Tag: Ty Segall

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Arguably best known as the guitarist in Mikal Cronin‘s backing band and the bassist in Fuzz, Chad Ubovich is part of the larger Bay Area/Ty Segall/Thee Oh Sees universe and over the past couple of years, Ubovich has received attention for his own band Meatbodies, a band that features Ubovich, Patrick Nolan and Kevin Boog playing incredibly weird, scuzzy lo-fi rock. Now, if you had been frequenting this site last month, you’d recall that the trio’s forthcoming sophomore effort ALICE is reportedly a “heavy pop” concept album primarily focusing on war, sex, politics and religion — and has the band expanding upon their sound; in fact, the album’s first single “Creature Feature” was a shuffling,  Bowie and Bolan-leaning take on psych rock.

However, ALICE’s latest single “Haunted History,” is a furious and buzzing take on psych rock, possessing  an anthemic and mosh pit-friendly hook paired with propulsive and forceful drumming — and in some way the song sounds as though it draws from grunge rock, thanks in part to some guitar pyrotechnics.

 

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Classic Soul Sounds and Visuals of Nick Waterhouse’s “It’s Time”

Nick Waterhouse is a Santa Ana, CA-born, San Francisco, CA-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, who first took up gutiar when turned 12. And as teenager, he found himself increasingly interested in more obscure and ecletic Americana and blues outside of the pop and contemporary rock his peers were listening to; in fact, he’s cited Bert Berns, Mose Allison, John Lee Hooker and Van Morrison among his earliest musical influences. However, Waterhouse’s musical career started in earnest when he was a member of an Orange County-based band Intelligista, an act that was compared to The Animals and High Numbers-era The Who. After the band split up, Waterhouse went on to attend San Francisco State University — and while studying, he continued pursuing music with very little luck.

As he was purising a music career, Waterhouse was simultaneously getting more involved in San Francisco’s DJ scene; in fact, he had quickly become a fixture at tthe all-vinyl Rooky Ricardo’s Record Shop eventually taking up a job with the store. Publicly, the San Francsico-based singer/songwriter and guitairst has cited that his time working under the store’s owner, Richard Vivian was deeply influential, as it put the then-aspriing musician i touch with the city’s soul club scene — while developing a friendship with The Allah-Las’ Matthew Corriea.

His debut 7 inch “Some Place”/”That Place” was recorded at the Distillery Studio in Southern California with backing band billed as the Turn-Keys, featuring The Fabulous Souls’ Ira Raibon on saxophone. The single was hand-pressed with letterpress printed labels, and because of the single’s overall response and its rairty, collectors have snapped it up. And on the strength of that single, Waterhouse was able to assemble his own backing band The Tarots and a trio of backing vocalists The Naturelles, with whom he played shows with Ty Segall, The Strange Boys, White Fence and The Allah-las. And in between touring across North America and Europe, the California-based singer/songwriter produced The Allah-Las 2012 debut effort. He then followed taht up with the release of his first two singles as a frontman and bandleader.

Waterhouse’s third full-length effort, Never Twice was released earlier this year thorugh Innovative Leisure Records and the album finds him collaborating once again with producer Michael McHugh, who has worked with Black Lips, Ty Segall, and The Allah-Las. As the story goes, McHugh was Nick’s first producer — and as Waterhouse was about to record the material that would comprise Never Twice, Waterhouse enlisted McHugh to recrate and capture the sound of Nick’s youth while in bands in Huntington Beach.

After McHugh was on board, Waterhouse being calling his favorite musicians to join him — Bob Kenmotsu, who contributed his flute; Ralph Carney, who has played with Tom Waits and Elvis Costello contributed sax; Will Blades, a protege of Dr. Lonnie Smith, contributed organs; a highly-accomplished batch of horn planers, bassists and guitarists join in; and Leon Bridges contributed vocals on the album’s lead single “Katchi.” The album’s latest single “It’s Time” will further cement Waterhouse’s burgeoning reptuation for crafting old school, jazzy soul with an incredibly uncanny period specificity — in this case, sounding as though it were released in the mid 1950s/early 1960s, thanks to a careful attnetion to craft while adding his name to a growing list of contemporary artists, who specailzie in the classic soul sound.

Directed and edited by Laura-Lynn Petrick, the video shot on what apears to be old Super 8 Film, and follows Waterhouse as she wanders around New York and features live footage of the Californian and his backing band playing live sets — and with the grainy, old-timey footage, it adds to the song’s old school aesthetic.

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Perhaps best known as the guitarist in Mikal Cronin‘s backing band and the bassist in Fuzz, Chad Ubovich is part of the larger Bay Area/Ty Segall/Thee Oh Sees universe — and over the past couple of years Ubovich has been receiving attention leading his own band Meatbodies, which features Ubovich along with collaborators Patrick Nolan and Kevin Boog, a band which specializes in equally weird, scuzzy, fo-fi rock. Interestingly enough, the trio’s forthcoming sophomore effort ALICE will reportedly be a “heavy-pop” concept album primarily focusing on war, sex, politics and religion and has the trio expanding on their sound a bit, as you’ll hear on the shuffling, Bowie and Bolan meets psych rock new single “Creature Feature.”

 

 

 

 

 



Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the past couple years, Memphis, TN-based punk band Ex-Cult emerged into the national scene and became a JOVM mainstay with the release of their sophomore effort 2014’s Midnight Passenger and its follow-up, 2015’s Cigarette Machine EP, two efforts which cemented the act’s reputation for a furious, bruising sound — and an equally intense, bruising live show. 2016 may arguably be the biggest years to date in the band’s history as Famous Class Records released the “Summer of Fear”/”1906” 7 inch last month and the band’s highly-anticipated third full-length Negative Growth is slated for a September 23, 2016 release through  In The Red Records.

As the band’s frontman Chris Shaw explains in press notes, “In the year of the snitch, there are forces beyond your control that keep you up at night. Ghost notions that swirl around your room while you sleep. Your own pillow laughing right in your face while you fight for an hour of rest. There are voices that whisper from the corner, telling you everything you never wanted to hear. Negative Growth, our third album , is dedicated to fear and deception.

“This collection of songs were conceived in Memphis and finalized in Los Angeles with the help of our family doctor, Ty Segall. It was created in February 2016, when we traded Memphis misery for a week of California sunshine. Negative Growth is a nine-track nightmare, a death trip in the crystal ship.” Now, if you were frequenting this site last month you may recall that I wrote about Negative Growth‘s first single “Attention Ritual,” a tense, bilious and abrasively paranoid song that evokes the narrator’s desperate, self-flagellating, self-doubting and fucked up psyche, and the inner voices that fuel one’s anxious nightmares — and on another level, it evokes the absolutely mad times we live in.  The album’s second and latest single “Let You In” is a urgent, desperate howl into an unceasing, cold and uncaring void with all the fury and anger within every sinew and figure of your body.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Certainly, over the past few weeks, I’ve written quite a bit about Nashville, TN-based sibling duo JEFF The Brotherhood. Comprised of Jake and Jamin Orral, the sibling duo have developed a reputation for a sound and overall aesthetic that’s been influenced by jazz, black metal, hard rock, prog rock, stoner rock, the films of Werner Herzog, the choreography of Kate Bush and the rivers of their home state. Over the past decade the duo have played well over 1,000 shows across North America, New Zealand and elsewhere, touring to support 11 full-length albums, as well as creating a number of related zines, puppets and videos among other things. The Orral Brothers’ forthcoming effort Zone is an experimental rock-leaning album that was recorded and co-produced by the band and Collin Dupuis, and is the third album of a trilogy based roughly around spirituality that began with 2009’s Heavy Days and 2011’s critically applauded We Are The Champions.

Of course, over the past few weeks I’ve also mentioned how the renowned and now-defunct DIY venue Death By Audio had a special place in my heart, thanks in part to the fact that unlike most venues I’ve seen and covered shows in my hometown, there was a palpable sense of anything being possible and anything going. Personally, some of the most memorable shows and live music moments I’ve ever seen happened at the South Williamsburg DIY space. Now, as the venue was set to close at the end of 2014, its owners and bookers curate what turned out to be an epic final month featuring a number of currently renowned acts, who had either gotten their start there and returned to pay their proper dues or had some kind of intimate connection to the venue, including A Place to Bury Strangers, Thee Oh Sees, Protomartyr, Ty Segall, Future Islands, Lightning Bolt, Metz, the aforementioned JEFF The Brotherhood and others. Of course, what I bet that most people attending those shows didn’t know was that the venue recorded their last month of existence, with the end result being the the compilation Start Your Own Fucking Show Space, which features highlights of the past month in chronological order, slated for release this week through Famous Class Records — and the compilation is meant not as bittersweet nostalgia but as a forceful call to go out and do something fucking awesome, like start a show space and have your friends and others play there.

The third and latest single is a blistering live version of JEFF The Brotherhood’s “Heavy Damage” is a perfect example of the sound that caught the blogosphere’s attention — frenzied power chords, propulsive and thunderous drumming and howled vocals, which give the song a raw, primal feel; however, live the song feels completely unhinged and furious — as though it should inspire the audience to mosh and then riot.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Beginning his music career as a part-time musician in various underground bands in and around the San Francisco Bay Area, the insanely prolific multi-instrumentalist Ty Segall started his solo career back in 2008 with the release of the Horn The Unicorn through Wizard Mountain — and was later re-released by HBSP-2X on vinyl. After befriending Thee Oh Sees frontman and creative mastermind, and co-founder of Castle Face Records, John Dwyer, Segall signed to the renowned, garage rock label, which released his self-titled debut, also in 2008. Since then, Segall has released albums through Memphis, TN-based label Goner Records, frequent collaborations with renowned indie artist Mikal Cronin and for being a member of a number of bands including Fuzz, Broken Bat and GØGGS, and as a former member of The Traditional Fools, Epsilons, Party Fowl, Sic Alps, and The Perverts.

Now, as I mentioned in a post earlier today, as a native New Yorker, who has been covering music for over a decade, I’ve seen countless venues come and go — and soon as a well-regarded or beloved venue closes, another one pops up a few months later in another part of town; however, as both a passionate music fan and journalist, there are a handful of venues that hold a special part of your heart. And for me, Death By Audio held a very special place in my heart. Unlike most venues I’ve seen and covered shows in, there was always a  palpable sense of anything going and happening and in fact, I saw some of the most memorable shows I’ve ever seen; shows that transformed how I saw and wore about live music. Much like Metz, Segall has a connection to Death by Audio as he got his NYC area start at the now defunct DIY venue.

And as I mentioned in a post earlier today, as the venue was closing up shop back in 2014, its owners and bookers curated what turned out to be an epic final month featuring a number of currently renowned acts, who had gotten their start or had some kind of connection to the South Williamsburg, Brooklyn venue including A Place to Bury Strangers, Thee Oh Sees, Protomartyr, Ty Segall, Future Islands, Lightning Bolt, Metz and many others. What people most likely didn’t know was that the venue recorded the last month of shows at the venue and the end result is the compilation Start Your Own Fucking Show Space, which features highlights of the past month in chronological order, slated for release next week through Famous Class Records — and the compilation is meant not as bittersweet nostalgia but as a forceful call to go out and do something fucking awesome, like start a show space and have your friends and others play there.

The second and latest single off the compilation features Ty Segall and his backing band playing a somewhat bittersweet yet forceful and sludgy live version of “Wave Goodbye,” a song that structurally and sonically sounds as though it owes a debt to 90s alt rock as it consists of alternating, rousing and thunderous, power chord-based hooks and a quiet second around the verse. And as soon as you hear it, it should make you want to raise your beers up high and shout along — or mosh the fuck out.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Currently comprised of Laena Geronimo, Shannon Lay, Michael Rudes, and Amy Allen, the Los Angeles, CA-based psych rock/punk rock/post-rock quartet FEELS have developed a reputation locally for an intense live show — and with the release of the frenetic and sprawling “Tell Me,” the first single off the band’s forthcoming self-titled debut effort, produced by the renowned Ty Segall, has the band seeing a rapidly growing national profile, as The Fader and a few other websites across the blogosphere. Sonically, the band pairs layers of jangling and buzzing guitars, a propulsive rhythm section, laconic yet sultry vocals in a song that rapidly twists, turns and shifts tempo that nods at prog rock, as much as it sounds inspired by psych rock. Interestingly enough, the song reminds me quite a bit of The Mallard‘s equally frenetic, sprawling yet bristling Finding Meaning In Deference.

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Copenhagen All-Girl Trio Baby In Vain’s Ass-Kicking, Name-Taking “Muscles”

Comprised of Lola Hammerich (vocals, guitar)  and Andrea Thuesen (vocals,  guitar) and Bendicte Pierleoni (drums), the young, up-and-coming Copenhagen Denmark-based trio Baby In Vain have rapidly built up and international profile as they’ve opened for the likes of Ty […]