Review: The Riot Before - Fists Buried In Pockets

I have a huge number of albums sitting on my computer, just waiting to be reviewed here for my beloved readers. A huge number. And I'm going to try to do all of them, in some semblance of chronological order. Most of them will be from last year and eventually we'll get to this year and we'll be all up to date and awesome. Today's offering will be the only album from all the way back in 2008.

I've talked about Richmond, Va's The Riot Before on the blog before, back in march. At the time I referred to them as "straight ahead, no-frills, punk rock." I've listened to a lot more since then and good lord was I wrong and my god did I undersell this band. TRB if you're out there, I'm so sorry I doubted you.
There's a huge amount going on in this album. To abuse a cliche, this isn't your daddy's punk rock band. The lyrics are subtle and articulate and the subject matters vary from the staunchly political 5 To 9 to the practically acapella, shouted love song that is I have My Books. Words Written Over Coffee even has harmonica and as tempting as is it to make a 'Gaslight Anthem watch your back' joke, I don't think there's a reason to sully this.
For those of you reading this and thinking "But Keegan, I'm a punk, I don't like acapella or Harmonica, is there something on this album for me?" Don't get your studded belt in a knot, the answer is a resounding yes. The bizarrely named They Rode On In The Friscalating Dusklight should provide your daily value of whoas while the "single" off the album We Are Wild Stallions is all the fist-in-the-air singalong anthem you could ever hope for, especially in its big final build. Rest assured that they'll get away with this.
In a final strange note this is the second album that I've really fallen in love with that has the intros to certain songs on the ends of the songs before them (the first was Lemuria's last full length, reviewed here). TRB does it best on Fists with the end of 5 To 9 which transitions into You Can't Sexy Dance To Punk Rock. Listened to back to back the first song ends, and then a kickin' drum intro starts, they throw in a little guitar feedback, and finally there's an equally kickin' pick slide (aren't they all?) and then the second song begins right at the verse. However, if you listen to Sexy Dance by itself, it just comes in at the verse and sounds all kinds of bad ass and awesome. Don't be surprised though, this is a bad ass and awesome album by a bad ass and awesome band. A band that maybe could play a show in the Worcester/Boston area soon??? Huh?

I'm going to post the video from the old post again, because you can never watch it too many times. Also I'm posting You Can't Sexy Dance To Punk Rock so you can all hear how awesome it sounds by itself. To hear how great it sounds with the intro, you're just gonna have to buy the album. Which you should probably do anyway.

The Riot Before - "We Are Wild Stallions!" from Dave O'Dell on Vimeo.

The Riot Before - You Can't Sexy Dance To Punk Rock

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The Riot Before

Review: The Lawrence Arms - Buttsweat and Tears Ep

A big challenge for most bands when recording the follow-up to a successful album is what direction to go. Follow the formula to carefully and they'll be accused of simply rewriting the same album, divert too drastically and they risk alienating their fans. Chicago, Il's The Lawrence Arms had a tough act to follow after 2006's Oh Calcutta!, widely agreed to be the strongest to date in a catalog of strong releases (it kicks ass). Now, after several years and a couple of great side projects, the ramblin' boys of pleasure are back with the Buttsweat and Tears Ep and my biggest criticism is that they've stood pat. The five songs on this disc could easily have been five that didn't make it onto Calcutta. That said, they are pretty great songs, everything I look for from a Larry Arms song: ragged vocals, quirky lyrics, and awesome grimey broke-ass punk rock. I had kind of hoped that guitarist Chris McCaughan would bring back a little bit of his solo acoustic effort Sundowner to influence this release, but the only track that can be called mellow is the last "The Redness in the West" which is typical of the slower songs on LA's releases. For me the stand out tracks are "The Slowest Drink in the Saddest Bar on the Snowiest Day in the Greatest City" (or something like that, christ is it a mouthful) which sounds a bit like "Are You There Margaret? It's Me God" which is about as high as praise gets, and the song "Demons" which wikipedia informs me did not make the cut for the physical 7". So umm. that sucks, but hey, wouldn't you know it, that was the song I was going to post anyway. So everyone wins. Except me. You know if I get sued. Please don't sue me Lawrence Arms. I bought Oh Calcutta on vinyl. That has to count for something. So I guess the moral here is, it's ok not to go too far out of the box, as long as the box was already pretty sweet.

The Lawrence Arms - Demons

Financial Support Goes Here (and honestly, this is worth it)

Lawrence Arms

Spring Break Video Goodness

Saw Britney's Spear last night on their Topless Spring Break Tour. They acquitted themselves quite well in front of a face breaking crowd. It's always fun to see Alan get naked in front of people who aren't prepared for it. It was a weird bill, all the other bands were seriously hardcore. The best of the rest was probably the two bands from New York. Crown of Lions from Plattsburgh, who I thought were going to be really bro-y sort of hardcore guys but then I talked to a couple of them and they were super nice, played seriously brutal music. And then from the city of New York itself was Turn It Up who seemed like they had a lot more going on melodically then the P.A. gave them credit for. They are apparently recording right now so I look forward to hearing what they sound like on record. They were also really nice guys and one of them had an awesome Lemuria shirt (that's right, it's always a good time to bring Lemuria up).

In addition to that show-recap (I don't think it was long enough to be a review) I have some video goodness I have found in my travels of the web (it was mostly punknews). First off is the Dropkick Murphys playing Shipping Up To Boston live, joined on stage by Dickie Barret and the rest of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones who fit into the song pretty well.


Next up is a great video combining two bands I really love, The Who and The Gaslight Anthem. The only thing that would top that would be Cursive covering Shield Your Eyes (Tim if you're out there, think about it maybe????). Here it is, Gaslight covering Baba O'Riley:


Finally, I couldn't find a way to embed it but here is a link to video of Jacoby Ellsbury doing his thing, i.e. being crazy athletic. Have a fantastic day.

Dropkick Murphys - I'm Shipping Up To Boston

Gaslight Anthem - The Backseat (Acoustic)

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Dropkick Murphys
Gaslight Anthem

Altruism Irish Punk Style

Shane McGowan formerly of the Pogues has done a charity single to benefit Haitian relief. Suffice it to say this isn't "We Are The World." The official copy runs thus:

Released on March 8th 2010
Please pre-order the single by clicking here - http://bit.ly/bj2ieH. Or text SPELL (all in capitals) to 78789 (the text costs £1.50).

So moved by the plight of the people of Haiti, Shane and his long term girlfriend, writer Victoria Clarke made calls to friends and associates from which began the process of recording a track from which ALL proceeds go to Concern, a charity who have provided assistance to some of the poorest countries in the world including Haiti, even before the earthquake struck. Some of the stars on the record include - Nick Cave / Bobby Gillespie / Glen Matlock / Johnny Depp / Chrissie Hynde / Paloma Faith / Eliza Doolittle.

I Put A Spell On You - Screamin Jay Hawkins

I Put A Spell On You - Bette Midler

I Put A Spell On You - Creedence Clearwater Revival

Financial Support Goes Here (though maybe don't download those, just give a listen and move on. Seriously I don't want to get sued.)

Screamin Jay Hawkins
Bette Midler
CCR

P.S. If you are reading this and for some reason have the rights to any of this music I have three things to say to you:
1-Welcome to my blog
2-Let's all remember that this is for a good cause
3- If you really object to this being here, there's no reason to get all litigious, just let me know and we'll have those songs pulled down in a jiffy. No on needs to know you'd rather the people Haiti starve to death than someone get their filthy paws on one of your songs with out paying. Not that I advocate that of course.

Review: Lemuria - Ozzy 7"

Let's get this out of the way right from the outset, I love Lemuria. I thought Get Better was one of the best complete albums I'd heard in a while. All this means that new Lemuria music = excited Keegan. That said, the Ozzy 7" had some big shoes to fill which I thought it took an admirable stab at. The record has two songs; Ozzy by the guitarist Sheena Ozzella and Expert Herder by the drummer Alex Kearns. Kearns wrote a majority of the songs on Get Better and he was certainly responsible for my favorites, but on the Ozzy single, it is Ozzella's title track that shines lyrically. Musically a little slow, lyrically it is a single repeated verse of the sort of poignant, understated vignettes I loved on Get Better. There's an element of the Weakerthans in this song, though I would guess that Ozzella is a dog-person to Samson's cats. Kern's contribution, though the more up-tempo and interesting musically, loses me somewhat lyrically. What exactly is an expert herder? Perhaps if I knew, I would find that this song is just as meaningful and awesome as I expected it to be. Alex Kearns: if you're out there, please feel free to drop me a line and elaborate on the meaning of this song. Or even just shoot the breeze, that'd be cool too. Ahem. Where was I? Oh yes, the Ozzy 7" is a perfect way to maintain that Get Better high you've had going and to keep you from going into withdrawal while you wait for another full length. Oh P.S. I'm not going to post a song from the single because that would be half the record, so instead I'm posting my favorite track from The First Collection, an older Lemuria record.

Lemuria - In A World of Ghosts....

Financial Support Goes Here aka BUY EVERYTHING THEY'VE EVER DONE!

Lemuria

TRUCK DAY

Happy Truck Day everyone. For those of you who don't know, today marks the beginning of the beginning of another glorious heart-wrenching Red Sox season. Will fortune take us soaring into a triumphant post season, like Jacoby Ellsbury scoring from second on a passed ball, or will it kick us in the proverbial pills where we, like Adrian Beltre, do not wear protection? Only time will tell, but one thing is for sure: in the words of Dustin Pedroia

"That used to be a putting green, but we took that sh*t out cause I don't play golf."

A Little Random To Get Things Started

UPDATE II: The problem mentioned below should now be fixed thanks to Greg.
UPDATE: Before you do anything, scroll down and pause the stupid video at the bottom. I don't know how to fix the fact that it starts automatically and it annoys the hell out of me.
I have a serious back log of albums which I'm listening to right now and I'm hoping to write reviews of the more recent releases, so I thought I'd do a little opening salvo to get myself into the swing of things.

First of all, I feel like I can tentatively say that my Bruins have turned a bit of corner. After going into an absolute tailspin of a 10-game losing streak they've put up two consecutive Ws with a decisive shut out of the hated Canadiens which they followed with a shoot-out win against Buffalo. If the B's can reel off a thrid win tonight against the upwardly mobile Tampa Bay Lightning, it will both legitimize this turn for the better, and put them back into playoff contention. Weirdly enough the rising star through all this has been the young goaltender Tukka Rask. Rask, if you'll recall, was one of my four young Bruins to watch back at the start of the season. This does raise some questions about how wise the contract extension given to Tim Thomas last year was, and perhaps this has fueled the "Tim Thomas' ass is grass" trade rumors that have leaked out lately. I like Thomas, and I wouldn't want to see him traded because as bad as it is for a player to have an off year right after the big contract, I would really miss moments like this:



For those of you who have been biding your time until I stop talking hockey, I'm done now. I have a couple of musical items to round out the program, the first of which is the band The Demonstration who have posted a pretty bizarre Lady Gaga cover on their myspace. You'll probably find it amusing if you like Lady Gaga and also if you really don't. Also, they're from North Carolina so that's pretty cool. Not like metalcore bands from the south are anything new, but I'd hate to miss a chance to rep NC.

And finally, a video from a band that will always have a soft spot in my heart going back to the truly awesome first Rock Against Bush comp: Strike Anywhere. Look beyond the hair on the singer and the weird spots of dead air in the video and this is SA doing what they do best, play vaguely political and inspiring hardcore punk and accompany it with vaguely political and inspiring videos. Enjoy and stay tuned for some serious reveiwage. Also made-up words.