Warehouse Next Door

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WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 14
 
 SWORD HEAVEN
 RL STEIN
 TRIANGLE & RHINO
 PLAIN LACE (Mike from Navies)
 
 Warehouse Next Door
 1017 7th St NW
 $6, 9pm
 
 
 SWORD HEAVEN
 Hailing from Columbus, OH, the mighty Sword Heaven channel some serious visions for a new world disorder. Panic-ridden throat scrapings through delay boxes and primal percussion lay at the root of a vicious live show that have left many scared and have earned these boys a well-deserved reputation among Midwest noise mongrels. "The lost
 dreams of the kids pictured missing on the sides of milk cartons. Broken, perhaps angry, and often misdirected communication skills lurch and spit along a path of sour milk and barbed wire. If you've ever cut yourself while shaving any part of your body, these gents -- a single-gender Three's Company but without the sexual innuendo or Crass
 stencil typeface -- have probably done as good a job as anyone at encapsulating that feeling through sound. Oh yes, and according to Inuit legend, "they friggin' RAWK." (Crippled Intellect). They've released records on Chondritic Sound and Gameboy, including a hottttt split LP with sister group 16 Bitch Pile Up.
 
 RL STEIN
 On tour with Sword Heaven, RL Stein is a Philadelphia-oriented free noise group that features Matt Rademan (aka Newton) and Rat Bastard
 (Laundry Room Squelchers, To Live and Shave in LA, that drunk guy at this year's Noise Against Fascism). Sizzling feedback and chaos from people that probably have crushing minimum-wage day jobs.  Also authored the "Goosebumps" series horror novels for children.
 
 TRIANGLE & RHINO
 Pittsburgh guitar and drums duo playing their part in the AmRep renaissance. As sloppily inappropriate as corn rows on a white dude but technically proficient as in they probably have downloaded tabs for Maiden and Priest.
 
 PLAIN LACE
 First solo show for Mike of the DC Navies Nation.  Loopings and guitar. Might sit down and play.

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Thursday, September 15
 $7, all ages
 doors at 8:30, show at 9
 
 Octis (Mick Barr of Orthrelm solo!, on Troubleman)
 The Mass (SF heavy prog/math/skronk-core, Crucial Blast)
 So I Had To Shoot Him (SF prog/grind-pop?!?, Crucial Blast)
 Child Abuse (NYC noise rock)
 
 Octis
  http://www.millionraces.com/orthrelm.htm
 
 OCTIS is Mick Barr from ORTHRELM's solo endeavor. Mick has been called one of the greatest guitarists in the underground, if not world/universe. This particular release finds Mick playing solo over programmed drum machine blast beats. The results are simply incredible. Is it thrash? Is it jazz? Is it metal? Is it "avant"? Who cares? What we DO know is that this shit is the future!
 
 Fretboard brainiac Mick Barr (of Orthrelm, Crom-Tech, and Quix*o*tic) is back with a new album from his solo manifestation Octis (and is also now living here in San Francisco, playing in the Flying Luttenbachers). Ocrilim is one 33-minute track of squiggly quasi-metallic guitar and drum machine. Electro-shock therapy too expensive? Try this! A tinny drone jabbed and jarred with manic outbursts of hyper spazz guitar, with which the drum machine can barely keep up. It's, in a word, maddening. And of course we love it. (Aquarius Records)
 
 The Mass
  http://www.themass.us
 
 The 2nd album from Oakland, California's THE MASS, Perfect Picture of Wisdom and Boldness, further refines the band's unique brand of malevolent indie-thrash, oozing a crawling heaviness not apparent on earlier releases. Crushing, epic, and melodic...moving beyond the hyperkinetic seizures of City Of Dis, here THE MASS whip out blazing, staccato riffs and multifaceted vocal attacks that knife through complex structures and sludgy, epic elegies, as wicked saxophone melodies interweave with angular crunch and creepy nocturnal post-rock. Like a stuttering, bat-winged Bay Area thrash metal outfit arming itself with Louisville/Chicago schooled math-thug asymmetry, pounding dirge-core, and fierce, evocative jazz flourishes while lobbing some whopping bonged-out grooves, THE MASS continues to evolve its cryptic heaviosity.
 
 So I Had To Shoot Him
  http://www.soihadtoshoothim.com/
 
 Formerly a fire-breathing, art-damaged power-violence outfit from New Jersey that released a handful of EPs, split 7"s, and compilation tracks in the mid-1990s, SO I HAD TO SHOOT HIM has spent the past couple of years reconfiguring itself into a noisy, surreal, utterly catchy grind-pop seizure that has culminated in their debut full-length, Alpha Males And Popular Girls for Crucial Blast Records. Here, sweeping melodic beauty peeks through cyclones of gasoline-soaked no-wave/grind skronk as steroid rock riffs, warped go-go beats, and malformed metalcore riots are inflamed by singer Contessa Von Bismarck's sublimely sassy vocals. Alpha Males And Popular Girls is a genre-torching maelstrom of crushing riffage and ferocious blastbeats, melodic dirge bliss, some absolutely spazztoid axe shred, and gorgeous sugar-coated pop that will gum up your grey matter. Truly mutant blast-pop!

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TONIGHT!
 
 302 Acid (DC instrumental ambient psych/dub)
 Gel-Sol (back from Seattle!)
 Escape By Ostrich (current and former members of Mofungo, Tono-Bungay, Fire in the Kitchen, The Scene Is Now, Fish & Roses, and anti:clockwise)
 
 $7, all ages, doors at 9

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More Japanese experimental/psych/noise/whatever at the Warehouse tomorrow!
 
 Tuesday, September 20
 $7, all ages
 doors at 8:30, show at 9
 
 Nissenenmondai (Japanese all-girl no-wave/psych trio)
 WZT Hearts (electro-acoustic improv noise from Baltimore)
 Facemat (DC improv noise)
 Carbonic (solo folk/psych from Rochester)
 
 Nisennenmondai
 http://www.nisennenmondai.com
 
 "Who: Himeno (drums), Takada (guitar), Zaikawa (bass). Why: They upstaged the mighty Anadorei at a recent event, and Melt-Banana are on their next guest list. In Japan's underground �??noise�?? scene everyone is talking about a new band called Nisennenmondai (Year 2000 Computer-Bug Problem). As they sound like the end of the world, this isn't surprising. The blitzkrieg starts with Takada issuing three deafening shrieks like a pterodactyl with a tummyache, but it's Himeno who leads the sonic assault with an apocalyptic barrage of jungle-punk percussion. It's so intense that the vocal-less 25-minute set often ends with Himeno wiping away tears. �??They're not tears - I'm wiping sweat from my eyes. Honest,�?? she says, a little embarrassed.�?� These gals tore it up in Chicago at the Million Tongues Festival last year, and Nisennenmondai's second mini-album finds them running along in a similar vein to their debut, Sorede Sozosuru Neji, with Sayaka Himeno's always impressive drumming and occasional over-use of the crash cymbal providing each of the tracks with their primary impetus. Track three is actually a different recording of track five off Sorede... with the addition of some vocal overdubs, which is to say that it's brilliant and a pleasure to make its acquaintance again, but while this is all undoubtedly good stuff, I can't help feeling that there's a whole lot more they should be doing in the studio, and that given a bit more ambition, a MicroKorg, a decent producer -- say, Eno circa 1977 -- and something more than the sub-lo-fi recording quality on show here, they could be producing Japan's very own Loveless or something." (Ian Martin)
 
 "There's no tracklisting on this mini-album; the five tracks blend together into a twenty-six minute, multi-movement noise symphony. Starting out with a clatter of drums, raining fiery death from all sides, it moves into a tighter, more menacing, bass-driven segment, punctuated by increasingly frantic bursts of screeching guitar feedback and drunken bumblebee soloing. Part three is a short burst of stop-start Boredoms noise, before the spectre of Neu! makes its appearance felt in the drumming. The bass just hammers away endlessly on one note, while the thin, metallic guitar takes the track by the scruff of the neck, spluttering in and out according to a rhythm of its own. The final, and best, part takes the best elements of the rest of the album; the frenetic drumming, the brooding bass, the explosive guitar; and takes the whole track as close to spacerock as three Japanese girls recording in a shoebox can be reasonably expected to go." (Ian Martin)
 
 WZT Hearts
 
 Jason Urick on Wzt Hearts' mission: "The music can sound like everything you've heard before -- or nothing. Each night we play, none of us are sure of what it will sound like. In the eight months of playing together in this form, there has never been any talk between band members about the actual music other than the occasional 'Let's start slow tonight.'"
 Jeff Donaldson: guitar and mixing board
 Jason Urick: laptop
 Shaun Flynn: drums and vocals.

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Wednesday, September 21
 $6, all ages
 doors at 8:30, show at 9
 
 Michael Bullock/Vic Rawlings/Mazen Kerbaj Trio (avant-improv bass/cello/electronics/trumpet from Boston and Lebanon)
 The Cutest Puppy In The World (DC improv)
 Insect Factory (microscopic ambient guitar drone from DC)
 
 Boston's Vic Rawlings/Mike Bullock electronics/string duo will be joined by Lebanese trumpet player Mazen Kerbaj. The Vic Rawlings/Mike Bullock duo combine classical string instruments and meta-musical electronics in ways that bring out the rawest parts of each. Vic Rawlings plays amplified cello and a rack of electronics he built out of exposed circuit boards and stripped speaker cones. Mike Bullock plays amplified contrabass and a tone generator originally made for scientists. The result is an unbelievably stark sound world utterly alienated from the glib fluidity usually associated with bowed strings.
 
 MICHAEL BULLOCK (contrabass, Boston)
  http://www.mikebullock.com
 Free improvisor Michael Bullock has played bass in eight countries, on a dozen records, and in a variety of bands, touring extensively both solo and as part of various ensembles. He has also played with well-known improvisors Eddie Prévost, Lê Quan Ninh, and Peter Kowald, in addition to working with numerous members of Boston's improvised music community. Two of his current obsessions include IIbasSpit, an electro-acoustic trio with Tucker Dulin (trombone) and Seth Cluett (bass, voice) which is planning a CD release this year; and an ongoing curiosity with acoustic feedback. Bullock has released recordings on such diverse labels as Emanem, Rounder, and Naxos.
 
 VIC RAWLINGS (cello/electronics, Boston)
 Vic Rawlings (prepared/amplified cello, circuitry) is active as an improviser and instrument builder. His performances focus on the metamusical potential of unstable sounds and silences. He has developed instruments that are specific to this compositional aesthetic. As an instrument builder he specializes in modifications of existing instruments and has developed extensive cello preparations. He also continually
 develops an electronic instrument from extant exposed circuitry, producing, in effect, a modular analog synthesizer with a highly unstable interface. This electronic instrument is paired with a flexible array of exposed speaker elements, chosen for their often unpredictable and idiosyncratic acoustic qualities.
 
 He performs as a soloist and as a member of undr quartet, The BSC, and in duo and trio ensembles with Michael Bullock, Greg Kelley, Bhob Rainey, Sean Meehan, Jason Lescalleet, James Coleman, Liz Tonne, Tatsuya Nakatani, and Howard Stelzer, among others. Collaborators have included such diverse musicians as Eddie Prevost (AMM), Donald Miller (Borbetomagus), Daniel Carter (Other Dimensions in Music), Laurence Cook, Jaap Blonk, Masashi Harada, and Stephen Drury.
 
 He appears on the following record labels: Grob, Sedimental, Emanem, Boxmedia, Chloe, Absurd, and Rykodisc. He has performed as a soloist/composer with Nicola Hawkins Dance Company and has composed scores for films by Alla Kovgan and Jeff Silva. He has toured in the US and France.
 
 MAZEN KERBAJ (trumpet, Beirut Lebanon)
 http://www.kerbaj.com
 Mazen Kerbaj was born in 1975 in Beirut and lived there since. His main activities are comics, painting, and music. After a lot of works for different publishers and magazines, it is in March 2000 that he releases some of his more personal works in his Journal 1999 (a diary in comics' format). He self-published eight other books and many short stories since.
 
 It is also in 2000 that he plays for the first time in concert, in the Strike's pub in Beirut. This concert, a duo with Lebanese sax player Christine Sehnaoui, is probably the first improvised music concert in the Middle East.
 In 2001, together with guitarist Sharif Sehnaoui, he creates the MILL association that curates since IRTIJAL an annual international festival for free music in Beirut as well as various concerts and events (IRTIJAL saw over the years some great improvisers like Fred Van Hove, Johannes Bauer, Lê Quan Ninh, and Franz Hautzinger).
 
 In August 2002, together with Sharif Sehnaoui and double bass player Raed Yassine he recorded the album A published by La CD-Thèque, Beirut.
 After meeting Franz Hautzinger by chance in Lebanon in February 2003, they played in a duo in Beirut and in Paris and in a trio with Japanese laptop player Taku Unami at the IRTIJAL 2003 festival. Then they were joined by Sharif Sehnaoui and Helge Hinteregger to form Oriental Space quartet that played in Nickelsdorf, Berlin, Vienna, and Klagenfurt. A recording of this group is avilable on the Austrian label aRtonal, and Abu Tarek, a recording of the duo Hautzinger/Kerbaj is available on the Portugese label Creative Sources.
 
 In 2005, Kerbaj releases two new albums on the Lebanese newly-born label Al Maslakh (The Slaughterhouse), one in solo and the other with Rouba3i quartet.
 
 Between 2000 and 2005, Mazen Kerbaj played in solo and various groups in a lot of venues in Lebanon, Damascus, Paris, Bordeaux, Vienna, Berlin, New York, Chicago, Boston and Philadelphia.
 Regular and occasional partners includes: Sharif Sehnaoui, Christine Sehnaoui, Raed Yassine, Charbel Haber, Jad Balaben, Jassem Hindi, Franz Hautzinger, Helge Hinteregger, Lê Quan Ninh, Bertrand Denzler, Stéphane Rives, Edward Perraud, Taku Unami, Guillermo Gregorio, Gene Coleman, Toshimaru Nakamura, Michael Zerang, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Jim Baker, Jack Wright, Mike Bullock, and Vic Rawlings.
 
 The Cutest Puppy in the World
  http://www.myspace.com/thecutestpuppyintheworld
 
 DC-area avant-improv informed by out-jazz, psychedelia, and noise, influenced by Sun Ra, No Neck Blues Band, Animal Collective, Acid Mothers Temple, John Zorn, etc.
 
 Insect Factory
  http://www.myspace.com/insectfactory
 
 Solo microscopic ambient guitar drone infleunced and inspired by the likes of Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Fripp/Eno, John Fahey, and Coltrane. Hypnotic layers of drone textures.

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Shoegaze assault at the Warehouse! Airiel remind me of a cross between Kitchens of Distinction and Ride.
 
 Thursday, September 22
 $7, all ages
 doors at 8:30, show at 9:30
 
 Alcian Blue (DC)
 Airiel (Chicago)
 Hartfield (Japan, Clairecords)
 
 Alcian Blue
 http://www.alcianblue.net
 http://myspace.com/alcianblue/
 
 Alcian Blue create noisepop like only the Reid Brothers could make on Psychocandy...Alcian Blue's music is layered with fuzz and feedback. Though immediately catchy, listeners can expect to always find something else buried under the chaos waiting to scratch the surface. With pounding rhythms and swirling guitars and synths, vocals of murder, suicide, and ghosts wash in and out of the maelstrom. The claustrophobic atmosphere they create makes one wonder whether they are playing rock and roll or trying to conjure up demons. Either way, one listen and you�??ll be itching to hear more while simultaneously ruining the speakers of your stereo system.
 
 Airiel
 http://www.airiel.com
 
 "Masterpieces of swirling guitar the likes of which have not been seen since Kitchens of Distinction called it a day...blistering waves of gorgeous guitars, kinetic drum beats, and soaring vocal harmonies."
 
 Airiel is rapidly becoming one of Chicago's best-kept secrets. Formed in '97 by Jeremy Wrenn, initially a solo project supported by various drum machines, Airiel is now a solid 4-piece determined to be heard. The addition of guitarist Zeeshan Abbasi, bassist/vocalist Cory Osborne, and drummer John Rungger have taken the prior format of warm-as-a-blanket guitar soundscapes and injected a post/pop-rock energy and verve that heralds the coming of a new shoegaze archetype. Many bands try to emulate the sounds of My Bloody Valentine, Jesus and Mary Chain, The Verve, Slowdive, and others, but Airiel build off the foundation of their influences, seeking to push the genre forward. A strident combination of reverb, distortion, and sweat, they are advancing the art of sheer sonic energy while utilizing the power of a good melody to provide a basis for the effects, never forgetting the innate human desire to shake one's ass. In short, it's loud, it's beautiful, and you can dance to it.
 
 Hartfield
 http://www.hartfieldweb.com
 
 Dreamy melodies...comfortable, noisy guitars...breathy male/female vocals.
 
 "Some time ago, an incredible compilation came out of Japan (featuring a number of Japanese, American, and other international shoegaze bands) that floored the listening community. The sounds that burst from Seven Winters filled our ears with incredible shoegaze sounds that expanded the term "shoegaze" and what the term even meant. Seven Winters featured amazing songs from bands like the furious Ca-P (one of my faves), Airiel, Astrobrite, and a whole host of Japanese acts that amazed listeners with their music. Now, several years after the release of that mind-boggling collection of songs, one of the previously unknown bands featured on Seven Winters has released a full-length CD of their own unique take on the shoegaze sound.
 
 Hartfield is that band.
 
 Hailing from Japan, Hartfield play a very pleasant-sounding, melodic style of shoegaze rock that soothes the listener. Not unlike The Lassie Foundation's Pacifico, Hartfield's full-length debut, True Color, True Lie features sighing male and female vocals, soaring pop melodies, all delivered with a healthy dose of syrupy guitars. A good example of this sound is the scarily-titled "She Bangs" (am I the only one whose mind conjures up frightening images of a Ricky Martin/William Hung hybrid?). Thankfully, Hartfield delivers an original song, full of exquisite harmonied-duet vocals, jangly guitars mixed with more fuzzy-sounding guitars, and a quick tempo. The melody of this song is catchy enough to be on Top 40 radio, but the band adds just enough dissonance in the music to add depth to the song, while ensuring its lack of radio play. Another gorgeous song, "Blow Away," takes a slower, more deliberate approach. Featuring buried male Japanese vocals, thick layers of guitar, and an achingly beautiful melody, "Blow Away" moves the listener.
 
 While much of Hartfield's trademark sound of sunny melodies enveloped in shoegaze bliss can be attributed to the band's musical skill, no doubt their sound on True Color, True Lie benefitted greatly from the mix of Scott Cortez, the visionary American behind Astrobrite, Lovesliescrushing, and a host of other amazing shoegaze and dreampop projects. Cortez's influence is perhaps best noted in the fluid "Girl Like You," which is a rerecorded version of Hartfield's Seven Winters offering. This new version, complete with back-tracking guitar lines, dense-but-light walls of guitars, and flowing female vocals, sounds even crisper and more poised than the Seven Winters version. "Stand By Me" also benefits greatly from the Cortez mix, as Hartfield slowly builds their song, layer by precious layer, to an epic-sounding climax. At the end of the 7 1/2 minute song, the listener is treated to an explosion of glorious sound. It's safe to assume that Hartfield is more of a pop-oriented shoegaze band, with songs like "Stand By Me" present on True Color, True Lie; the band showcases their ability to patiently create blissful songs.
 
 Ultimately, True Color, True Lie is a very, very pleasant listen for fans of shoegaze music. By combining accessible melody with the sonics that have always been associated with shoegaze, Hartfield has also created a CD that is an excellent reference point for any newcomer to the shoegaze ideal. With style and substance, Hartfield lives up to the Seven Winters hype." (Somewhere Cold)

[proudestmonkey22]

Go see the strugglers! 10/26 theyre sweet

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MONDAY SEPTEMBER 26
 WAREHOUSE NEXT DOOR
 8:30 DOORS
 
 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
 BLACK MOUNTAIN: Arguably the most hyped band at the moment (besides Dungen). This Vancouver, BC band can back up the hype. Enough so, that the most popular band at the moment, COLDPLAY, took them on tour and seemingly impressed what portion of the summer amphitheatre audience wasn't stuck waiting in line for their $10.00 souvenir guitar-shaped beer mugs. But, having performed at two of the ten highest-grossing North American concerts this year, Black Mountain are now looking
 forward to getting back to the simpler places where they feel much more at home. Up next, then, is the grand and glorious circuit of dark and
 smoky music venues dotted across North America. Recommended if you like Black Sabbath, The Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones, Dead Meadow,
 Animals-era Pink Floyd, Blue Cheer, Led Zeppelin, and Can.
 
 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 AT WAREHOUSE NEXT DOOR/MONDAY SEPTEMBER 26
 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
 BLACK MOUNTAIN (Jagjaguwar Records)
 BLOOD MERIDIAN (Matt and Josh of Black Mountain's other band)
 LADYHAWK (who you will hear more about very soon)
 
 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
 "Stephen McBean's vocals are a smoother, bluesier amalgam of the voices of Neil Young, Mick Jagger, and perhaps a James Brown loaded on cough syrup. Amber Webber's vocals are something other-worldly and, by itself, almost incomparable. When their voices intertwine, the combination brings to mind the potency and chemistry of Richard and Linda Thompson singing together on Shoot Out The Lights, or of Meat Loaf and Ellen Foley howling together on Bat Out Of Hell."
 
 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
 BLACK MOUNTAIN
 "The swimming hole looks inviting under the blue sky...Come back at dusk, however, and the pond turns black -- as dark as death -- or on the contrary, a restful dark, a dark to savor. Take it as you will." (Edward Hoagland)
 
 There is no simple life, and these are not simple times. The mythical days of clearer heads, of moral certainty, and of men and women acting
 with resolute spirit are behind us (if those times ever existed). Black Mountain, from Vancouver, British Columbia, write, perform, and record
 music that speaks (and sings) to this realization: that solutions are rarely simple, that the world is as complex as it is ambiguous, and that music sprinkled with an inoculating dose of madness may well be the Pied Piper that takes us all back into the primordial mountain, where our hearts can be made steady and our minds can be set free.
 
 Black Mountain is Matthew Camirand, Stephen McBean, Jeremy Schmidt, Amber Webber, and Joshua Wells. Their debut self-titled record, like a
 space probe built of erector set parts and transmitting secret and arcane messages to earth by string, charts territories unknown yet remains grounded by the roots of classic rock and roll. Musical comparisons aside, the Black Mountain full-length is one part protest song, one part pop-cultural commentary, and one part sick-groove-rock casserole peppered with mesmerizing ballads and intoxicating ditties. "Modern Music" is the lead-off hitter and counts
 its way to the imposing and riff-rife "Don't Run Our Hearts Around". Immediately thereafter, the sludge-rock masterpiece "Druganaut" establishes the fecund heart and tone of the record. And just when you think that things can't get any better, the songs "No Hits" and "Heart of Snow" are injected into your consciousness, clearly demonstrating that this band has no creative bounds.
 
 Four of the five members of Black Mountain work as social workers in Vancouver's Downtown East Side. Much like the similarly-named Black Mountain College of artists, poets, and musicians who felt that a strong liberal education had to be holistic -- happening inside and outside the classroom and not removed from a communal setting -- the members of Black Mountain feel that their art and their music and the problems of the real world, which they experience daily in their working life, cannot be made distinct from one another. If "the personal is political" -- a persevering and still resonant slogan of the women's movement of the 1960's -- then, regardless of the level of their
 lyrical or visual specificity, art and music are always political. The Black Mountain record demonstrates this with flying colors. The music
 contained therein contributes to a belief that is an essential first step in making the world a less crazy place: madness is not a contagion that can be simply amputated. Madness is an intrinsic part of all of us, an indelible part of the fiber of our being.
 
 Black Mountain are also five good friends who affectionately consider themselves as part of the Black Mountain Army, a loosely defined family
 of friends in the Vancouver area who endeavor to have good times while collaborating on art and music. The five of them are former or present
 members of The Pink Mountaintops, Blood Meridian, Jerk With A Bomb, the Black Halos, Dream On Dreary, Sinoia Caves, and Orphan. Black Mountain's debut full-length was recorded in the winter and spring of 2004 at the Argyle Hotel and The Hive by Colin Stewart and Black Mountain. A video by Heather Trawick of the song "Druganaut" is
 included on the CD version of the record. Black Mountain have also released a 12-inch single (on Jagjaguwar), including an extended mix of
 "Druganaut" on the A-side. This single has just recently been re-released in the CD format with some added material. The band's currently sexploitative counterpart The Pink Mountaintops released their self-titled debut record (on Jagjaguwar as well) in the summer of 2004 and will be touring later this year in anticipation of some
 upcoming recordings for Jagjaguwar.

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Friday, September 30
 $7, all ages
 doors at 9, show at 10
 
 Phosphorescent (indie-folk on Misra/Warm Records)
 The Bloody Hollies (garage rock on Sympathy for the Record Industry/Alive Records from Buffalo)
 Pagoda (moody indie/jangle from DC)
 
 
 Phosphorescent
 http://www.thewarmsupercomputer.com/PHOSPH.html
 
 Truly great songwriters hit people in a particular way -- for some, it's the sound of Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum or Palace's Will Oldham. Others hear that extraordinary something in Bob Dylan or Neil Young -- it can't easily be defined and is a power possessed by only the rarest of songwriters. It is bold to say, but 26-year-old Matthew Houck is one of them. As with the illustrious names above, behind Houck's songs lie nothing but the raw compulsion to write and play them, the fateful, joyful yearning to connect -- the intuition that making music, for Houck, is inevitable.
 
 The 26-year-old who now records as Phosphorescent grew up in Alabama, but the Southern cadence palpable in his songs is just a portion of Houck's story. At age 18, after a short attempt at college, he dropped out and began living out of his pickup and busking everywhere from New Orleans to the Southern California beaches for spare change. Eventually Houck began adding originals into his repertoire of old folk and country covers and started booking himself into bars and coffee shops around the country. On a random stop at a youth hostel in Austin, TX, a UK booking agent happened upon one of Houck's sets and bought his home-recorded CD. A month or so had passed when the booking agent contacted Houck to book a solo tour in the UK -- so off he went into a cascade of praise from the fickle UK press, who hailed his Dylan-inflected folk as the next big thing. Upon returning to the States, Houck landed in Athens, GA. Turning down offers from overseas labels and talent agencies, he abandoned the one-man show, and began again as Phosphorescent.
 
 Houck's Phosphorescent has recorded two frighteningly brilliant works, 2003's A Hundred Times or More and 2004's The Weight of Flight EP, both released on the Warm label to quiet, but lavish, praise. While they weren't widely heard, those who did tune in felt the spark in Houck's cracked voice, wondered at the weird and beautiful poetics, sensed the involuntary smile behind the lyrics, and settled in for the ride.
 
 Now, Aw Come Aw Wry moves the band's loose, ever-shifting arrangements away from the sparse and melodic and toward the rowdy and unhinged, at times conjuring a free, revival-tent spirit awash in homespun orchestrations and brushed with spiritual and psychedelic undertones. Let the dense and enchanting intimacy of these personal yet universal songs soak in, turn them up and sing along. You'll find not the sterile, self-consciously literate verses of an English major -- this is a poetry that emanates directly from heartache and joy and lust and the incomparable feeling of losing and finding yourself again and again. Wrapped in a gauze of surreal imagery, and backed by an always revolving (and expanding) ensemble of horns, pump organ, piano, pedal steel, fuzzed guitar, choral voices and percussion, Phosphorescent is entrancing, unruly, cacophonous. Like a snapshot taken through a moving car's window, Aw Come Aw Wry is hazy, imprecise, yet intimates something perfect and possible; it's the only souvenir you've got of a life glimpsed on the way to the next town.
 
 The Bloody Hollies
 http://www.bloodyhollies.com/
 
 Unlike the many garage rock revivalists who seem content to follow in the footsteps of their forebears (but with less energy and creativity), on their debut album, Fire at Will, the Bloody Hollies burn with a crazed intensity that ignites each track. "Give it all you got!" Wesley Doyle screams on "Penetrate," and it could be the motto for the entire album. Songs like "Downtown Revolver" and "Swing" -�?? a rockabilly-tinged, chair-kicking song about "just hangin' around" �??- get right to the point with an energy that borders on apocalyptic. Along with their other Sympathy for the Record Industry compatriots and alumni, the Bloody Hollies are experts at making stripped-down and basic sound vital and exciting. Their take on garage rock is amped up with the relentlessness of punk and tempered with keen pop structures, especially on "Hard-Bitten" and "Yeah Yeah." In fact, the first half of Fire at Will is a nearly flawless display of the Bloody Hollies' powers; on the second half, they tweak the formula slightly, with varied results. "Tired of This Shit" captures the young, loud, and snotty vibe of classic punk perfectly, while the bluesier, slow-burning "I Need Love" is probably the closest the band will ever come to a ballad. Songs like these prove that the band doesn't always have to be on fire to be good, but two-and-a-half-minute outbursts like "Strip," "Blood Pressure," and "Emergency Shutdown" are where they really excel. By the time the snarly instrumental "Dogfight" finishes off the album, the Bloody Hollies have taken their listeners through a consistently exciting debut that's a blast of instant-gratification fun. (Heather Phares, AMG)
 
 Pagoda
 http://www.pagodamusic.net/
 
 Pagoda is a four-piece band from the Washington DC area composed of Ben Licciardi, Adrian Carroll, Raj Gadhia, and Elmer Sharp. We formed in the Spring of 2002 with our original drummer, Kevin O'Meara, and recorded our first album, Dearly Departed, over the next several months with help from a bunch of our friends. Kevin continued to play in Pagoda thru the Fall of 2003 as we recorded our forthcoming EP, Seven Nights. By the end of that year, our good friend Kevin was off to art school and our old pal Elmer Sharp took over on drums.
 
 By the time Dearly Departed was released in March of 2004 on Lazyline Records, we were playing out fairly often in DC, had made a trip or two out of town, and finished mixing the songs for the EP we started the prior fall. Since then, we've been working diligently on new material for our next full-length and collaborating with our friends TJ Lipple and Liza Hamilton.
 
 Music is something we love doing mostly because, for us, it revolves around exploration and communication. For that reason our influences and genre are less important to us than having fun and saying something. That said, we're indebted to all the bands we love and it may show: YLT, the Clean, Big Star, and all our favorite folk and country artists.

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Epic, progressive sludge-metal in the Warehouse Theatre! Recommended for fans of Neurosis, Isis, and Godflesh.
 
 Saturday, October 1
 $7, all ages
 doors at 9:30, show at 10
 
 Minsk (ex-Buried At Sea, At A Loss Records, from Chicago)
 War Injun (mem. of Earthride and Internal Void, MD doom)
 Admiral Browning (prog-metal from MD)
   http://www.admiralbrowning.com  
 
 
 Minsk
 http://thesoundofminsk.com/  
 
 Drawing its nominal inspiration from a remote Belarussian city nestled deep amidst the in-betweens of the East and the West, a city that has been burned to the ground on several occasions only to be rebuilt like a Phoenix rising from its ashes, Minsk is a sort of dark cerebral experimentation...an emotive conceptualization that sears the visceral and hopes for something real...something between the conscious and the unconscious... a roller coaster of passion, noise, rhythm, and trance.
 
 Drawing its brand of eclecticism from a milieu of broadly spaced musical and conceptual influences, Minsk is a bodily experience that hints at a sort of mystical awareness and sophistication. The music is as organic as it is other-worldly, infusing the rhythms of the earth and the resonance of the human voice with the synthetic
 sounds of machines, amplifiers, and effects.
 
 Minsk combines a sonic onslaught of dirge-like walls of doom and metal with Hawkwind and Jethro Tull-inspired 1970s psychedelic rock and tribal elements reminiscent of Dead Can Dance. The vocals range from soulful singing, to three- and four-part anthemic arrangements, to barbaric screams, and the result is a dynamic and emotional piece of sensory overload that has been compared to Neurosis, Mastodon, Cult of Luna, Entombed, and Acid Bath.
 
 The group formed in the summer of 2002, performing its first show in early 2003 and completing its demo CD, Burning, in the fall of that year. Still in the infant stages of their efforts, they embarked on a tour in support of the CD which took them from Illinois to the West Coast and back. 2004 and 2005 have begun the realization of the band's labors, allowing them to share the stage with many incredible bands at the Templars of Doom, South by Southwest, and Emissions From the Monolith Festivals. Recording with producer
 Sanford Parker (Pelican, Unearthly Trance, Lair of the Minotaur, Venomous Concept) at Volume Studios has yielded both their AT A LOSS debut full-length album and a new bass player in Parker himself, also noted for his play in the "megalithic doom outfit" Buried at Sea.

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Speaking of Godflesh, you should do whatever it takes to get Broaderick's spin-off project, Jesu at Warehouse. Have you heard it? It's brilliant, especially if you are a fan of Sigur Ros.

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believe me, i'm trying my best to get jesu here. i love that record. jesu and pelican were supposed to tour this summer but it fell through.
 
 i like sigur ros, but i like jesu much more; broadrick's music is just so visceral and heart-wrenching, while i find sigur ros sort of precious. the jesu record splits the difference between my bloody valentine and the swans.

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Thursday, October 13
 $7, all ages
 doors at 8:30, show at 9
 
 Nethers (ex-Carlsonics, CD release show!)
 Make A Rising (avant-chamber rock from Philly, High Two Records)
 Wunderground (ex-Carlsonics)
 
 
 Nethers
  http://www.netherscomputer.com/
 
 Bluegrass shamble and retro-psych twistiness seethe towards some forgotten intersect of pop-mindedness. Nethers do as the name implies, procuring tunes that are neither here nor there, yet are somehow distinct in that absence of place.
 
 The new album can be streamed here:
 
  http://www.apolloaudio.com
 
 
 Make A Rising
  http://www.tonewplanet.com/MAR.html
 
 Tunneling its way out of the West Philadelphia netherworlds, Make A Rising is a band that is beyond unique. The quintet�??s debut record is a swirling mix of violin, keyboard, guitars, drums, saxophone, trumpet, bells, whistles, and assorted noisemakers �??- all swelling together for subversively addictive pop gems. With orchestral crescendos combined with off-kilter vocals and fast-changing tempos, Make A Rising is the sound of chaos, bliss, bravado, nerves, and naivety -�?? avant-chamber rock at its most dynamic -�?? like Daniel Johnston singing Beach Boys songs interpreted by Naked City.
 
 "Philadelphia psychedelic rockers Make A Rising supply zany and digressive compositions on Rip Through the Hawk Black Night, an album which manages to persuasively combine power and whimsy. Cooing vocals are set against bumptious piano licks, discordant electronics, and animated drumming in the psych-calliope ambiance of "Look At My Hawk." "Song for Dead Nickie" is equally filled with diverse excursions, but its introduction is imparted with a graceful post-minimal sheen that belies the band's prevailing penchant for jocularity. "When Moving West" sets a chamber-pop vocal loop against chaotic heavy rock, whereas "I'm Scared of Being Alone" adopts an affecting prog-rock demeanor.
 
 In its first section, "Plastic Giant" creates a wall of complex sustained harmony, over which is placed reverberant, discordant singing; this is succeeded by a Zappa-esque freak-out of an instrumental coda. Sometimes, the band's use of juxtapositions is a bit too cute -- the thwack of noise-rock in the middle of the otherwise gentle "Lonesome in the Skiff" is a prime example; but usually their employment of head-turning style shifts work quite nicely. Some pieces even function in a more conventional sense; "Expired Planet," a concoction of Sun Ra Arkestra cosmology and indie-rock guitars, is a strong song, demonstrating that Make A Rising is never so obsessed with eccentricity that they can't make memorable music along the way." (Christian Carey)

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Clavius Productions presents a rare appearance by underground trangressive legend Lisa "Suckdog" Carver (performing with comic artist Dame Darcy on singing saw) at the Warehouse Next Door:
 
 Monday, October 24
 $8, all ages
 doors at 8:30, show at 9
 
 Lisa "Suckdog" Carver w/ Dame Darcy
 http://www.suckdog.net/suckdog/default.asp
 http://www.damedarcy.com/
 Alzo Boszormenyi and the Acid Achievers
 http://www.nutmusic.com/alzo/default.asp
 Faith and Jude (calypso cabaret campaign songs!)
 
 
 Drugs Are Nice 2005 Tour
 
 In honor of her new memoir DRUGS ARE NICE, Lisa "Suckdog" Carver will be doing a lecture on post punk: why it happened and what went wrong.  Accompanied by ethereal comic artist Dame Darcy on the singing saw, Lisa will draw diagrams and dry erase, explaining how chaotic, self-violent, transgressive performers like GG Allin, Suckdog, Lydia Lunch, and The Swans came to be.  Also why they didn't wear colors and why they smelled so very bad. She will then turn the room (by top secret methods we would die rather than disclose here!) into a physical representation of ten minutes of the era she likes to call "the late '80s, early '90s." Don�??t miss this unconventional, unforgettable book event by a major shaper of the era!
 
 "The 31-year-old married mother from Dover may well be the country�??s supreme cultural anthropologist: part literary provocateur, part social analyst. She�??s been called everything from this decade�??s ultimate underground Renaissance woman to America�??s horniest optimist. Hunter S. Thompson in a miniskirt." (Boston Magazine)
 
 Lisa "Suckdog" Carver has written widely on popular music, culture, and her own sex life.  With "Drugs Are Nice," she charts the birth of the movement she helped create, from the dizzying highs of European performance art tours to the genesis of the zine phenomenon. It�??s an extraordinary life, told by a writer only now coming into her own.
 
 When her drug dealer father calmly explained to 15 year old Lisa that he�??d murdered a man, she knew any chance of her own life being normal was off. Soon after, in 1987 in the small town of Dover, New Hampshire, she and her best friend Rachel set up a punk show at the Veteran�??s Hall. But when headliner act GG Allin got drunk and never showed up, the girls took the stage themselves. Lisa and Rachel put on the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack, caterwauled, took off their clothes, and hit things and people. Suckdog -�?? called "the most interesting band in the world" by England�??s Melody Maker -�?? was born.
 
 Lisa Carver left for Europe at the age of eighteen, becoming a teen publisher (of the fanzine Rollerderby), a teen bride (to French performance artist Jean-Louis Costes), and a teen prostitute (turning her first trick a few days before turning 20). Hustler called Rollerderby "quite possibly the greatest zine ever," and The Utne Reader chose Lisa Carver as one of the "100 Visionaries Who Will Change Your Life."
 
 But when her baby was born in 1994 with a chromosomal deletion and his dad -�?? industrial music maven and rumored Nazi Boyd Rice -�?? became violent, Lisa began to realize the life that needed changing was her own. A story of lasting lightness and surprising gravity, "Drugs" is a book about the generation that wanted to break every rule. A definitive account of rules broken, left intact and re-written forever, it ripens into a classic account of an artist and mother becoming an adult on her own terms.
 
 "With her tart writing and unswerving devotion to lowbrow culture, Carver sounds like Camille Paglia channeling both Tonya Harding and Liz Phair." (Dwight Garner, Details)
 
 "When Newt Gingrich wakes up sweating in the middle of the night with a hard-on and a sense of nameless dread, the face that he sees might be Lisa Carver�??s." (Time Out New York)
 
 "Carver is arguably the best-known non-celebrity her age. Try spitting into a poetry slam without hitting someone who hasn�??t read her or been punched out by her." (Utne Reader)
 
 "Lisa Carver is a nightmarishly beautiful version of the American Dream...an infamously bizarre gamin." (Screw Magazine)
 
 "Carver's prose is smart, sassy, even endearing.... Her feisty and fresh voice is a tonic." (Publishers Weekly)
 
 "At her best, she wrestles meaning from chaos like an unrepentant St. Augustine." (Salon)
 
 "Lisa is the laugh, the fart, the make out, the beauty, the LIFE. She is a messenger of God." (Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth)
 
 About the author:
 
 Lisa Crystal Carver was born in 1968 to a drug dealer father and an English teacher mother. Instead of going to college, she toured the U.S. and Europe six times in the performance art troupe Suckdog. They put out three albums, including Drugs Are Nice, which Spin called one of the best records of the '90s. Lisa Carver started the magazine Rollerderby and has written for Newsday, Playboy, Nerve, The Utne Reader, Mademoiselle, Details, and Glamour. She has been featured on MTV, VH1, HBO and NPR -- most recently on "This American Life." Lisa Carver is a Nerve.com sex diarist. She lives in the small town of Dover, New Hampshire, with nine-year-old Wolfgang, and Mercedes, who is two.

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The authors of Smart Women/Foolish Choices: Finding the Right Men, Avoiding the Wrong Ones probably didn�??t have Lisa "Suckdog" Carver in mind when they penned the classic women�??s self-help guide. However, the great 'zine queen would have been the perfect audience for sage advice on choosing male partners. As a teenager, she left America to wed the skeezy French noise musician Jean Louis Costes. Then she came back and got with notorious noise musician and amateur Nazi Boyd Rice. They had a baby, who was unfortunately born with a chromosomal deletion, and Rice began getting violent. Amid all those early-'90s missteps, my buddies and I had huge crushes on Carver, and we would eagerly anticipate each issue of her magazine, Rollerderby, which was easily one of the five most important 'zines of that decade. Tonight, she'll be reading from her memoir, Drugs Are Nice, which looks to be in the same vein, so to speak, as her 'zine articles, which always contained a nice mix of the quotidian and the decadent. Carver explains it all with Dame Darcy and Alzo Boszorjemyi & the Acid Achievers at 8:30 p.m. at the Warehouse Next Door, 1017 7th St. NW. $8. (202) 783-3933. (David Dunlap Jr.)