June ’23

In my last year at U.C. Irvine I was finally out of the closet. I started to have friends and my world was expanding like the universe. Greg Parkinson was a few years older than me; we tried going on a date once; we went to see Romeo Void in at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach and ended up in bed, but it fizzled into total awkwardness; there just wasn’t any sexual chemistry. Greg taught me a ton about music; his favorite live band was the Cramps — we went to see them at the Cuckoo’s Nest in Costa Mesa. Lux Interior was a thing to behold, twisting and yowling like a cat in heat, shoving the microphone down his pants and building to an orgiastic climax drenched in red wine, while Ivy sneered coldly from behind her bass.

Greg was well-versed in all the newest, coolest bands — favorites that got played on KROQ like Psychedelic Furs, Suburban Lawns, Simple Minds and Killing Joke — but also more obscure stuff like Pere Ubu, one of the many weirdo bands from the industrial wasteland of Ohio that festered in the shadow of Devo. Ubu were arty as fuck, deconstructing rock in all sorts of delightful and difficult ways, guided by David Thomas’ whoops and trills and fractured, apocalyptic poetry. Greg pointed out how on the cover of their debut album, “The Modern Dance,” all the lines draw your eye to the dancer’s crotch at its center, which I marveled at back then, but now I think it probably says more about the viewer than the art…

I moved on after their early albums, but wouldn’t you know it they have a new one out in 2023 and the opening track “Love Is Like Gravity” is a rather gorgeous, prickly and dissonant, bluesy kind of thing, with scattered high pitched squalls and David Thomas’s impassioned vocals left out in the yard to rust. “You are the earth / and I am the moon / Around and around I go / Warding off all them meteor blows… Always a moonbeam in your eye…”

upsammy is the project of Dutch electronic producer Thessa Torsing, who creates fertile and chilly micro-worlds of evolving, organic micro-beauty. On “Being Is a Stone,” the opening track of her new album, bendy sound effects combine with chiming, minor key keyboards and pattering percussion as Thessa mutters unintelligibly.

Her most-streamed track is the stately “Flutter” from a couple years ago — a sort of Forest Swords meets Seefeel perfumed wonderland that has a sense of ceremony. Recommended for your Cal Arts wedding.

I’ve been a huge fan of Tinariwen ever since Aman Iman came out in ‘07, their first album that got notoriety in the US. They’ve actually been around since ‘79 in various incarnations; they’re Tuareg from Mali and their sound is simple, traditional call and response Saharan folk, with psych guitar ladled all over it. Lead singer Ibrahim Ag Alhabib has one of those magically raw and vulnerable voices that seem to be doing multiple things at once, like Kurt Cobain or Horace Andy. Their sound doesn’t really evolve; Popmatters made me laugh with their headline “Tinariwen Take an Intriguing Outlaw Country Turn on ‘Amatssou’” — the truth is that Amatssou sounds exactly like every other record they’ve done. But their quality control is rock solid: Amatssou is back-to-back great songs as always. I finally had a chance to see them live at the Fonda and I got myself a bit tangled up in wanting them to play my FAVORITE favorite songs, which eventually they did, at least a few of them. It’s the endless theme of my concert-going history. Anyway, they came out in traditional garb and brought the house down again and again. It was interesting to experience a performance of what is essentially rock music (in fact probably an expression of the authentic origin of rock music) where sexual energy wasn’t really a factor.

I’m not sure why at this particular time of life, when one should really spend one’s time taking up watercolors or ironing doilies, I seem to be coming around to metal, at least a bit. Godflesh have been around since the ‘80s, but they still know how to serve up pimply adolescent rage, and you will thank me if you allow their new one “Nero” to vomit all over you. Jaaw on the other hand are youngsters heading out on their first bludgeoning rampage, bless them, and “Rot” from their debut album Supercluster gladly delivers the searing pain you’re begging for.

On Everyone’s Crushed, Water From Your Eyes make a kind of arty, deconstructed blues racket you can dance to; a kind of modern day Talking Heads you might say — perfect for your liberal arts college kegger. “Barley” is the hit single; it’s imbued with sour prettiness as it takes a kinda dirty, Royal Trux-ish guitar lick and cut and pastes it into math rock forms that remind me a bit of Palm in their 2018 heyday.

But hold on a sec… if we dig a little deeper into the WFYE discography there’s a real charmer from 2021 called “Adeleine” — a wind-in-your-hair, lump-in-your-throat bit of classicism in the vein of The Association that’s got me twirling and swooning in my best ugly thrift store dress. Perhaps it’s what got them signed to tony Matador Records.

Of course a band with a name like Bar Italia was gonna get my attention. One third of the band is Nina Cristante, who has quite the pedigree, having collaborated with none other than Dean Blunt. Apparently she is also a personal trainer. Some people do have a lot of energy. More to the point, their new album Tracey Denim is — well OK, it’s a bit post-punk if I’m honest, but what isn’t in 2023? The point is, they’ve got ace tunes that snarl and purr and move. “Nurse” is a classic driving song, with its sing-along chorus, “A mask covered your eyes / And you move like crazy to your favorite song / You said, “I’m coming alive” / Haven’t felt this way since you were twenty-one…” Something about it takes me back to the Mod era, the Zombies and the Yardbirds and such.

And speaking of things Italian, Måneskin are perhaps the biggest pop sensation to emerge from the kindly old boot since Michelangelo. Their music is, frankly, an awful, raspy-voiced, soullessly competent derivation of what might have once been rock music, perhaps a preview of the ChatGPT future. And yet, in the spirit of enough monkeys with typewriters, they’ve come up with a timeless camp classic — “The Loneliest” is a gift from the firmament; it’s like Douglas Sirk had Roxette’s baby. “You’re still the oxygen I breathe / I see your face when I close my eyes / It’s torturous,” opines Damiano David, the ‘skin’s all-dressed-up-like-Trent-Reznor-for-Halloween lead singer. “I just keep on thinking how you made me feel better / And all the crazy little things that we did together / In the end, in the end, it doesn’t matter…”

You might remember back in March I was gushing about Two Shell and their adorable little pop dance confections? You don’t? OK um, you know, it’s fine, because kindred spirits Overmono (from Wales) have birthed a couple of similarly irresistible packets of candy and emotion; sort of hyperspeed mantras for sensitive clubbing. “Is U” is the darker of the two: “Around me / You’re like to me / Your smile / Around me, You next to me / All I want is you / Around me / Not to be, be…” “Good Lies” has been knocked around a bit but she’s got her groove back: “Nothing’s ever gone / While I wait here for music to watch boys / And I’m not goin’ home / I wanna feel you, I wanna feel you / Like we’re all lonely, huh? ‘Cause we’re grown-ups, no? / You will makе sense real soon…”