PeaceT(b)lo(g)

Finally, we reached the middle of this short week, that is actually an end, a Friday, a beginning of another weekend.

Today we let ourselves sway by some soft music, thanks to Akron/Family.

This US band play some rock, mixed and melt into some folk soft delicate sound. The members of this trio —Dana Janssen, Seth Olinsky, and Miles Seaton—can be relegated to loosely defined roles (drummer, vocalist/guitarist, and bassist, respectively), all of them in fact play several instruments and sing, as evidenced by their shows and recorded material: Live, the band uses improvisation, imagination, creativity and a drop of love for the music.

You can see how much imagination they have if you consider that, on their self-titled debut record, several noises like a creaking chair, thunderclaps and the white noise of a television run in the background in the middle of more normal instruments, like guitars and drums.

Today we listen to the title track of their last recently released record, “Love is simple”:

Sit down, relax and enjoy it.

Domenico

Second day of this week, second POST. More and more taken from the robot-electric mixer-spin-dryer I got for my B-Day, I’m becoming more health addicted!

Today I’ll be quick and dirty in presenting a band that has maybe been very underestimated, The Fun Lovin Criminals.

The FLC are an American band from NY City and if you read the definition given on the web, they are “an alternative rap / alternative rock group”… well, don’t know how much this matches with them, but I think they are more than that, playing music and mixing hip hop, rock, blues and jazz.

Their songs talk about organized crime, drugs, violence, poverty and politics, always presented with a touch of satirical approach. Incidentally, I think the singer looks like Mike Patton!

Here we come with their best known hit, “Scooby Snacks”, which I found it features samples from films by Quentin Tarantino:

This is for Roberto from Turin, that I’ll meet soon.

Domenico

Hi there,

I’m still happy from the party and I wish you’re happy too. It was very good and perhaps better than the previous years’ ones. Here we go again with the BLOG till the end of this very very short working week, cos’ I’ll be going to Geneva on next Wed.

Today we he an old Italian band, the Negrita.

This band comes from Arezzo, and they take their name from a Rolling Stone’s song, “Hey Negrita”. You can easily imagine we are talking about a rock band. Listening to some of their songs, especially the ones in the beginning of their career, I’m tempted to say they tried to be the Italian answer to Red Hot Chili Peppers…

They had several collaboration with other rock bands in the ‘90, like Ligabue and similar, but I also found they made something with Adriano Celentano and his shows and worked on movies soundtracks too.

Here we go with the first song I heard from them, “Cambio”, it was long time ago and hearing it again I find it still rocks:

Domenico

Finally it’s Friday and maybe this is one of the few ones where I won’t post anything disco-oriented because, as for the ones who followed the whole week that for the other ones who just logged on, this is (was) the week dedicated to the Dischord Records music label.

To conclude this great indie-musical-experience, we have the last band in town having the honor of including Mr. Ian MacKaye… The Evens.

This duo is formed by the abovementioned ex-TeenIdles-ex-MinorThreat-ex-Fugazi at the bass-guitar and Ami Farina on drums. The Evens are known for their unusual choices in venues for performances and the stylistic change from what many have dubbed the “D.C.” or “Dischord” sound. Reading around I found that the Washington Post has described the sound made up by this band as “what happens when post-hardcore becomes post-post-hardcore!”

They have recently released the second CD “Get Evens”, while I have a copy of the first one “12 Songs”, for you to borrow, if you want. Today we listen to their song “If it’s water!”, from a live session in Chicago:

Enjoy the weekend and see you Viennese at tomorrow’s party.

Domenico

just two days and then the party! Actually, I’m not spending the time I should in organizing the music and the rest… that means I’ll spend more time in these business on a last minute run.

By the way, today we have another good indie band, Q And Not U.

Q and Not U has been around from 1998 till three years ago, when in September 2005, after completing their touring commitments and a short farewell event in their hometown (guess which) Washington, D.C., they split.

As for Fugazi, they are considered a post-hardcore band but also a “dance-punk” one (such a weird definition, indeed). As part of the Dischord record catalogue, (otherwise they wouldn’t be present on this week’s POST), I discovered this band when I bought the Three-CD compilation for the 20 years of the mentioned label and they did result as my favorite ones within a selection of 76 songs from more or less the same number of different artists.

Today we listen to their live exhibition of the song “Soft Pyramids”:

Enjoy it, as I did. Domenico

and here we go with the band who initiated all this! The band whose component created the Dischord records! The band who came from the ashes of the Minor Threat (actually a symbol for the punk scene of ‘77)! Here we have the Fugazi.

This band is from DC as for almost all the other ones under the label and, as I said, Ian MacKaye (with Jeff Nelson, together with the Minor Threat and the Teen Idles) is one of the founders of the Dischord label itself. The other important members of Fugazi (the name comes from the acronym “Fucked Up, Got Ambushed, Zipped In”) are Guy Picciotto (guitar and voice with MacKaye), bassist Joe Lally and drummer Brendan Canty. Noted for their ethical stance and manner of business practice, the band experienced commercial success during the 1990s while remaining always independent from the majors.

Unfortunately, the band is on hiatus since 2002, when they released the gorgeous CD “The Argument”, but MacKaye continues his musical career with the parallel project “The Evens”.

Who did I know the Fugazi for the first time. I should thank my old friend Massimo Cipolla, who told me once: “You never heard anything from Fugazi?” and after feeling like the last one who knows something of some underground musical scene I replied with “No, but how their music sound like?” and he concluded the dialog with “well, actually like nothing you can describe with one genre”. Now I can say that they have been somehow catalogued as post-hardcore (maybe for the Minor Threat influence… even if it depends on which phase of their musical career we refer to) or somehow as emo-core (in this case they should be the one and only band who deserve this tag).

To me, they were and still are a continuous surprise, every time that I listen to CDs like “End hits”.

Today we listen one of the rare videos I found from the web (of course they never made any commercial video for their songs) and it refers to a live session from 1991 of the song “Turnover”:

Enjoy the song and the day.

Domenico

Just as a remark of the two statements I made yesterday:

1 – This Saturday there is THE party and I hope all of you in Vienna will join

2 – This is the week I dedicate to (some of) the artists under the Dischord Records.

Today it’s the time for The Medications.

This band is born from the ashes of yesterday’s band (the Faraquet), because two of the three components (Chad Molder and Devin Ocampo) are the same for both bands… meaning that only the drums changed.

You will realize almost the same sound as for yesterday and this time you’ll have also the chance of listening to some words for today’s song (not so understandable because of the live performance). They released a first EP and a full CD (Your Favorite People All In One Place) since 2004 and they’re still alive. Actually other two incredible bands related to Ocampo and Molder (these two guys will never stop to impress me!) are “Smart Went Crazy” and “Beauty Pill” and I got the CDs shipped from Dischord in case you want them, for they’re absolutely great!

So, let’s come to today’s song, “Domestic Animals”, taken from the first EP “5 Songs” and, of course, with not a commercial video associated to it but a live performance:

Domenico

Hello my dear friends,

in preparation to the musical party that will occur on the next Saturday the 26th April, where I’m going to play some indie rock music, I thought what’s better for this week than to talk about some bands from maybe the greatest independent music label, the Dischord records. This label comes from Washington DC and it has been built by one of the grandest bands, the Fugazi.

The first band we are going to share together is the Faraquet.

The first time I got the first and only CD this band has released, “The view from this tower”, it was from my friend Giovanni, that got it from his friend Marco Stangherlin and after a first listening, I found it great. It sounds like a continuous music jam, where the three components of the band seem to play without schema, with a sound very clean and articulate, full of several changes of rhythm and beats, someone call it “math rock”… but I think it’s even more than that.

I think I listened to this CD so many times that I almost worn! Actually it was so hard to find in CD stores that I bought it over the web, from the Dischord itself and got delivered in Naples, together with a copy of the first two EPs, but unfortunately, they were only LPs and I never listened to them. Unfortunately the band split on 2001 (they lasted only 4 years) but I read they recently re-united in Brazil and DC for a short tour.

As for almost all the bands under the Dischord records, they never released official videos for any of their songs, so we can only listen to live show. The one we share today is not even a song of their album but a long improvisation that gives you the feeling of their sound:

If you want I can lend you the CD and I swear it’s worth to listen to it. Promise.

Domenico