World Famous In San Francisco

This week the Nothing People are our myspace page of the week. I picked up their first seven inch, Problems, at a show sometime last year and then promptly forgot about it. I found it a few months ago and it rules. I've seen some of that stuff compared to Chrome which I kinda hear, but it sounds more like Chrome if covered by Sonic Youth (which isn't a bad thing, I think SYs cover of Crime's Hotwire My Heart is fantastic). The other seven inches aren't as claustrophobic or alien and have more of a seventies avant rock feel to them (there's a Roxy Music cover on one of them).



Check their song "Army of Ideal" right here: http://www.myspace.com/nothingpeople

You can see them this Friday:

4/25 @ The Hemlock

Nothing People
Mayyors
Sic Alps
Crash Normal (all the way from France garage/psych/fall-esqe/weirdness)

EZ JEWCE is our myspace of the week. My friend Julia is in this and she never lets me know when they're playing because she's afraid of ending up in our esteemed publication. I would like to see them so I am going to have to get proactive by putting them on the blog before I see them. PLS TO BE ON GUESTLIST NOW? THX.



From what I understand EZ JEWCE was started as a pretext to wear costumes, drink, and name their band EZ JEWCE. It turns out they actually really enjoy making an extreme amount of cut up noise with their turntables. Sounds kinda like Wobbly to me even though I can't find evidence to corroborate that. I like inexplicable reference points. Check the video!



http://www.myspace.com/ezjewce

I've been missing the myspace of the week feature, so I'm bringing it back. This week its Nero's Day At Disneyland. Yes, I know I already gushed about this, but I'm bummed because I can't make the International Noise Conference this Thursday at 21 Grand (!!!) where he'll be performing. Somebody go for me please, you will enjoy it!



http://www.myspace.com/nerosdayatdisneyland

Our myspace of the week is Danyol, artist and member of carletta sue kay and woman of color, because this pretty much sums up my thoughts on IBR. And for finally giving Kenny Rogers the lesbian makeover he desperately needed.

So my band dad, Kelley Stoltz, has been pretty absent due to his successful career. He was on the home page of MySpace for, like, three days. That's crazy! He got like a billion plays obviously. If you watch TV you've probably heard his jam Birdies Singing on some commercial - I can't really remember what the ad was about even though I've seen it, like, five times. He's touring the world with his new record, CIRCULAR SOUNDS, that's out on Sub Pop Records. It's really good, DUH, so go buy it. Here is the video for his first single:

Kelley Stoltz - Your Reverie

Add to My Profile | More Videos
Directed by M. Moorton

Its so hard to remember that goth was supposed to be kinda fun, what with all these crusty hot topic goths on the street.



But it is supposed to be fun! So this week's myspace of the week is The Vaguelies! And these guys have brains, or at least they eat them.



http://www.myspace.com/thevaguelies

I spent my holiday weekend catching up with childhood friends in my hometown. My friend Jess (pictured on the moon) only wanted to talk about Facebook and how "it's the future dude." When Jess isn't selling condos or jumping on his three backyard trampolines, he's on Facebook tracking and stalking Santa Cruz college freshmen girls.

Our friend Marcus (holding the earth) is a geographer but surprisingly has adequate offline social skills, so he's hardly on MySpace. Jess had a hard time convincing Marcus and I (floating in space) that we should set up Facebook accounts. We lost our trust in Jess years ago when he was phishing porn sites and basically stealing anything and everything he could off the Internet. But guess what? This didn't sound so sleazy.

So we set up Facebook accounts. And yes, for friend-to-friend social networking, Facebook does seem better than MySpace. But Facebook hasn't figured out music, and doesn't seem to be friendly to musicians or artists. It's impossible set up a page for your music. It's also impossible to decorate your Facebook page or make anything look aesthetically interesting. You'd never see an Internet celebrity like Chris Crocker develop on Facebook. Everything is set to private and nothing is entirely public. My first impression of Facebook is that it favors the dull and uninterested.

Facebook feels a lot more mature than MySpace. If you poke around on it you'll discover it is polluted with coworkers, classmates and family members. My REI infused Tanzanian sister is on Facebook; and my "HUMANIST~ANIMIST" walking stick sporting santabear of a dad (below) is even on Facebook. Are you on Facebook?

I think I've figured out what woman I wanna be:


Getting a gun pointed in your face and being the only broad in a smelly old bail bonds office full of chauvinist pigs ain’t easy but when you’re raising two sad but wonderful kids on a single-mother’s salary you do whatcha gotta do to make a living. So began my life as a bail bondswoman, one of the first in the biz. From chasing drug warlords down in the Caribbean to schlepping through the hot thick jungles of Colombia in order to rescue my compadres, from rescuing a stripper and ending up locked in the back of a kidnapper’s Lincoln Continental to being attacked by toe-sucking pervert, I’ve done it all. And I did it all while trying to hold down the fort, keep my two kids out of trouble and keep an active sex life. Hey, I wasn’t always a grandmother and I may be 66 years old but I ain’t dead.

Laura Lanfield is too good to pass up... so to make up for a slow week, we're having two MySpace of the weeks!

I will take a joke band over a needlessly pretentious Arcade Fire ripoff any day. But I do find joke bands a bit annoying as the joke never has staying power. While I loved "Dick In a Box," I hate watching people reenact the joke in front of me. It was funny when Justin Timberlake did it, not you. People should come up with their own jokes!

Luckily we have The Cockless Suckers, San Francisco's newest joke band. They have some fun songs like "Stalker Exboyfriend." They look wholesome and they sound danceable. I sure hope they play live sometime soon. I'd go.

Sludgehammer! So, yet another band that added us out of the blue that is kinda rad! Two in one year, wow! It might be more lo-fi noise madness, but its done by a guy who does some severely bratty drag (check out the photos, especially that one of him in the bowie tee shirt). Its quirky, funny, catchy in its own way and somehow sludgehammer makes it feel totally necessary.

http://www.myspace.com/sludgehammer

Like the Twilight Zone, The Vortex Room is some kind of dimensional portal giving us a glimpse of the other side... conventiently located in SOMA and with seriously good drinks.

its kinda neat when a band randomly friends you on myspace and it turns out they're actually pretty alright. For that, forever is our myspace of the week!



http://www.myspace.com/foreverisnow

Tequila's MySpace
Hip hop artists are notorious for having MySpace pages that are WAY too pimped. "Pimped profiles" crash browsers, look stupid, and are generally very off putting. I wonder if anyone has ever told them that?

Tequila obviously isn't a web designer, but let's not hold that against her. She has an awesome song featuring Assassin called "Go Dumb Girl" that you should DEFINITELY check out. It's more classic than nostalgic - while sounding fresh, silly and mature all at the same time. Tequila is from the North Oakland area - and has been releasing material for at least ten years. Girl needs some success. Go dumb girl.

We really need to get back on the ball with this, but Thursday is still part of the week so its not too late!



Anyway, this week its super nice guy, the actually kinda world famous Safety Scissors. His last record for ~scape (the label run in part by minimalist glitch dub mastermind Pole) is full of cute electronic pop songs and despite that ended up being one of the more enjoyable records for me that year due to all of the psychedelic flourishes repeated headphone listening yielded. Neat!

http://www.myspace.com/safetyscissorsmusic

Phots by Aaron Miller, taken from cameraphonic.

Cryptacize is an awesome band. Their name suggests a mix between Jazzercize and the Crypt Keeper. I'm not sure what they sound like, so I'm not going to make anything up. I am also not attempting to write their wikipedia entry, but I would like to explain where they come from. If I get anything wrong you can bitch about it in the comments.

Chris Cohen and Nedelle Torrisi were in the Curtains together before Cryptacize. Before that, Chris was a member of Deerhoof. Nedelle is a solo artist and has an awesome new record on Tangram 7s called "The Locksmith Cometh." Before her most recent album, she put out an awesome one called "From the Lion's Mouth" on Kill Rock Stars. Nedelle and Chris, as their MySpace explains, met Michael Carreira by way of YouTube. They watched the video below of Michael playing the cowbell, and after they all met in-person, they decided to start Cryptacize. Charming isn't it?

333 recordings!



Originally putting out seven inch records in runs of 333 by the likes of Deerhoof, Crack: We Are Rock, and Curse of the Birthmark, Matt now puts out an excellent podcast for those of us with difficult listening tendencies.

logo moi

playing at Oakland's Stork Club with Greg Ashley and the Passionistas August 17th

From Chicago, the long defunct Happy Supply. Why pick a band that no longer exists as the MySpace Page of the WeeK? Because your band stinks, o.k., and Ian (who went on to be in the Pony's and the extremely awesome Submarine Races) put up some demo versions of songs never before available.

Enjoy!

happy supply

Dynasty Handbag!

http://www.myspace.com/dynastyhandbag

Omewenne.

Check out the songs/demos posted. Recorded in the mid-90's by Joe Goldring (Touched By A Janitor, Wade) featuring Michael Richard (Jack's Loss) Carolyn Engelman (Chamber Strings) and Tom Marzella (Hard Place, Mon Cousin Belge). The incomperable Omewenne does the impossible. She makes beautiful, intelligent music that was often described as Gothic. Gothic is not quite an appropriate label, her music has as much in common with classical and opera as it does with Nico and punk. Omewenne currently resides in the U.K. where she is composing her memorable, haunting compositions. This music just needs exposure, the kids out there love it. I witnessed it on tour with Omewenne opening for Rozz William's and Eva O's wonderfully demented Shadow Project. Thousands of gothic kids cheering in adoration with, as always when performing with Omewenne, all of the heavily art-damaged kids up front.

http://www.myspace.com/omewennesounds