Tag: Trans-Pecos

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Bedridden Shares Furious “Philadelphia, Get Me Through”

Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and musician Jack Riley can trace the origins of his music career to when he was five and making music on a thrift-store guitar emblazoned with Kurt Cobain‘s name. Riley moved to New Orleans for college, where dabbled in punk and fell in love with shoegaze before starting the first iteration of Bedridden. The Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and musician recruited Pasadena, CA-born jazz trained Sebastian Duzian (bass) and Claremont, CA-born Nick Pedroza (drums), who grew up on rock, metal and jazz to form a live band. 

The first lineup released their debut EP, 2023’s Amateur Heartthrob, a noise-washed blend of shoegaze, DIY and indie rock that Riley says is a “coming-of-age EP — these formative stories about not having a bed, dating, being kind of a jackass. I was making fun of myself a lot.” The EP caught the attention of Julia’s War Recordings‘ Douglas Dulgarian, who then signed the band. 

The band relocated to Brooklyn. After relocating, the band recruited Wesley Wolffe (guitar) to complete the band’s lineup as a newly minted quartet. The current incarnation of the band encompasses a patchwork of styles, influences and friends that the band’s Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based frontman has accumulated over the years. 

The next iteration in the band’s development and maturation is their full-length debut, the Aron Kobayashi Ritch-produced Moths Strapped To Each Other’s Back. Slated for an April 11, 2025 release through Julia’s War Recordings, the album’s titled is derived from a mysterious missive Riley received on the popular astrology app Co-Star. The 10-song album’s fuzzed out and sometimes gnarly songs sees the band ruminating on dating, drugs and survival. “Last year I was way too reliant on other people — my partner at the time, my friends,” Riley says. “I was strapped to them in a weird way — and flying in circles. This album is about that time.”

“Some of these songs have been around for years,” says Riley, adding that they were recorded last February at Brooklyn’s Studio G. “As opposed to Amateur Heartthrob, we attempted to blend more clean guitars into a driving sound to capture more clarity — one that also sounds live… and raw.”

So far I’ve written about two of the album’s previously released singles”

  • “Etch,” a woozy yet mournful Dinosaur Jr.-like  ripper built around fuzzy power chords, rousingly anthemic, mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses and thunderous drumming that’s anchored around a seething, simmering anger that inspires a daydream about punching someone in the jaw. “‘Etch’ was a rhythmic accident that didn’t stem from any direct inspirations,” Riley explains. “The irregular triplet line came to me first and sounded somber, yet hostile. It lent itself well to phrases I had written not about heartbreak, but about the subsequent temper that it had induced. I was dreaming of fighting, I was dreaming of winning that fight, and lastly dreaming of defaming my competitor. The song is frantic and doesn’t have a tonal center. With its weaving guitar harmonies laid underneath countering vocal melodies, it sounds to me like that regretful fistfight that I was longing for.”

  • “Chainsaw” is a rousingly anthemic Dinosaur Jr./Siamese Dream-era Smashing Pumpkins-like ripper that sees Riley expressing the frustrations and pent-up annoyances with roommates and their quirks and foibles. “The song is written from my perspective about a time when I made an uncertain decision to move in with a partner and her friend and a slew of manic stories that ensued after the fact,” Bedridden’s Jack Riley explains “One of the stories was that of the roommates incessantly searching to buy a new lamp and how it bothered me. The video is me trying to break through that anger by destroying the lamps.”

Moths Strapped to Each Other’s Backs‘ latest single “Philadelphia, Get Me Through” may arguably be one of the album’s angriest and most forceful rippers. Featuring driving rhythms paired with Dinosaur Jr.-meets- The Colour and The Shape-era Foo Fighters-like riffage, big shout-along worthy hooks and choruses, “Philadelphia, Get Me Through” is a one-part tongue-in-cheek joke, one-part diss track informed by personal experience.

“This is the most charged song I wrote for Moths,” Bedridden’s Jack Riley says. “I was hyper-aware that I was losing it at the time. I was chasing a relationship that only made me feel belittled. Bedridden took a day trip out to Philly to play a show with Worlds Worst and I thought that having a good night away from Brooklyn would cure me. It didn’t. Soon after, I dug up this angular, repetitive riff in a 5/4 time signature and found the melody quickly. The song crescendos into damn near a metal track. Nick wrote an incredible drum part. I had the perfect groundwork for a diss track.”

Photography by William Ruben Helms
Read More

Live Concert Photography: Cigarettes for Breakfast with Book/Spirit and Clone at Trans-Pecos 2/21/25

Live concert photography of Cigarettes for Breakfast with Book/Spirit and Clone at Trans-Pecos last month.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: London’s Rapidly Rising Fat Dog Shares Anthemic Club Banger “All The Same”

Last year, rapidly rising, London-based outfit Fat Dog exploded into the British scene with the band being named “2023’s wildest live band,” by NME for a live show described as “manically riotous and joyous” by BBC 6 Music, which included opening sets for Viagra Boys, Shame, and Yard Act, as well as their own headlining sets.

Their debut single “King of the Slugs” was released by Domino Records to critical praise from the likes of Clash Magazine and countless others. Building upon a rapidly growing profile, the British quintet announced their debut US tour, which will see them play sets at SXSW, Trans-Pecos, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, as well as an April headlining set at the 1500-capacity Electric Brixton. Along with that they’re sharing the Joe Love and James Ford co-produced “All The Same,” a propulsive, club rocking, industrial-inspired banger built around glistening synth arpeggios, and orchestral sample-driven hit, industrial clang and clatter paired with skittering, tweeter and woofer rattling boom bap, enormous shout along worthy hooks and a plaintive vocal delivery.

The members of the rising British outfit says about the song “What if you could turn the clock back and make a change? Just a single, well-placed kick, that perhaps could change the whole course of your life. Perhaps the party never has to stop?”

Directed by Dylan Coates and staring Neil Bell, the accompanying visual for “All The Same” is a twisted and absurdist tale of regret, revenge, time travel and fatherhood that sees its protagonist traveling back to 1989.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Up-and-Coming Canadian Act Mauno Releases Hilariously Surreal and Unsettling Visual for “Take Care”

Slated for an August 2, 2019 release through Tin Angel Records, Really Well, the forthcoming album by the Halifax, Nova Scotia-based indie rock band Mauno reportedly finds the band — Eliza Niemi (vocals, bass), Nick Everett (vocals, guitar), Scott Boudreau (guitar) and Adam White (drums) — exploring the creases in intimacy, authenticity and labor and their preoccupations with the nature of creative labor, relationships and the self under capitalism. And while rooted in sobering daily concerns, the band notes that their critiques are often filtered through the lens of the absurd, which gives the band — and in turn, the album’s material — a playful, ridiculous air. “There’s something about humour and laughter that is very subversive and deeper than I think a lot of people realize,” the band’s Eliza Niemi says in press notes. “With these songs, I was trying to sort of dance on the one.” Adds the band’s Nick Everett, “There’s a double meaning to everything. You have to leave space for people to think. Where is the place for the listener if they’re not going to contribute their own thoughts or their own interpretations?”

Earlier this summer, I wrote about the slow-burning album single “Vampire,” a track centered around shimmering guitars, shimmering guitars, shuffling drums, plaintive vocals and a soaring hook. And while immediately recalling 120 Minutes-era like alt rock, the mischievous song focuses on the pride and utter ridiculousness of creative labor in a capitalist world that doesn’t really value it much. Interestingly, the album’s latest single “Take Care” is a decidedly different affair from it’s predecessor: centered around jangling and jagged guitars, shuffling drums and Niemi’s delicate vocals, the song finds its narrator calmly expressing ambivalence, frustration and resentment. “‘Take Care’ is a play on words — it’s about caregiving as a woman, and also about saying goodbye. It is about filling the role of taking care of someone and self-identifying through that, while simultaneously resenting the expectation of having to do so. The chorus begins hinting at waiting for a relationship to finally feel reciprocal, and ends with the reveal of me actually waiting for it to fall apart, knowing all along that it was doomed,” the band’s Eliza Niemi explains in press notes. 

Directed by Max Taeuschel, the recently released video for “Take Care” features the band’s songwriting duo of Nick Everrett and Eliza Niemi in matching royal blue jumpsuits as though they were prepping for a surgical procedure. Suddenly gloved hands come from just outside of the frame, preparing Mauno’s songwriting duo for shipping — including slapping on price tags and swaddling in bubble wrap and plastic wrap. Somehow the band’s songwriting duo manage to have dispassionate expressions on their faces, despite being treated like products, and being essentially tortured. It’s a gorgeous and surrealistic fever dream that’s both hilarious and unsetting. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Watch Up-and-Coming Canadian Act Mauno Go Through a Bizarre Endurance Test in Visuals for “Vampire”

The Halifax, Nova Scotia-based band Mauno’s forthcoming album Really Well is slated for an August 2, 2019 release through Tin Angel Records, and the album, which was recorded at Chad VanGaalen’s Calgary, Alberta9-based studio reportedly finds the band — Eliza Niemi (vocals, bass), Nick Everett (vocals, guitar), Scott Boudreau (guitar) and Adam White (drums) — exploring the creases in intimacy, authenticity and labor and their preoccupations with the nature of creative labor, relationships and the self under capitalism. But while rooted in serious, daily concerns, the band notes that their critiques are filtered through a lens of the absurd, which gives them a playful, ridiculous air. “There’s something about humour and laughter that is very subversive and deeper than I think a lot of people realize,” the band’s Eliza Niemi says in press notes. “With these songs, I was trying to sort of dance on the one.” Adds the band’s Nick Everett, “There’s a double meaning to everything. You have to leave space for people to think. Where is the place for the listener if they’re not going to contribute their own thoughts or their own interpretations?” 

Really Well’s latest single “Vampire” is a slow-burning track centered around shimmering guitars, shuffling drums, plaintive vocals and a soaring hook that recalls 120 Minutes-era like alt rock while being a playful and uplifting song that focuses on the pride and utter ridiculousness of being in creative labor in a capitalist world. 

Directed by Max Taeuschel, the recently released video stars the band’s songwriting duo Eliza Niemi and Nick Everett in a bizarre endurance test, in which they’re challenged to continue performing the song while exhausting themselves on stationary bikes. Shooting the duo over an uninterrupted hour or so in an empty gym, the video’s surreal and absurd quality is a bit of an unsettling contrasts the song’s uplifting tone, Interestingly, the video also serves a deeper metaphor for being a musician and promoting your creative work — in other words, you work hard and never seem to feel as though you’re going anywhere. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Calvin Johnson Returns with a Meditative Bit of Bubblegum Pop

 Over the past couple of months, I’ve written quite a bit about Calvin Johnson, an  Olympia, WA-born and-based guitarist, singer/songwriter, producer and DJ best known as a founding member of Cool Rays, Beat Happening, The Go Team and The Halo Benders, all of which prominently feature his sonorous baritone. He’s also the founder and owner of renowned indie label K Records — and he was one of the major organizers of the International Pop Underground Convention.

Now, as you may recall, Johnson’s forthcoming A Wonderful Beast is slated for an October 12, 2018 release through his own K Records, and the album, which was recorded at  Audio Eagle Studios in Nashville, TN finds Johnson collaborating with the The Black Keys’ Patrick Carney, who cowrote and produced the album and Michelle Branch, who contributes backing vocals on three songs.  Johnson can trace the origins of his collaboration with Carney back to 2005, when the Olympia, WA-based singer/songwriter guitarist, producer and DJ was on a Stateside tour to support his sophomore solo album Before the Dream Faded — and Carney and Johnson met during that tour. As the story goes, the two kept in touch over the years, with Carney suggesting that they should collaborate; but based on their schedules they were only able to work with each other recently. Branch, a solo artist of note is best known for being a member of The Wreckers, and as it turns out that she lives next door to Audio Eagle Studios. Intrigued by the sounds she heard from the shack that houses the studio, she walked over to see for herself what was going on, and she wound up on the album.

“Kiss Me Sweetly,” A Wonderful Beast’s first single was centered around a 60s bubblegum pop-like arrangement featuring a propulsive rhythm section consisting of a thumping, almost boom-bap-like backbeat, a funky bass line and blasts of swirling, kaleidoscopic guitar playing — but by far, the star of the song is the harmonizing between Johnson’s rich, sonorous baritone and Branch’s ethereal soprano, which further emphasizes the song’s swooning nature.  The album’s second single was the Tom Vek meets bubblegum pop-like “Like You Do,” a track that features jagged blasts of guitar, soaring synths and a dance floor friendly hook — but unlike its predecessor, the album’s latest single possesses a mischievous irony at its core, as it features a self-obsessed, self-absorbed narrator, who only sees his own greatness. Interestingly, the album’s latest single “(I’ve Still Got) Sand In My Shoes”  continues in a similar vein as its predecessors, as its a bubblegum pop-inspired yet meditative arrangement, featuring an angular and propulsive rhythm section and blasts of swirling guitar and synth lines, centered by Johnson’s sonorous baritone and Branch’s ethereal vocals harmonizing to give the song a breezily coquettish yet wistful air. It’s the sound of another summer ending, of cooler weather coming and the impending end of yet another year. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of founding members and primary songwriters Debbie Andrews and Mike Blaxill, the New York-based indie rock act Gladshot can trace their origins to when the duo met at a songwriter collective in which individual members performed and critiqued each other’s material. And at the time, Blaxill was writing roots rock-leaning material while Andrews work drew from pop and jazz; in fact, Andrews received a National Endowment of the Arts nod and had lessons with Joanne Brackeen, a session and touring pianist, who backed the likes of Ornette Coleman, Art Blakey and Stan Getz. Since their formation, the duo have developed a reputation for being uncompromising and restlessly creative as they’ve worked on a dystopian rock musical and writing songs that have appeared on TV shows on TNT, ABC and MTV.

Interestingly, the duo’s soon-to-be released, John Agnello-produced album These Are Vitamins find the band collaborating with a backing band — Jesse Murphy (bass), who’s best known as a member of Brazilian Girls; Tony Mason (drums), who’s played with Norah Jones and The Meters‘ Leo Nocentelli; and Tim Bright (guitar).  And the three new collaborators reportedly add to the push-and-pull dynamics that Blaxill and Andrews developed and perfected on the Maxwell’s Cool Demon EP — all while finding the band’s sound moving towards 90s alt rock-inspired garage rock, complete with buzzing power chords as you’ll hear on “Simulation” the latest single off the duo’s soon-to-be released album; in fact, the new single manages to remind me of 90s era Sonic Youth and 120 Minutes–era MTV.

You can catch Gladshot playing their album release show at Trans-Pecos on October 28, 2017.

 

 

.