No one who attended Saturday’s Wild Flag show knew quite what to expect. The newborn supergroup had no recordings to its credit and only a handful of shows under its belt. All that was really known about the band was its prestigious lineup, which included two members of defunct riot grrl legends Sleater-Kinney. As the all-girl group teased on its Twitter account, “For all you know, we’re a polka band.” Continue reading…
MP3: Rumspringa – “Criminal Love”
L.A.’s Rumspringa just released Sway, their debut full-length. Produced by Mannie Nieto (The Breeders, Los Lobos), the album works well to showcase the band’s brand of psychedelic-surf-garage-punk. And though Sway is reminiscent of David Bowie, T-Rex, and the Stones — with a little bit of The White Stripes thrown in for good measure — Rumspringa’s sound is wholly their own. With an abundance of original melodies, great lyrics, and solid musicianship, they are clearly going places.
MTV News has called Rumspringa “One of the best LA bands […] in a really long time,” and RCRD LBL has commended them for “running feverish, fast-paced rock-n-roll trails in our head.” We saw them at The Rumble back in August and had a hell of a good time.
Rumspringa will play the Soda Bar on 11/15, and Bar Pink on 12/4. In anticipation of the shows, lead singer Joey Stevens sent us a list of influences. Check it out below.
San Diego’s Hotel St. George recently premiered the excellent video for their song “Little Children’s Bones.” The video features a robot battling a wizard in Russian roulette, a dog with a cape, and various other serious things. It’s definitely in your best interest to check it out.
To enhance the viewing of their latest musical movie film, band members Matt Binder and Eric Visnyak provided us with their Poetic Memory. Watch the video above, and read their list of influences below. Continue reading…
A few weeks ago, Langhorne Slim and his ridiculously good band played the Casbah. We loved it, and as with many who’ve seen him on this tour, an obsession was born.
We recently asked Langhorne and his band — Jeff Ratner, David Moore, and Malachi DeLorenzo — to reveal their Poetic Memories, and they came back with a wide-ranging and reliable list that sheds light on what they’re reading, watching, and playing. Check it out below. Continue reading
For this edition of Poetic Memory, Wheat drummer Brendan Harney summed up his intentions better than we could’ve:
The visual aspect of music and images associated with sound, melody, etc. have always played a major role in what we do as a band. So, as I mined that a bit, I started to think about all the images related to music that have greatly affected me throughout the years. Through all of them, none have left such a deep and lasting impression as the images that I looked at as a young boy while I played the records that my mom brought home. I was fortunate to have someone in my life who collected a wide variety of music, and it’s these early images that burned themselves, along with the music of course, into my soul, and continue to influence the way I feel about what great art is really about. Some are the covers of records, and others are from the inner sleeve or gatefold—whichever struck me the most then.
Wheat released White Ink, Black Ink, their first album of new material since 2007, on July 21. Check out their single, Changes Is (MP3). You can also watch the video (above).
Here’s Brendan Harney’s Poetic Memory: Continue reading