of inflection, unlike Thurston's mumbled deadpan. He's actually got a great voice when he wants to. The melody line on an acoustic is accompanied by what I think is a harpsichord, lending a weird harmonic to the single string acoustic picks, giving it a Sonic Youth dissonance alongside beck's own slightly off stuttered strumming. I could use more of this, it's a throwback to the Pay No Mind days and brings it back around to replaying the B-side Sonic Youth cover. Actually they are both labeled B-side...even in the gutter.

These MP3's are ripped and out there already with a couple of google searches, so if you missed out, they are pretty easy to find.

This whole thing brings up something I'm torn about, all of this record store day stuff is on ebay of course, for way inflated prices...buy it now's for 29.99, 49.99. Hopefully not for sale from the record stores themselves, but they can't always on the up and up. I was tempted to pick up extra copies myself, but if I happened to be a little late and some asshole ahead of me had a stack of the same single I'd be pissed. I wasn't going to be that dick. At the same time maybe you are giving an opportunity for someone who couldn't make it to the store that day for whatever reason to get one, even if it is at an inflated price. I could imagine being sick or out of the country and being so glad to even come across a copy for sale on ebay. I just think you have to use some judgement. I just can't live with myself being such a son of a bitch opportunist. But if you are...well I can't fault that either. You went to the store, maybe waited in line, so sell it to someone who really want's it, and has no other way to get it.

It actually was briefly for sale on Becks merch site too, for about a minute.

In honor the 2nd annual Record Store Day, we’ll be releasing the following limited edition vinyl titles, only available at independent retailers taking part in RSD.

OLE-864-7 Jay Reatard “Hang Them All” 7″ b/w Sonic Youth - “No Garage”
OLE-865-7 Sonic Youth - “Pay No Mind” (Beck cover) b/w Beck - “Green Light” (Sonic Youth cover) 7″
OLE-855-1 Pavement Live In Germany LP

We’re making 2500 each of the above. After they’re gone, as the Bard Of Hookset, NH might’ve said (if he collected records), tough fuckin’ shit.

I heard there were color copies of these thrown in, I got one on black.

XYX - ss records + Episode 20

Microvibraciones is on this single and their myspace. This laughing at the end of the track is truly frightening, I don't know what kinds of knob twisting is going on. It sounds like the recorded song track was mixed after the fact, the whole thing is warbling, slowing down.
It's got insane energy and succeeds completely in capturing the intensity that I have to hope the live show is even coming close to. The recording is really a feat in itself after hearing recorded stuff that doesn't come close to the punch of a live performance. They're working with the same set of instruments as Ima fucking gymnast: drums, bass and vocals, but the genius is captured here. It's coming from the synth punk place of SIDS or definitely the Liars and with all the heart and piercing intense vocals.
The track is epic and so worth committing to vinyl.
Anel and her problem the B side (?) is pummeling at just around a minute and then devolves into more vocal twistings...this is a must.
It's another puzzling equation, what are these guys listening to? Where did this come from? It's exciting to be so fucking dumbfounded.

Get it from SS records:
XYX - Sistema de Terminacion Sexual 7" (S-S) $4 Stumbling on Los Llamarada was great (as well as pure luck) and led me scouring the web for other bands from Monterrey…and there were more, good ones too, but nothing that really knocked me out. Then a few months ago, Mou from XYX emails me and says, "We are friends with Llamarada and in some other bands that play with them. This is something we do that you might like. Please check it out." And me being a nice guy took a trip to XYX's myspace page (http://www.myspace.com/xyxs). I listened and liked. Liked a lot. A whole lot. I asked for more songs and said, Let's do a record. "When?" Now! ….and here it is! Four great songs with overblown bass and drums and really cool fucked vocals. XYX has a looping sound that reminds me a bit of Hubble Bubble, but in a post punk context. The songs (even when they are longish) are compact, but still full. XYX is a great band and this is a very cool record.

Podcast Episode 20: Special Sonic Youth edition! We play some old sonic youth, a peel session blank label 7" from 88, we talk about art school fostering bands in general, and the history of SY....

kit + mirror/dash split - Podcast is back!

I was wondering if this is the same Kit from the buddy series split with Deerhoof....and it is. I don't remember that side too much....this is female fronted, very deerhoof related, or even Be Your Own Pet, but wayyyy dirtier...something like Abe vigoda, with the attitude of BYOP. I've been bored with them lately, the songs were great for a minute but I don't know if they had any kind of longevity....but then again it was fun while it lasted.
Kit reminds me of erase eratta....erratic stutter punk.

Now the split is with Mirror/Dash who go by another name... Thurston and Kim from Sonic Youth...I got this from lastfm...
In an interview, Moore said: “Kim and I have been doing Mirror/Dash for a long time. It came about because I have a record label I run from my bedroom called Ecstatic Peace, which I advertised in a magazine in the late ’80s. There were a bunch of fake band names on the ad, one of which was Mirror/Dash, so the next thing I had to do was release records under these names to make the bands real.

Mirror/dash is a lot of Thurston Sonics and Kim singing, minimal and primitive, who could have guessed....

Limited edition with artwork by Kim Gordon.
Paypal $5 ($9 overseas) to: N_F_J_M [at] hotmail.com

or the ZUM online store.

KIT / MIRROR DASH-split 7” (Nothing Fancy Just Music/NFJM022V) $8.99
“A beautiful new split by KIT and MIRROR/DASH, a pairing of two different underground noise generations. Just as vital as they are obscure, both bands push buttons as ways of opening most of the envelopes that have and will stay sealed. The Bay Area's Kit breaks away from the pop of Broken Voyage and into a more dangerous, but equally exciting, "damaged" terrain. Three unreleased songs by that are as invigorating as they are confusing. "Blues for Proposition Joe" stands strong as one of the best Mirror/Dash tunes, a long time collaboration of THURSTON MOORE and KIM GORDON. The energy is similar to that of a vacuum melodically played and then screwed. Limited edition (500 copies) with artwork by Kim Gordon.”

The podcast is finally back! Episode 16... and I'm busy lining up new guests, like Mr Matthew Nash editor of Big Red and Shiny who gave his unabashed reviews/insight to the Vivian Girls single on woodsist and No Age - eraser on subpop.

I'm from barcelona - Britney

Wow, this is fucking ridiculous, it would be borderline Weird al, if it wasn't so catchy.
But really what is the point, a funny song about a celebrity idiot? I'm a little disappointed, and can't imagine this will be a classic song, I will come back to.

I think Sonic youth had it right calling a side project Ciccone Youth or the Mariah Carey 'glitter' title track on a split seven inch with erase errata. I don't think it makes sense to sing so directly about their stupid lives. I get enough already every other direction. Hey, how about a song about Paris in jail? Oh shit she's out already, and every jerk with a camcorder already did it on youtube.
That being said it's a pretty catchy song, and I wonder if Emanuel Lundgren can only write giant sweeping choruses for 30 people. He's going to have to have that in every song.

Thankfully it's still working.

It's at Hotstuff or at the band's site (?), or on tour...good luck.

I'M FROM BARCELONA - BRITNEY Tour vinyl single First new song to be released since their celebrated debut album. This song will only be released as mp3 in end of July and this is the only way to get it on a disc. One sided vinyl 7" to be sold on this summers festival gigs and thru us. It's a hit with a lyric about miss Spears and her weird life.