Wednesday, March 15, 2006
TLP March 15, 2006
Here's the slim new issue. Thanks to J.Todd Dockery for the help with the Picks. (Don't miss the second "Know Your Own" release party this Friday.)
Hope all are well.
Ross
:::::::::::::::::::::::: Announcements :::::::::::::::::::::::::::
** Fri/March 17 - “Know Your Own” vol. 2 release party #2
Still haven’t gotten your copy of the new local music comp “Know Your Own” vol. 2? Friday’s your chance to grab your FREE copy and catch five of the bands – Eyes and Arms of Smoke, Warmer Milks, The Oxford Farm Report, Ideal Free Distribution, and City Mouse - live. Check out J.Todd Dockery’s preview in the Picks for full details. (If you’re looking to snag a copy of the comp but can’t make it to the show, stop by CD Central or Third Street Stuff. Those are the spots that get restocked most often. And, you can download the entire disc at http://wrfl881.org.)
** Elmwood CSA
Our good friends Mac and Ambi of Georgetown’s Elmwood Stock Farm are currently registering members for their CSA. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) members participate in their own food supply by committing to share in the harvest of a local farm. Members purchase shares in the spring, and each week we harvest and distribute the vegetable shares. This is a way to be a part of something positive and guarantees your access to the best of each week's harvest. For the full scoop and registration info, check out http://www.elmwoodstockfarm.com/csa.htm. (NOTE: It’s less than a month until the Farmers’ Market heads back outside! Look for Mac and Ambi and all the other great farms to be back on Vine Street on Saturday, April 8th.)
** Wed-Fri, March 22-24 - Surprise Theatre at Natasha’s Cafe
Lookout for another round of “Surprise Theatre” next weekend at Natasha’s, 112 Esplanade (across from the Kentucky Theatre. Here’s the description from the Natasha’s website – “‘Surprise Theatre’ is the culmination of the ‘intimate theatre’ idea that developed over these three years of doing theatre at Natasha’s. One-act plays hidden in restaurant service with no advertisement of story or cast, intending to ‘spring up’ suddenly during an evening of dining taking their audience off guard first occurred in July 2005.” For reservations call the restaurant at 259-2754. Cover is $5. All ages welcome.
** Fri+Sat/March 31+April 1 - UKon
On Friday March 31st the Miskatonic Student Union invites you to join them for fund raising and two days of gaming fun - the 9th annual UKon, located at the UK Student Center third floor ballroom. The action runs from 6pm til midnight on Friday, March 31st and 10am til midnight on Saturday, April 1st. It’s a chance to share your love of games with the fellowship of Lexington area gamers. Enjoy tabletop role-playing games, collectable card games and Live Action Role Playing. There will be live action demonstrations by the gaming group NERO, seminars on the Role Playing Game Association and the Living Arcanis campaign, as well as a Dance, Dance Revolution contest (!) in the Cats Den on Saturday starting at 2 PM. Admission is $5 a day. All ages welcome. For further information contact Edward Kopp at ejkopp@msn.com or call 859/225-8245.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: THE PICKS :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::::::::: Wednesday, March 15 through Wednesday, March 29 :::::::::::
:: Friday, March 17 ::
“Know Your Own” vol.2 release party with CITY MOUSE, IDEAL FREE DISTRIBUTION, THE OXFORD FARM REPORT, WARMER MILKS, and EYES AND ARMS OF SMOKE @ The Dame
9pm, ages 21+, $3
"And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel, thy brother? And he said, I know not: am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground."
Genesis 4:9-10
"Lot's wife...you remember this Bible story? She looked behind her and turned into a pillar of salt. Well, I was down on Main street today...saw a chick turn into the alley..."
--Redd Foxx
I like to see shows with seemingly incongruous line ups. It's not something one sees all that often, whether it's due to the buy-sell mentality of corporate marketability (if we're looking way up the skirt of the "free" market food chain), or it's due to more basic, localized, grass-roots divisions of musical taste and social circulations, the divisions of which can be but are not always even conscious ones by the musicians, venues (be it a house or a club/bar with a liquor license instead of, ya know, byob), and/or promoters. It's much easier to sell and be seen and to be known thru the glass of superficial affiliation, but it ain't good for the soul, brothers and sisters.
But, as I said, I like shows with SEEMINGLY incongruous lineups, and that is the tradition that this second Know Your Own compilation release celebration continues from the first release show. As is often revealed with any actual process of learning and experience (as, opposed, to ya know, watching the Fox news channel, for example), the differences between people, and the sounds that people make, are simply superficial differences; the more one knows, ideally, the more one sould discern that ye olde fundamental truths arise from the basic fundamental similarities between people, even those similarities that turn us against one another. Also, some people are just shits, but that's a common fact, too. The human DNA contains less diversity than any other mammal on the planet. Outside of probably proving that, as a species, we're all some sort of forgotten science experiment left by a more advanced intelligence (an E.T. or the gods (or Thee God, if mono-theism is your thing)...pick one according to your personal preference), I would postulate that we are forever much more alike, as people, than we are different, and always and continually have and will be, if you'll forgive my fancy-pants redundant babble.
I like the phrase Ross Compton has invoked to describe these two collections, "Know your own." This second compilation, as the first, suggests, to my ears, by the sound of its title, I think, that it's our own arrogance that would keep us from recognizing our own community, our own people, our own sounds, how else could one NOT know one's own? It's a sudden and interesting awareness that one doesn't know one's "own". Happens to me all the time. Any chance/platform, and Compton has twicely provided Lexington the medium of a free compilation, to know our own, to know ourselves, it's a good thing...knowing...gnosis...
City Mouse, to me, is about the craft of writing songs. We could apply labels to them: punk, pop-punk, alternative, but I believe the only labels that the voice of these songs would trust would be the labels on the chosen adult bottled beverage that sits next to the lyric sheet aside the ashtray with the cigarette burning down as the molecules converge from the atomsphere and give form to heart-ache, dissillusion, and other grim realities of experience. That is what song-writing, the craft of it, is about, giving form to make accessible and recognizable these silent, internal processes we all experience, and all these bands that I will survey have this, albeit in remarkably differing, remarkably similar ways. City Mouse is the voice of seemingly unadorned reality. Seemingly, because it's a type of adornment to make something appear unadorned. They rock. They make you feel. Spunky, intelligent stuff.
Ideal Free Distribution refer to themselves as psychedelic, but rather than actually sounding like a more primitive, abstracted version of this term in popular music (and when I use the word popular, I don't just mean top of the pops, I mean, as in not of the classical tradition), they lean more towards legibility. In other words, the translation (if not transmigration) of the psychedelic experience into the form of song writing, expression in song. In other words, these guys are catchy, and, thusly, you can catch on to their pschyedelic inferences through their songs. More like the Lemon Pipers or the Kinks than the inscrutability of an actual auidtory hallucination, this band is able to tell us about it, blissfully. You can sing along.
The Oxford Farm Report are more enthusiastically brash and savage in their approach than either City Mouse or Ideal Free Distribution. Their prog rock/post-punk/no wave slip is showing (that means they may very well be wearing three slips at once). With angular, shuddering stops, starts, and an exuberant willingness to apparently change their minds about what song they are playing when they are playing it collectively as a streamlined band is not an easy collection of contradictions to manage at the same time. That could be genius if you go by F. Scott Fitzgerald's definition, or it could be genus, or it could be Genesis, either with or without Phil Collins and/or with or without the gods (if you're properly translating).
As we hurtle, turning in space towards what will reveal themselves to be the final paragraphs of this prose missive, we enter into what Stan Lee and Jack Kirby might have depicted as the Negative Zone in the classic run of the Fantastic Four comic, or for that matter, straight into what Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick revealed in the flickering light and shadow of the cinema in 2001.
We enter further AND farther into the realm of the Eyes and Arms of Smoke. Smoke is the operative word here, 'cause these lasses and lads are directly involved in expeditions into the ineffable ... alternately transparent, opaque, possibly acidic or possibly pleasant, one can see it right in front of one's face one moment, it is gone the next, and forever ungraspable; this is their collective groupings of sounds, and the method of their grouping is a ritualistic excercise, a reaction to loudness that asks the audience/listener to move in closer (figuratively AND literally), a band that mediates between the fragmenting volume of the modern world and the moment of entering into a sustained meditation apart from that world. Avant-garde is perhaps a useless term here because ultimately these are the means and ends of all enlightenment; these impulses are ancient, but evidence of them unlikely in the post-Industrial age. Commerce and mechanization has rendered philosophy and the spirit as enemies to its belching need for reality control, and this band is fighting fire with smoke.
Warmer Milks are just as engaged directly with the enigma of sound itself as Eyes and Arms of Smoke. In the recordings of Warmer Milks, those that I am familiar with, the lyrical ponderings themselves often are kept just slightly out of the range of direct perception, submerged and merging with the haunting strains of musical instruments just around the corner from expected harmony, opening up vistas of the reality inside of immediately perceptible reality. This is alchemy, and it can even be blasphemy if not just plainly befuddl(ed)ing, but often at its best, all these elements combine in Warmer Milks to put to work a process of distillation, and at the end of that process, we find ourselves engaged with a poetry not of language and of song, but a poetry of what happens when a band makes use of the material in lapses in language and sound, and then makes that itself a song. It's the kind of thing Jack Kerouac seemed to fumble towards with poetry, and these following lines from Mexico City Blues seem to be the kind of language that would be right at home and of sound logic in the Warmer Milks universe, "Praised be man, he is existing in milk/and living in lillies/And his violin music takes place in milk/and creamy emptiness."
As Gene Simmons of Kiss once said, "Why can't I like steak and cheese cake?" The connective tissue between all of these bands are the connections I like to make. As an audience member/listener, I'm interested in various aspects of abstraction, of expression, of human (or inhuman) experience translated into sound, and even into the spectacle of theatrics. I like songs, too. And all of these groups have them. Not only that, in their own individual ways, they are all quite good at them. I want to get to know all these groups better and get to know their live performances better. This particular night I'll be in Louisville, obligated to spread my own musical gospel and glad to take in the experience of our musical peers appearing with us up and over there...to steal a phrase from a writer who poo-pooed the aforementioned Kerouac, Truman Capote: other voices, other rooms.
So I ask of you, for you, dear reader, to go explore, get to know yourself, and others; know your own. Let's fill up rooms with our intact bodies and minds, not solitary, isolated ego. The solitary, isolated ego eats itself.
- J. Todd Dockery
band (comp track – website)
CITY MOUSE (track 8 - http://myspace.com/citymouse)
IDEAL FREE DISTRIBUTION (track 2 - http://myspace.com/idealfreedistribution)
THE OXFORD FARM REPORT (track 3 - http://myspace.com/theoxfordfarmreport)
WARMER MILKS (track 12 - http://www.warmermilks.com)
EYES AND ARMS OF SMOKE (track 28 - http://www.cenotaph.org/eyesandarms)
:: Tuesday, March 21 ::
ALOHA w/SWEARING AT MOTORISTS and ATTEMPT @ The Dame
9pm, ages 21+, $5
Aloha = intensely rhythmic post-post-rock (think, equally groove obsessed, but less lethargic) from Ohio. The new sound is less vibe oriented. I’ve heard they’re a great live band. Swearing At Motorists = stripped down rock from two Dayton dudes who love to get stoned. (Might be time to check the air in the tires). Attempt = new Lex group led by Hair PoPo/Eyes and Arms of Smoke member Trevor Tremaine and featuring members of Warmer Milks and The High Water Marks. Prog-pop for the new generation. Recommended to fans of Big Fresh and Von Hemmling. FREE sounds all ‘round at http://www.musicofaloha.com, http://myspace.com/swearingatmotorists, http://swearingatmotorists.com/, and http://myspace.com/attempt.
:: Thursday, March 23 ::
MARISSA NADLER w/J. GLENN @ Lisa’s Oak Street Lounge, 1004 E. Oak Street (Louisville)
A recommendation from our friend Brian Ronk who describes Nadler as “hauntingly beautiful Josephine (Foster) folk … but somewhat darker.” Check out http://www.myspace.com/songsoftheend and http://www.marissanadler.com for FREE downloads.
:: Saturday, March 25 ::
THE FEATURES w/THE APPARITIONS and J.RODDY WALSTON AND THE BUSINESS @ The Dame
9pm, ages 21+, $5
Three sharp, energetic pop bands. The Features = “a curious mix of new wave, Strokes style backbeats, and a classic rock sound” (Bullit). They’re one of my all-time favorite live bands. If you haven’t heard them before, do not pass go – go straight to http://features.echoconnect.com/exhibit.php for a FREE download. Then, backtrack to http://myspace.com/thefeatures and http://www.thefeatures.com for the full scoop. The Apparitions = “guitar-based power pop that's jangly, fuzzy, and full of infectious energy” (The Onion). J-Roddy Walston and the Business = “equal parts ragtime, southern trash rock and McCartney-esque classic rock, with some gospel and barbershop thrown in,” or so says the Washington Post. http://www.theapparitions.net, http://myspace.com/theapparitions, http://www.jroddy.com, http://myspace.com/jroddy.
:: Sunday, March 26 ::
MY WAY MY LOVE w/THE OXFORD FARM REPORT @ The Dame
7pm, ages 18+, $5
My Way My Love = stylish Japanese (the lyrics are in English) noise punk. Check out the FREE sounds at http://www.mywaymylove.com. The Oxford Farm Report = grand Lexington weirdness. If you’re playing along with your copy of “Know Your Own” 2, click to track 3. If you don’t have the comp handy, head to http://myspace.com/theoxfordfarmreport for a taste.
:: Also worthwhile in the March 1-March 15 timeframe ::
Every Friday RAKADU GYPSY DANCE @ Nema’s Grille (Frankfort) – meccadance.com
Fri/Mar 17 “Know Your Own” vol.2 release party featuring EYES AND ARMS OF SMOKE, WARMER MILKS, OXFORD FARM REPORT, IDEAL FREE DISTRIBUTION, and CITY MOUSE @ The Dame
Sat/Mar 18 MySpace Meetup @ The Dame
Tues/Mar 21 ALOHA w/SWEARING AT MOTORISTS and ATTEMPT @ The Dame
Thurs/Mar 23 ROBINELLA @ The Dame
Fri/Mar 24 G-FUNK @ The Dame
Fri/Mar 24 ERIN McKEOWN TRIO w/MELISSA FERRICK @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Sat/Mar 25 THE FEATURES w/THE APPARITIONS and J.RODDY WALSTON AND THE BUSINESS @ The Dame
Sun/Mar 26 MY WAY MY LOVE w/OXFORD FARM REPORT @ The Dame – ages 18+
Mon/Mar 27 Open Mic w/CHARLIE WHITTINGTON @ The Dame – FREE
Tues/Mar 28 THE OPEN HANDS w/LOWBROW NOBILITY @ The Dame
Wed/Mar 29 THE LEGENDARY SHACKSHAKERS w/SCOTT H. BIRAM @ The Dame
:: Soon Soon ::
Fri/Mar 31 RAKADU GYPSY DANCE w/EYES AND ARMS OF SMOKE and THE TOIDS @ The Dame – early show
Fri/Mar 31 KRS-ONE @ The Dame – late show
Fri/Mar 31 BOB MOULD @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Sat/Apr 1 SCOTT MILLER AND THE COMMONWEALTH @ The Dame
Sat/Apr 1 MAZARIN w/THE DOUBLE @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Mon/Apr 3 HIMSA w/FULL BLOWN CHAOS, MANNTIS, THE CLASSIC STRUGGLE, PHLEGETHON, and CADAVER IN DRAG @ Downtown Arts Center, 141 E. Main – http://www.counterfiction.com
Tues/Apr 4 HALF HANDED CLOUD w/LIZ JANES + CREATE! and THE ARCHITECTS (members of Big Fresh and the Elephants) @ Underlying Themes, 110 S. Upper – all ages
Tues/Apr 4 HANK III @ The Dame
Wed/Apr 5 THE BRUNETTES w/CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Thurs/Apr 6 JACKIE-O-MOTHERFUCKER @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Sun/Apr 9 THE CLOUD ROOM @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Tues/Apr 11 THE EASTERN SEABOARD @ Buster’s – FREE
Tues/Apr 11 NO THINGS (ex-Liars) @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Wed/Apr 12 DEAD MEADOW @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Thurs/Apr 13 JOSEPHINE FOSTER AND THE SUPPOSED w/DAVE REMPIS PERCUSSION QUARTET @ Mecca – all ages
Sat/Apr 15 RHETT MILLER AND THE BELIEVERS @ Headliners (Louisville) – ages 18+
Sun/Apr 16 ROSIE THOMAS @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Wed/Apr 19 AB BAARS QUARTET @ Underlying Themes – all ages
Thurs/Apr 20 ENON @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Sun/Apr 23 JOSH RITTER w/HEM @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Wed/May 10 MANDARIN MOVIE (members of Chicago Underground Duo and Triage) w/BLASTOCYST and SHARKS WITH WINGS @ Mecca, 451 Chair Ave
:: Pertinent resources ::
__Lexington__
THE DAME, 156 W.Main St, Lexington - http://www.dameky.com
MECCA dance studio/gallery, 451 Chair Avenue, off S.Broadway near Bolivar - http://www.meccadance.com
UNDERLYING THEMES LOFT SPACE, 110 S. Upper (above Busters) – http://www.underlyingthemes.com
CHARLES MANSION – http://www.charlesmansion.org
FIREBIRD STUDIO, 359 W. Short St – http://firebirdlexington.com
HIGH LIFE LOUNGE, University Plaza (corner of Rose and Euclid) – ph. 859/455-8890
NATASHA'S CAFE, 112 Esplanade - http://www.beetnik.com/
FAUNTLEROY’S CAFÉ, 640 W. Maxwell – ph. 859/455-8188
THE ICEHOUSE, 412 Cross St (off W.Maxwell), Lexington
DOWNTOWN ARTS CENTER, 141 E. Main St, Lexington – http://www.lexarts.org
ARTSPLACE, 161 N.Mill St, Lexington
LEXINGTONSHOWS.com (all ages show listings) - http://www.lexingtonshows.com
COUNTER FICTION (metal/punk/hardcore all ages show listings) – http://www.counterfiction.com
CRICKET PRESS (amazing local poster art) - http://www.cricket-press.com
WRFL 88.1FM (UK's student-run radio station) - http://wrfl.uky.edu
YOU AIN’T NO PICASSO (great locally-produced music blog) – http://www.youaintnopicasoo.com
__Louisville__
LAVA (Louisville Assembly of Vanguard Artists) HOUSE - 927 Shelby Parkway, Louisville - http://www.lavahouse.org
HEADLINERS MUSIC HALL, Louisville - 1386 Lexington Road, ph. 502/584-8088 - www.headlinerslouisville.com
UNCLE PLEASANTS, 2126 S. Preston, Louisville - p.502/634-4147
THE RUDYARD KIPLING, 422 West Oak Street, Louisville -
http://www.therudyardkipling.com/pages/206999/index.htm
OLD LOUISVILLE COFFEHOUSE, 1489 S. Fourth St, Louisville - ph. 502/635-6660
PRODUCTION SIMPLE (produce many of the events at Headliners and Uncle Pleasants) – http://www.productionsimple.com
__Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky__
THE SOUTHGATE HOUSE, Newport, KY - http://www.southgatehouse.com
ALCHEMIZE, 1122 Walnut Street, Cincinnati, OH – http://www.alchemizebar.com
THE COMET, 4579 Hamilton Avenue, Cincinnati, OH - http://www.cometbar.com
BOGART'S, 2621 Vine St, Cincinnati, OH - http://www.bogarts.com
THE MOCKBEE (formerly SS NOVA), 2260 Central Parkway, Cincinnati, OH - http://www.ssnova.org
NORTHSIDE TAVERN, 4163 Hamilton Ave, Cincinnati, OH – http://www.northside-tavern.com
Know of an upcoming event that others should get hip to? Let us know - email informationactivists@yahoo.com
All Picks by Ross Compton unless otherwise noted.
:::::::::::::: QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/SUBMISSIONS ::::::::::::::::::::::::
email thelexingtonproject@yahoo.com
Hope all are well.
Ross
:::::::::::::::::::::::: Announcements :::::::::::::::::::::::::::
** Fri/March 17 - “Know Your Own” vol. 2 release party #2
Still haven’t gotten your copy of the new local music comp “Know Your Own” vol. 2? Friday’s your chance to grab your FREE copy and catch five of the bands – Eyes and Arms of Smoke, Warmer Milks, The Oxford Farm Report, Ideal Free Distribution, and City Mouse - live. Check out J.Todd Dockery’s preview in the Picks for full details. (If you’re looking to snag a copy of the comp but can’t make it to the show, stop by CD Central or Third Street Stuff. Those are the spots that get restocked most often. And, you can download the entire disc at http://wrfl881.org.)
** Elmwood CSA
Our good friends Mac and Ambi of Georgetown’s Elmwood Stock Farm are currently registering members for their CSA. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) members participate in their own food supply by committing to share in the harvest of a local farm. Members purchase shares in the spring, and each week we harvest and distribute the vegetable shares. This is a way to be a part of something positive and guarantees your access to the best of each week's harvest. For the full scoop and registration info, check out http://www.elmwoodstockfarm.com/csa.htm. (NOTE: It’s less than a month until the Farmers’ Market heads back outside! Look for Mac and Ambi and all the other great farms to be back on Vine Street on Saturday, April 8th.)
** Wed-Fri, March 22-24 - Surprise Theatre at Natasha’s Cafe
Lookout for another round of “Surprise Theatre” next weekend at Natasha’s, 112 Esplanade (across from the Kentucky Theatre. Here’s the description from the Natasha’s website – “‘Surprise Theatre’ is the culmination of the ‘intimate theatre’ idea that developed over these three years of doing theatre at Natasha’s. One-act plays hidden in restaurant service with no advertisement of story or cast, intending to ‘spring up’ suddenly during an evening of dining taking their audience off guard first occurred in July 2005.” For reservations call the restaurant at 259-2754. Cover is $5. All ages welcome.
** Fri+Sat/March 31+April 1 - UKon
On Friday March 31st the Miskatonic Student Union invites you to join them for fund raising and two days of gaming fun - the 9th annual UKon, located at the UK Student Center third floor ballroom. The action runs from 6pm til midnight on Friday, March 31st and 10am til midnight on Saturday, April 1st. It’s a chance to share your love of games with the fellowship of Lexington area gamers. Enjoy tabletop role-playing games, collectable card games and Live Action Role Playing. There will be live action demonstrations by the gaming group NERO, seminars on the Role Playing Game Association and the Living Arcanis campaign, as well as a Dance, Dance Revolution contest (!) in the Cats Den on Saturday starting at 2 PM. Admission is $5 a day. All ages welcome. For further information contact Edward Kopp at ejkopp@msn.com or call 859/225-8245.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: THE PICKS :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
::::::::: Wednesday, March 15 through Wednesday, March 29 :::::::::::
:: Friday, March 17 ::
“Know Your Own” vol.2 release party with CITY MOUSE, IDEAL FREE DISTRIBUTION, THE OXFORD FARM REPORT, WARMER MILKS, and EYES AND ARMS OF SMOKE @ The Dame
9pm, ages 21+, $3
"And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel, thy brother? And he said, I know not: am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground."
Genesis 4:9-10
"Lot's wife...you remember this Bible story? She looked behind her and turned into a pillar of salt. Well, I was down on Main street today...saw a chick turn into the alley..."
--Redd Foxx
I like to see shows with seemingly incongruous line ups. It's not something one sees all that often, whether it's due to the buy-sell mentality of corporate marketability (if we're looking way up the skirt of the "free" market food chain), or it's due to more basic, localized, grass-roots divisions of musical taste and social circulations, the divisions of which can be but are not always even conscious ones by the musicians, venues (be it a house or a club/bar with a liquor license instead of, ya know, byob), and/or promoters. It's much easier to sell and be seen and to be known thru the glass of superficial affiliation, but it ain't good for the soul, brothers and sisters.
But, as I said, I like shows with SEEMINGLY incongruous lineups, and that is the tradition that this second Know Your Own compilation release celebration continues from the first release show. As is often revealed with any actual process of learning and experience (as, opposed, to ya know, watching the Fox news channel, for example), the differences between people, and the sounds that people make, are simply superficial differences; the more one knows, ideally, the more one sould discern that ye olde fundamental truths arise from the basic fundamental similarities between people, even those similarities that turn us against one another. Also, some people are just shits, but that's a common fact, too. The human DNA contains less diversity than any other mammal on the planet. Outside of probably proving that, as a species, we're all some sort of forgotten science experiment left by a more advanced intelligence (an E.T. or the gods (or Thee God, if mono-theism is your thing)...pick one according to your personal preference), I would postulate that we are forever much more alike, as people, than we are different, and always and continually have and will be, if you'll forgive my fancy-pants redundant babble.
I like the phrase Ross Compton has invoked to describe these two collections, "Know your own." This second compilation, as the first, suggests, to my ears, by the sound of its title, I think, that it's our own arrogance that would keep us from recognizing our own community, our own people, our own sounds, how else could one NOT know one's own? It's a sudden and interesting awareness that one doesn't know one's "own". Happens to me all the time. Any chance/platform, and Compton has twicely provided Lexington the medium of a free compilation, to know our own, to know ourselves, it's a good thing...knowing...gnosis...
City Mouse, to me, is about the craft of writing songs. We could apply labels to them: punk, pop-punk, alternative, but I believe the only labels that the voice of these songs would trust would be the labels on the chosen adult bottled beverage that sits next to the lyric sheet aside the ashtray with the cigarette burning down as the molecules converge from the atomsphere and give form to heart-ache, dissillusion, and other grim realities of experience. That is what song-writing, the craft of it, is about, giving form to make accessible and recognizable these silent, internal processes we all experience, and all these bands that I will survey have this, albeit in remarkably differing, remarkably similar ways. City Mouse is the voice of seemingly unadorned reality. Seemingly, because it's a type of adornment to make something appear unadorned. They rock. They make you feel. Spunky, intelligent stuff.
Ideal Free Distribution refer to themselves as psychedelic, but rather than actually sounding like a more primitive, abstracted version of this term in popular music (and when I use the word popular, I don't just mean top of the pops, I mean, as in not of the classical tradition), they lean more towards legibility. In other words, the translation (if not transmigration) of the psychedelic experience into the form of song writing, expression in song. In other words, these guys are catchy, and, thusly, you can catch on to their pschyedelic inferences through their songs. More like the Lemon Pipers or the Kinks than the inscrutability of an actual auidtory hallucination, this band is able to tell us about it, blissfully. You can sing along.
The Oxford Farm Report are more enthusiastically brash and savage in their approach than either City Mouse or Ideal Free Distribution. Their prog rock/post-punk/no wave slip is showing (that means they may very well be wearing three slips at once). With angular, shuddering stops, starts, and an exuberant willingness to apparently change their minds about what song they are playing when they are playing it collectively as a streamlined band is not an easy collection of contradictions to manage at the same time. That could be genius if you go by F. Scott Fitzgerald's definition, or it could be genus, or it could be Genesis, either with or without Phil Collins and/or with or without the gods (if you're properly translating).
As we hurtle, turning in space towards what will reveal themselves to be the final paragraphs of this prose missive, we enter into what Stan Lee and Jack Kirby might have depicted as the Negative Zone in the classic run of the Fantastic Four comic, or for that matter, straight into what Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick revealed in the flickering light and shadow of the cinema in 2001.
We enter further AND farther into the realm of the Eyes and Arms of Smoke. Smoke is the operative word here, 'cause these lasses and lads are directly involved in expeditions into the ineffable ... alternately transparent, opaque, possibly acidic or possibly pleasant, one can see it right in front of one's face one moment, it is gone the next, and forever ungraspable; this is their collective groupings of sounds, and the method of their grouping is a ritualistic excercise, a reaction to loudness that asks the audience/listener to move in closer (figuratively AND literally), a band that mediates between the fragmenting volume of the modern world and the moment of entering into a sustained meditation apart from that world. Avant-garde is perhaps a useless term here because ultimately these are the means and ends of all enlightenment; these impulses are ancient, but evidence of them unlikely in the post-Industrial age. Commerce and mechanization has rendered philosophy and the spirit as enemies to its belching need for reality control, and this band is fighting fire with smoke.
Warmer Milks are just as engaged directly with the enigma of sound itself as Eyes and Arms of Smoke. In the recordings of Warmer Milks, those that I am familiar with, the lyrical ponderings themselves often are kept just slightly out of the range of direct perception, submerged and merging with the haunting strains of musical instruments just around the corner from expected harmony, opening up vistas of the reality inside of immediately perceptible reality. This is alchemy, and it can even be blasphemy if not just plainly befuddl(ed)ing, but often at its best, all these elements combine in Warmer Milks to put to work a process of distillation, and at the end of that process, we find ourselves engaged with a poetry not of language and of song, but a poetry of what happens when a band makes use of the material in lapses in language and sound, and then makes that itself a song. It's the kind of thing Jack Kerouac seemed to fumble towards with poetry, and these following lines from Mexico City Blues seem to be the kind of language that would be right at home and of sound logic in the Warmer Milks universe, "Praised be man, he is existing in milk/and living in lillies/And his violin music takes place in milk/and creamy emptiness."
As Gene Simmons of Kiss once said, "Why can't I like steak and cheese cake?" The connective tissue between all of these bands are the connections I like to make. As an audience member/listener, I'm interested in various aspects of abstraction, of expression, of human (or inhuman) experience translated into sound, and even into the spectacle of theatrics. I like songs, too. And all of these groups have them. Not only that, in their own individual ways, they are all quite good at them. I want to get to know all these groups better and get to know their live performances better. This particular night I'll be in Louisville, obligated to spread my own musical gospel and glad to take in the experience of our musical peers appearing with us up and over there...to steal a phrase from a writer who poo-pooed the aforementioned Kerouac, Truman Capote: other voices, other rooms.
So I ask of you, for you, dear reader, to go explore, get to know yourself, and others; know your own. Let's fill up rooms with our intact bodies and minds, not solitary, isolated ego. The solitary, isolated ego eats itself.
- J. Todd Dockery
band (comp track – website)
CITY MOUSE (track 8 - http://myspace.com/citymouse)
IDEAL FREE DISTRIBUTION (track 2 - http://myspace.com/idealfreedistribution)
THE OXFORD FARM REPORT (track 3 - http://myspace.com/theoxfordfarmreport)
WARMER MILKS (track 12 - http://www.warmermilks.com)
EYES AND ARMS OF SMOKE (track 28 - http://www.cenotaph.org/eyesandarms)
:: Tuesday, March 21 ::
ALOHA w/SWEARING AT MOTORISTS and ATTEMPT @ The Dame
9pm, ages 21+, $5
Aloha = intensely rhythmic post-post-rock (think, equally groove obsessed, but less lethargic) from Ohio. The new sound is less vibe oriented. I’ve heard they’re a great live band. Swearing At Motorists = stripped down rock from two Dayton dudes who love to get stoned. (Might be time to check the air in the tires). Attempt = new Lex group led by Hair PoPo/Eyes and Arms of Smoke member Trevor Tremaine and featuring members of Warmer Milks and The High Water Marks. Prog-pop for the new generation. Recommended to fans of Big Fresh and Von Hemmling. FREE sounds all ‘round at http://www.musicofaloha.com, http://myspace.com/swearingatmotorists, http://swearingatmotorists.com/, and http://myspace.com/attempt.
:: Thursday, March 23 ::
MARISSA NADLER w/J. GLENN @ Lisa’s Oak Street Lounge, 1004 E. Oak Street (Louisville)
A recommendation from our friend Brian Ronk who describes Nadler as “hauntingly beautiful Josephine (Foster) folk … but somewhat darker.” Check out http://www.myspace.com/songsoftheend and http://www.marissanadler.com for FREE downloads.
:: Saturday, March 25 ::
THE FEATURES w/THE APPARITIONS and J.RODDY WALSTON AND THE BUSINESS @ The Dame
9pm, ages 21+, $5
Three sharp, energetic pop bands. The Features = “a curious mix of new wave, Strokes style backbeats, and a classic rock sound” (Bullit). They’re one of my all-time favorite live bands. If you haven’t heard them before, do not pass go – go straight to http://features.echoconnect.com/exhibit.php for a FREE download. Then, backtrack to http://myspace.com/thefeatures and http://www.thefeatures.com for the full scoop. The Apparitions = “guitar-based power pop that's jangly, fuzzy, and full of infectious energy” (The Onion). J-Roddy Walston and the Business = “equal parts ragtime, southern trash rock and McCartney-esque classic rock, with some gospel and barbershop thrown in,” or so says the Washington Post. http://www.theapparitions.net, http://myspace.com/theapparitions, http://www.jroddy.com, http://myspace.com/jroddy.
:: Sunday, March 26 ::
MY WAY MY LOVE w/THE OXFORD FARM REPORT @ The Dame
7pm, ages 18+, $5
My Way My Love = stylish Japanese (the lyrics are in English) noise punk. Check out the FREE sounds at http://www.mywaymylove.com. The Oxford Farm Report = grand Lexington weirdness. If you’re playing along with your copy of “Know Your Own” 2, click to track 3. If you don’t have the comp handy, head to http://myspace.com/theoxfordfarmreport for a taste.
:: Also worthwhile in the March 1-March 15 timeframe ::
Every Friday RAKADU GYPSY DANCE @ Nema’s Grille (Frankfort) – meccadance.com
Fri/Mar 17 “Know Your Own” vol.2 release party featuring EYES AND ARMS OF SMOKE, WARMER MILKS, OXFORD FARM REPORT, IDEAL FREE DISTRIBUTION, and CITY MOUSE @ The Dame
Sat/Mar 18 MySpace Meetup @ The Dame
Tues/Mar 21 ALOHA w/SWEARING AT MOTORISTS and ATTEMPT @ The Dame
Thurs/Mar 23 ROBINELLA @ The Dame
Fri/Mar 24 G-FUNK @ The Dame
Fri/Mar 24 ERIN McKEOWN TRIO w/MELISSA FERRICK @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Sat/Mar 25 THE FEATURES w/THE APPARITIONS and J.RODDY WALSTON AND THE BUSINESS @ The Dame
Sun/Mar 26 MY WAY MY LOVE w/OXFORD FARM REPORT @ The Dame – ages 18+
Mon/Mar 27 Open Mic w/CHARLIE WHITTINGTON @ The Dame – FREE
Tues/Mar 28 THE OPEN HANDS w/LOWBROW NOBILITY @ The Dame
Wed/Mar 29 THE LEGENDARY SHACKSHAKERS w/SCOTT H. BIRAM @ The Dame
:: Soon Soon ::
Fri/Mar 31 RAKADU GYPSY DANCE w/EYES AND ARMS OF SMOKE and THE TOIDS @ The Dame – early show
Fri/Mar 31 KRS-ONE @ The Dame – late show
Fri/Mar 31 BOB MOULD @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Sat/Apr 1 SCOTT MILLER AND THE COMMONWEALTH @ The Dame
Sat/Apr 1 MAZARIN w/THE DOUBLE @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Mon/Apr 3 HIMSA w/FULL BLOWN CHAOS, MANNTIS, THE CLASSIC STRUGGLE, PHLEGETHON, and CADAVER IN DRAG @ Downtown Arts Center, 141 E. Main – http://www.counterfiction.com
Tues/Apr 4 HALF HANDED CLOUD w/LIZ JANES + CREATE! and THE ARCHITECTS (members of Big Fresh and the Elephants) @ Underlying Themes, 110 S. Upper – all ages
Tues/Apr 4 HANK III @ The Dame
Wed/Apr 5 THE BRUNETTES w/CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Thurs/Apr 6 JACKIE-O-MOTHERFUCKER @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Sun/Apr 9 THE CLOUD ROOM @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Tues/Apr 11 THE EASTERN SEABOARD @ Buster’s – FREE
Tues/Apr 11 NO THINGS (ex-Liars) @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Wed/Apr 12 DEAD MEADOW @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Thurs/Apr 13 JOSEPHINE FOSTER AND THE SUPPOSED w/DAVE REMPIS PERCUSSION QUARTET @ Mecca – all ages
Sat/Apr 15 RHETT MILLER AND THE BELIEVERS @ Headliners (Louisville) – ages 18+
Sun/Apr 16 ROSIE THOMAS @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Wed/Apr 19 AB BAARS QUARTET @ Underlying Themes – all ages
Thurs/Apr 20 ENON @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Sun/Apr 23 JOSH RITTER w/HEM @ Southgate House (Newport, KY)
Wed/May 10 MANDARIN MOVIE (members of Chicago Underground Duo and Triage) w/BLASTOCYST and SHARKS WITH WINGS @ Mecca, 451 Chair Ave
:: Pertinent resources ::
__Lexington__
THE DAME, 156 W.Main St, Lexington - http://www.dameky.com
MECCA dance studio/gallery, 451 Chair Avenue, off S.Broadway near Bolivar - http://www.meccadance.com
UNDERLYING THEMES LOFT SPACE, 110 S. Upper (above Busters) – http://www.underlyingthemes.com
CHARLES MANSION – http://www.charlesmansion.org
FIREBIRD STUDIO, 359 W. Short St – http://firebirdlexington.com
HIGH LIFE LOUNGE, University Plaza (corner of Rose and Euclid) – ph. 859/455-8890
NATASHA'S CAFE, 112 Esplanade - http://www.beetnik.com/
FAUNTLEROY’S CAFÉ, 640 W. Maxwell – ph. 859/455-8188
THE ICEHOUSE, 412 Cross St (off W.Maxwell), Lexington
DOWNTOWN ARTS CENTER, 141 E. Main St, Lexington – http://www.lexarts.org
ARTSPLACE, 161 N.Mill St, Lexington
LEXINGTONSHOWS.com (all ages show listings) - http://www.lexingtonshows.com
COUNTER FICTION (metal/punk/hardcore all ages show listings) – http://www.counterfiction.com
CRICKET PRESS (amazing local poster art) - http://www.cricket-press.com
WRFL 88.1FM (UK's student-run radio station) - http://wrfl.uky.edu
YOU AIN’T NO PICASSO (great locally-produced music blog) – http://www.youaintnopicasoo.com
__Louisville__
LAVA (Louisville Assembly of Vanguard Artists) HOUSE - 927 Shelby Parkway, Louisville - http://www.lavahouse.org
HEADLINERS MUSIC HALL, Louisville - 1386 Lexington Road, ph. 502/584-8088 - www.headlinerslouisville.com
UNCLE PLEASANTS, 2126 S. Preston, Louisville - p.502/634-4147
THE RUDYARD KIPLING, 422 West Oak Street, Louisville -
http://www.therudyardkipling.com/pages/206999/index.htm
OLD LOUISVILLE COFFEHOUSE, 1489 S. Fourth St, Louisville - ph. 502/635-6660
PRODUCTION SIMPLE (produce many of the events at Headliners and Uncle Pleasants) – http://www.productionsimple.com
__Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky__
THE SOUTHGATE HOUSE, Newport, KY - http://www.southgatehouse.com
ALCHEMIZE, 1122 Walnut Street, Cincinnati, OH – http://www.alchemizebar.com
THE COMET, 4579 Hamilton Avenue, Cincinnati, OH - http://www.cometbar.com
BOGART'S, 2621 Vine St, Cincinnati, OH - http://www.bogarts.com
THE MOCKBEE (formerly SS NOVA), 2260 Central Parkway, Cincinnati, OH - http://www.ssnova.org
NORTHSIDE TAVERN, 4163 Hamilton Ave, Cincinnati, OH – http://www.northside-tavern.com
Know of an upcoming event that others should get hip to? Let us know - email informationactivists@yahoo.com
All Picks by Ross Compton unless otherwise noted.
:::::::::::::: QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/SUBMISSIONS ::::::::::::::::::::::::
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