Deep Cuts: Girl Garage

La Luz is a Seattle act that performs a melodic range of retro influenced music. They're an all gal group made up of Shana Cleveland on guitar, Marian Li Pino on drums, Alice Sandahl on keyboard and Lena Simon anchoring on bass.

They have a long list of influences from Link Wray and The Ventures to Shannon and The Clams which is really refreshing to see a band claim. Especially, when next to no one seems to champion Shannon And The Clams - but everybody who has heard 'Sleep Talk' is pretty much blown away by it.

La Luz recently performed as part of KEXP's Icelandic expedition to the Iceland Airwaves music festival in Reykjavik.



References:

• Bandcamp, La Luz
• Facebook, La Luz USA

Deep Cuts: Indie

California's Shaun Fleming, the alter-ego for Dianne Coffee, has spent some important moments of his life in entertainment. At 15, he starred in the opening sequence of Jeepers Creepers II (2003) where he is quickly mauled by the title monster. In 2004, he worked as a voice actor on two animated films from Disney including The Lion King 1 1/2 (2004).

Moving to NYC in 2005, Shaun became a founding member of the 60's psychedelia and avant-garde band Foxygen with friends Sam France, Jonathan Rado and Justin Nijssen. The band gradually became a hit in clubs and college radio culminating with their album "We Are The 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic" released in January of 2013. However, the group's raucous, highly active performances contributed to singer Sam France breaking his leg at a gig at First Avenue in Minneapolis on July 29th 2013.

This freed up Dianne Coffee who was on the back burner for Fleming since December of 2012. Fleming's "My Friend Fish" was released by Western Viynl in October in 2013. It's a stand-out album, featured at SXSW, that blends elements from soul, Motown, classic R&B with 1960's acts like Donovan and The Beatles.



References:

• Wikipedia, Dianne Coffee
• IMDB, Shaun Fleming
• Facebook, Dianne Coffee

Deep Cuts: Techno

Tired of glowing reviews of great underground rock music? Yeah, me too sorta. Let's get to the real ugly stuff like - Techno.

Techno music was, and more than likely still is, not a genre.

Techno is largely an excuse. A reason for disaffected middle-class kids to drop some heavy acid and examine his or her navel for 4-6 hours at a time. The music at these shows showcase piss poor loops and ear shattering monotony. Only a crowd on over-whelming amounts of heavy drugs, clawing negativity and habitual shallow droning could possibly be pretending to listen to this stuff.

This is a sad fact testified to by anything recorded by Detroit's Docile Records. During it's 17 year journey into a jangled clash of boops and beeps - somehow the music never got better. Yet, this music seems like clear proof that even monotonous elevator music, minus substance, direction or style, has an audience somewhere.

That "somewhere" (outside of a group shuffling zombies) is mainly on one German distribution site that rates each of Docile's 24 records of mismatched beats (and counting) with one star of five.

All twenty-four records are long-form tedious loops that lead nowhere except for maybe the bargain bin in American record stores that still carry any form of "techno" music.

Here's a positive review: "Connecting to the random to pull out patterns that can be honed down to construct a logical but abstract funk."

Really? How incoherent is that? How much acid did this reviewer ingest to believe that this gibberish makes sense?

Here's another positive review from 2008: "B1 rocks clip-clop percussion with some skronky bass squirts and a riff that sounds vaguely like something from an Atari 2600." That's positive? When is listening to an Atari booping at 50+ decibels enjoyable?

When exactly do you throw in the towel when your records fail to improve after about 20 years and your music universally rates somewhere between a two telephones ringing, filling your ears with pepper spray and hearing a broken doorbell buzzing?

Below, to illustrate this point, is a clip from the 20th record released in 2011.

A. Garcia - Track 01

Hosted by Kiwi6 file hosting.Download mp3 - Free Music Hosting.

References:

• Facebook, Docile Records
• Deejay.de, Docile Records

Deep Cuts: Instrumental

Nothing is better to enjoy that a cleverly perpetrated hoax - once it's revealed. Famous horror writer Stephen King once wrote a series of books under a pen name that later became best-sellers. The Beatles themselves, prior to their 1970 break-up, fostered the idea that Paul McCartney was killed in a car crash in 1966 and replaced by a look-a-like. Radio DJ Russell Gibb announced his own Paul Is Dead Theory on Detroit radio adding to the mystique - taking us all for a ride so to speak.

In 1970, the legal wrangling for the Beatles material was in Britain's High Court. Paul McCartney and his wife Linda began working on three new albums. The first was a solo album simply entitled McCartney (1970), the second was with his first band after The Beatles - Ram (1971) which - let's face it - was poorly received. The last album? This last album is a gem. It was an orchestral themed, instrumental record that was put together with Richard Hewson who had also arranged "Let It Be".

The result: Percy "Thrills" Thrillington (1977). It wasn't until 1989 at Los Angeles press conference that Paul revealed that he was Mr. Thrillington. The album tripled in value and became a collector's item when Paul and Linda confirmed it in the Spring 1995 issue of Club Sandwich. This record is so oddly compelling that it merits more than a footnote in music history. Right off the bat, the lead track "Too Many People", echoes Sgt. Pepper but with a dreamier context. "3 Legs" is the soundtrack for a the bad side of town - on Mars. This album only gets better with a rather formal version of "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" anchoring the record.

Original 1977 pressings are exceedingly hard to find but album was re-issued in 2004 and 2012.

Percy Thrillington - Uncle Albert

References:

• Wikipedia, Thrillington
• Wikipedia, Wings
• Good Day Sunshine Magazine, Thrillington

Deep Cuts: Rock

Oakland, California based retro rock Shannon and The Clams are a three piece band that combines elements from garage, punk, classic R&B and Motown into their own brand of rock 'n roll. This group, made up of Shannon Shaw, Cody Blanchard
and Ian Amberson on drums, stand out due to the raw clarity of the band's influences and edgy subject matter.

For example, the first track from 2011 Sleep Talk, Baby Don't Do It, features a character running through the darkness with a machete that "glints by the light of the moon" that is sung with shades of The Ronettes with a sharp set of measured guitar chords ringing out with the tight precision of a rhythm section - or maybe a lovelorn serial killer.

In an interview with the blog Still In Rock from 2014, the group says they met in 2009 while attending the California College of the Arts.

"We had a class together and thought one another was lame until we saw each others videos in class. We realized we were the only cool freaks in the class and have basically been best friends ever since."

The group has three studio albums to date including: I Wanna Go Home (2009), Sleep Talk (2011) and Dreams in the Rat House (2013).

Shannon And The Clams - You Will Always Bring Me Flowers

References:

• Official Site, Shannon And The Clams
• Facebook, Shannon And The Clams
• Still In Rock, Band Interview

Deep Cuts: Alt-Folk

Quilt is a Boston, Massachusetts based alt-folk group featuring John Andrews on drums, Anna Rochinski on guitar and organ, Shane Butler on guitar and Keven Lareau on bass with all members contributing to the vocals.

Their 2011 self-titled album is a "complete" album with songs that are composed in a series of layers. Some come like gentle waves and other like tidal waves that are slowly built up refrain after refrain. Key tracks include Cowboys In The Void, Penobska Oakwalk and Milo.

In Kentucky in early March of 2014, while touring for their new album Held In Splendor, the band flipped their tour van after blowing a tire and totaled it. They walked away from the accident but could only do one more show in Austin, TX. Right now, they are on a sponsored European tour but they only have until the 25th of April to get a working van or bus ready for the spring leg of another US tour. They may have to cancel all US dates and there are many.

4-25 Philadelphia, PA @ Boot & Saddle (w/ Woods)
4-26 Washington, DC @ Rock & Roll Hotel (w/ Woods)
4-27 Richmond, VA @ Strange Matter (w/ Woods)
4-28 Asheville, NC @ The Mothlight (w/ Woods)
4-29 Athens, GA @ Masquerade (Purgatory Stage) (w/ Woods)
5-1 Houston, TX @ Mango’s (w/ Woods)
5-2 Austin, TX @ Austin Psych Fest
5-3 Dallas, TX @ Club Dada (w/ Woods)
5-4 Lawrence, KS @ Seed Co. Studios (w/ Woods, Blood on the Wall, Your Friend, Oils)
5-6 St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway (w/ Woods)
5-7 Chicago, IL @ Subterranean (w/ Woods)
5-9 Toronto, ON, Canada @ The Great Hall (w/ Woods)
5-10 Montreal, QC, Canada @ Cabaret Playhouse (w/ Woods)
5-11 South Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground (w/ Woods)
5-13 Portland, ME @ SPACE Gallery (w/ Woods)
5-14 Boston, MA @ The Sinclair (w/ Woods)
5-15 Kingston, NY @ BSP Lounge (w/ Woods)

The band is asking for donations, both large and small, for help towards getting another vehicle for this tour. I think they deserve it. Please go to the official Quilt page for more information.




References:

• Official Site, Quilt
• Bandcamp, Quilt
• Facebook, Quilt Music
• Allston Pudding, Quilt & Happy Jawbone