Stack Zek Dfek Shok @ Instock

This is a bit of a late posting but I wanted to comment on the vernissage at Instock that kicked off on October 16th. I was only able to stay for a couple of hours but from what I saw the show was a success. DJ Sagewondah was spinning some solid tunes and there was a nice turn out (The Payz Play Supadeejayz were also playing that night but I wasn't around for that bit). Instock has a nice floor area to hold shows like this and its a good location. Hopefully we'll see some more shows at this venue in the future. This is the first time Stack has had his work up in a gallery showing ('bout time I say) along with works from Zek, Dfek, and Shok there are some nice pieces, including a couple with mixed media, up on the walls. Be sure to check it out as the show is running until December 1st at Instock 5259 du Parc, off of Fairmount. Here are a few pics I took of the opening night.

Keep posted for other shows in the near future.

The Deal - Goodbye September - 2003

Technically, Goodbye September is a 20-year retrospective of Charlottesville, VA, power pop heroes the Deal -- but not really. Due to a seemingly impossible -- yet all too common -- run of bad luck, the Deal's music has never been released until now. In 1980, the group began to show off their Big Star-influenced pop sound at gigs around town, after jelling around the lineup of Mark Roebuck, Eric Schwartz, Haines Fullerton, Hugh Patton, and Jim Jones. They caught the ear of Ramones manager Linda Stein, who agreed in turn to manage the Deal. All was well until the band's contract with Bearsville Records was hung out to dry in the aftermath of a feud between Warner Bros. and the label. Their debut EP would sit on a shelf for 20 years. Adversity continued to follow the Deal for the rest of the '80s and '90s. The band broke up, rejoined, lost members, gained followings, and lost its chance so many times, it seemed no one would ever hold a recording by the Deal. In the early '90s, Roebuck and Fullerton developed a relationship with an aspiring singer/songwriter named Dave Matthews. In 1994, a song co-written by Fullerton and Matthews appeared on the latter's Under the Table & Dreaming, the album that would launch the Dave Matthews Band's star sky high. Two years later, Fullerton would commit suicide after a descent into religious idealism. The music of the Deal was doomed. Luckily, two of the band's fans from its Charlottesville days went on a quest to assemble all the recorded output of the band, with the intention of finally releasing the material. Finally, in March of 2003, they were successful. Through the efforts of longtime Deal fans Tim Anderson and Tom Bickel, Not Lame Records released Goodbye September, which compiled 13 tracks from the Deal's Bearsville sessions, as well as many other recordings from every corner of the band's career. -AMG


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"Fuck the Buff": TA Wall Update

On the 20th and 21st of October I made a couple of quick runs to the TA Wall and Factory to see if there was any recent activity. It seems that the buffing is still in full effect. The upper wall area looks to have been maintained regularly having only a few hollow throw ups and tags. Towards the far west end a lone fill in by MEAT and a hollow done by LEGAL were the only hits that were up on the wall. The supports along the way are also equally as bare with only a few tags and throw ups. The above image is a pan shot of the buffed upper wall. Not the best pan shot put together but it does show you the extent of the buffing on the upper wall.

Alveno and Kode rocked a couple of burners on the support across from the junction box platform as well. Other than MEAT, ROCO and FIEFER bombed the area -FIEFER having tagged up most of the supports running from the west end down the service path leading to the lower wall. Repeatedly he wrote the message "Repeignez bande d'encules!" ("Paint over these fuckers' buff!) on almost every support column along the way.

I made my way to the lower wall area and found that it had also been recently buffed. It seemed, however, that the local writing community was not going to give this wall up as easily, evidenced by a good amount of tags, throw ups, and some pieces that had gone up recently. And they were not happy about it either. Numerous grievances scrawled in spray paint and marker on the wall and surrounding supports: "fuck buffing", "fuck the buff", "Beau pillage de fonds publics" ("Nice waste of public funds"), and another wrote "You suck, let this grey city have color on our walls, let us have art". "Fuck the buff" though seemed the most popular choice by many of the writers as it was pretty much up on the area from end to end. Clearly local writers were unimpressed and had decided to voice their discontent of the recent buffing of the TA Wall.

Although the upper wall has been maintained pretty regularly for the last while, the lower wall will not be silenced so easily. The importance of this spot to the local graffiti community has definitely been voiced to the city and MTQ. The TA Wall is an historical referent for local writers, years of painting have been put into this spot, it is a pillar when it comes to unofficial spots for painting. The comments and recent activity at the wall displays the outrage of writers to the buffing of this area and their resolve to fight for it. Keep posted, I'll be checking this spot as regularly as I can and keeping my ear to the rail for anything in the headlines.

I'll post my factory pics from the 21st soon.

Parallax Project - I Hate Girls - 2009

Parallax Project was supposed to be a loosely organized, shifting collection of musicians. That's what founding member Michael Giblin envisioned when he set out to create his first solo album, 2002's "Oblivious". But like Rocky and Post-It notes, where you're headed and where you end up are often two different things. In assembling a band to promote the album, he ended up with a crack live unit that drew upon a collective love of 60s Mod, 70's new wave, and Elvis (the skinny, mousy British one - see "Half" and "You & Me" on the new one for proof). Over the course of the next few years, the band honed its edge and flaunted its love of the Ray Davies songbook, the result of which was "Perpetual Limbo". Produced by Don Dixon, their third full length release (and Kool Kat debut) "I Hate Girls", now flaunts the fruits of Michael's time spent touring, hanging, and recording with The Plimsouls and Magic Christian! And Plimsouls-inspired it certainly is throughout - see songs like "All The Same" and "Coming Around" for proof! But there's also much more going on here. Imagine if Difford and Tillbrook of Squeeze got together with Ronnie Lane of the Faces to write a song - you'd probably wind up with "The Day After Tomorrow"! The crunchy guitar-lead "Waiting To Pull The Trigger" features some very cool Difford/Tillbrook-like dual lead vocals. In fact, one fan was overheard to say "It sounds like Difford and Tillbrook fronting the Smithereens!" The title track has some Faces swagger with some tasty Ian McLagan-like electric piano during the outro. All capped off with a very cool cover of Martha and The Vandella's "Needle In A Haystack"! Solid from start to finish!

Now Available at Kool Kat Musik

COMES WITH AN EXTREMELY KOOL, EXCLUSIVE 11-TRACK BONUS DISC - "SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY: COVERS FROM THE VAULT"! TRACK LISTING: "WATCH YOUR STEP" (FEATURING MAGIC CHRISTIAN) (Bobby Parker et al), "NEWS AT TEN" (The Vapors), "TELEPHONE LINE" (Electric Light Orchestra), "A WELL RESPECTED MAN" (The Kinks), "LIFE BEGINS AT THE HOP" (XTC), "ANNIE" (Pete Townshend/Ronnie Lane), "IT'S NOT TRUE" (FEATURING MAGIC CHRISTIAN) (The Who), "CINDY INCIDENTALLY" (The Faces), "CANDY SAYS" (Velvet Underground), "I'LL NEVER FALL IN LOVE AGAIN" (Burt Bacharach et al), AND "LIZA RADLEY" (The Jam)! GREAT!!!!

Wonkavision - Wonkavision - 2007

Wonkavision is an indie rock band with loads of moogs, power guitars and vocal harmonies a la 60s. Firstly inspired by the north-American band The Rentals, Wonkavision is mostly characterised by the contrast between the sweetness of their melodies and the sarcasm of their lyrics.
Their debut album Wonkainvasion was released in 2004 in Brazil, and won a national award for the best indie rock album that year. In 2007, Wonkavision signed with the Tokyo based label PowerPop Academy and released an English version of the same album in Japan.

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The Tubes - The Completion Backward Principle - 1981

The Completion Backward Principle was the first release on EMI/Capitol by San Francisco-based the Tubes. It found the outrageous septet working with producer David Foster, who gives the record a high-gloss sheen. It's a pairing that, while possibly surprising to fans of the band's earlier releases, actually works quite nicely. The ballads (the Top 40 hit "Don't Want to Wait Anymore" and the Toto-esque "Amnesia") don't suit the band, but most everything else does. There's a pair of catchy new wavish rockers in "Talk to Ya Later" and "Think About Me," the wacky "Sushi Girl," and the R&B-flavored "A Matter of Pride." The Completion Backward Principle rightfully earned the Tubes new fans and set the table for their commercial breakthrough, Outside/Inside, two years later.-AMG



The Tubes - The Completion Backward Principle - 1981/rs
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Teenage Frames - 1% Faster - 1999

Bearing the strongest resemblance to the mod-punk of the Jam, along with echoes of power-pop heroes past (especially the Who and the Replacements), the Teenage Frames' 1% Faster is perhaps a bit too punky to fit the rigid conventions of power-pop classicists, but it's energetically performed, and the best songs indicate a growing grasp of classic pop composition. -AMG



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