Sound Obsession

Tame Impala Date:  June 6, 2015 Venue:  Echostage, Washington, DC It's pretty fun, and increasingly rare, to get on board early with a promising new rock band and watch them rise from relative obscurity to international super-stardom in the short span of five years.  I'm talking about psychedelic rockers Tame Impala, all the way from Perth, Australia.  I fell hard for this band when I downloaded their debut album, Innerspeaker , on a whim in the summer of 2010 (my curiosity initially piqued by a sweet album cover that reflected the woozy lava-lamp sound inside) and caught them live with a small crowd of early converts at the divey Black Cat just down the street from my apartment.  I saw them again six months later with a much larger crowd at the same venue, then two years on at a sold out gig at the 1,200 capacity 9:30 Club with the release of their sophomore album Lonerism .  This past weekend, just a couple months ahead of their third album release C...

Failure Date:  June 5, 2014 Venue:  The Fillmore, Silver Spring, MD Naming your band "Failure" seems kind of stupid - not just tempting fate but poking it right in the eye. Then again the early 1990's was a time when a rocker could be a " loser ," a " creep ," or " dumb " and still be a chart-topping superstar.  This was an era of drab irony and false modesty, when po-faced guitar heroes with secret arena-rock ambitions were saddled with the overwhelming weight of "punk rock guilt" - the pop-cultural pressure to act like you just didn't care . It was in this miasma of anti-careerist posturing and slacker ethos that LA based alternative rockers Failure formed and eventually disbanded.  Comprised of Ken Andrews and Greg Edwards, with drummer Kellii Scott and guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen joining later, Failure did everything right.  Their debut album Comfort , released in '92, was produced by indie-rock iconoclast Steve Alb...

Black Breath Date:  May 21, 2014 Venue:  Ottobar, Baltimore, MD The twelfth annual Maryland Deathfest (aka "MDF"), apparently the largest metal festival of its kind in North American, officially kicked off in Baltimore yesterday, but any black denim and leather clad longhair who wanted to get a jump on the four day festivities had their chance at the sold out "pre-fest party" at Ottobar this past Wednesday evening - featuring New York veterans Immolation, Baltimore's Misery Index and Noisem, and Seattle's Black Breath.* Black Breath (left to right - Jamie Byrum, Eric Wallace, Elijah Nelson, Neil McAdams, and Mark Palm)  I've had a lot of fun navigating the metal scene at large with its plethora of sub-genres, over the last decade or so, but death metal (and its close cousin grindcore) has been a final frontier of sorts for me.  Like black metal, with its sordid history of violence and controversial politics, death metal isn't entirely ...

Mastodon, Gojira, Kvelertak Date:  May 13, 2014 Venue:  9:30 Club, Washington, DC Last Tuesday was the hottest day of the year so far in DC so it was only appropriate that DC's 9:30 Club host a sold out evening for the most scorching metal tour of the year so far - Mastodon with Gojira and Kvelertak supporting. Mastodon (Brent Hinds and Troy Sanders) Norway's top purveyors of beer soaked black n' roll, Kvelertak, hit the stage first.  This band's sophomore album Meir made my top ten list last year and I was lucky to catch them crush an awesome set at the tiny Rock & Roll Hotel too.  It's a tough proposition for a boisterous six-piece, whose amped-up party rock works best after guzzling a few brews, to capture a crowd that's still trickling in off the sidewalk - but Kvelertak had everyone in a stranglehold in short order. Kvelertak (Marvin Nygaard, Erlend Hjelvik, and Kjetil Gjermundrod) Lead screamer Erlend Hjelvik emerged with a s...

Tycho Date:  April 20, 2014 Venue:  9:30 Club, Washington, DC I rarely attend good shows on Easter Sunday - apart from the choir at the occasional sugar-fueled church service (admittedly, it's been a while).  This past Sunday I checked out Tycho at the 9:30 Club.  It happened to be 4/20 as well - a day famously dedicated to a different kind of ritual sacrament.  Despite that apparent contradiction, Tycho's mix of pastel colored grooves and heady atmospherics seemed entirely appropriate. Tycho ( Joe Davancens,  Rory O'Connor, Zac Brown, and Scott Hansen) Tycho, real name Scott Hansen, is a San Francisco-based indie-electronica musician and graphic artist who previously worked solo but took on a full band for his latest album Awake .  I had just reviewed Awake and was excited to see how Hansen would perform his latest material with new bandmates Zac Brown and Joe Davancens alternating between guitar, bass, and synthesizer, and R...

Kraftwerk Date:  April 4, 2014 Venue:  9:30 Club, Washington, DC I couldn't help but grin like an idiot as Afrika Bambaataa's 1982 electro/hip-hop anthem " Planet Rock " came on the system while I had a burger and beer at the bar adjacent to the 9:30 Club a couple weeks back, just moments before catching Kraftwerk's first live performance in DC in nine years.  Of course, the hook and beat of Bambaataa's classic are built on samples from Kraftwerk's 1977 track "Trans Europe Express" and "Numbers" from 1981, respectively.  Kraftwerk's indelible influence on popular music, especially post-punk and new wave, hip-hop, and electronic dance music, can't be overstated.   Kraftwerk (Ralf Hutter and Henning Schmitz) Kraftwerk formed in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1970 amidst that nascent "krautrock" scene with two classically trained music students at the helm - Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider.  This was the original o...

St. Vincent Date:  March 1, 2014 Venue:  9:30 Club, Washington, DC Last year St. Vincent, real name Annie Clark, was presented with a Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award in Performing Arts.  The fact that a high brow institution primarily known for housing and showing priceless art and artifacts took a shine to St. Vincent is telling.  There's a sense that St. Vincent is to be observed and admired from behind glass - regarded from afar as a kind of beautiful curiosity.  Her live show last Saturday at the sold out 9:30 Club did little to dispel that impression. St. Vincent isn't the sort of artist I typically follow (unapologetically, aggressively "arty"), but I heard she put on a good show and played a mean guitar.  Frankly, I was really digging her new self-titled album St. Vincent , released last Tuesday, and figured this show would be a great detour from the usual.  It certainly was.  Rocking her new blown-out Einstein hairdo, St...

Russian Circles, KEN mode, Inter Arma Date:  February 18, 2014 Venue:  Rock & Roll Hotel, Washington, DC Following January's blackened-thrash and viking metal onslaught at the 2,000 capacity Fillmore, a couple weeks back I hit another must-see package tour at the more intimate 350 capacity Rock & Roll Hotel -  Russian Circles with KEN mode and Inter Arma.  The evening served as a reminder of the wide spectrum of style and philosophy that exists in the metal scene.  Whereas populist showmen like Amon Amarth and Skeletonwitch relish in the fabricated drama and spectacle of viking lore and the occult, not shy to remind everyone that it's all in good fun, Russian Circles and their tour-mates are dead serious about this shit - it's about the art, man. Russian Circles - Brian Cook and Dave Turncrantz (left to right) Despite all the blog debate, "hipster metal" really is a thing.  Drawing heavily from non-metal genres like post-punk, post-rock,...

Skeletonwitch, Enslaved, Amon Amarth Date:  January 31, 2014 Venue:  The Fillmore, Silver Spring, MD I've learned a few things during my relatively brief time as a metal enthusiast/amateur anthropologist gone native - the opener and support bands are almost always just as awesome as the headliner, and every band worth their salt makes a sincere 200% effort to melt your face.  Absolutely no room for mopey wallflower behold-my-art bullshit.  These bands take pride in perfecting their chops and treating their fans to the most bang for their buck.  As expected, for an affordable $25, such was the case last Friday at The Fillmore in Silver Spring, Maryland, with an awesome package tour featuring Skeletonwitch, Enslaved, and Amon Amarth.         Skeletonwitch - Scott Hedrick, Evan Linger, and Chance Garnette (left to right) Athens, Ohio, blackened-thrash five piece,  animal welfare advocates , and all around good guys (han...

Queens of The Stone Age Date:  December 14, 2013 Venue:  Barclays Center, Brooklyn, NY Southwest desert rockers Queens of the Stone Age, now approaching two decades led by lone band-founder Josh Homme, played the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, this past weekend.  QOTSA have spent the greater part of the year on a nonstop world tour supporting their independently released sixth album, ... Like Clockwork - their most successful LP to date, debuting at #1 on the Billboard chart in June, and collecting three Grammy nominations this month. As QOTSA cruelly skipped DC this year, my wife surprised me on my birthday with tickets to their headlining gig in New York (we also caught their short festival set in Philadelphia this past September).  So we braved the snowy arctic weather and made the trip up the coast to see the Queens in Brooklyn (ha!) first hand. Queens of The Stone Age "The Vampyre of Time and Memory" ...Like Clockwork is an entirely diffe...

Phantogram Date:  December 5, 2013 Venue:  930 Club, Washington, DC T he 1990's saw an abundance of electronic acts featuring hip-hop beats and sultry female vocals - Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, Bjork, Sneaker Pimps, Morcheeba, Olive, Esthero and so forth.  All these groups operated, more or less, within the genre of "trip-hop" - a style that leaned heavily on the boom-bap aesthetics of hip-hop, dub, and jazz but, in most cases, smoothed out the rough edges.  At the time, music critic Simon Reynolds  accurately identified that "trip-hop [was] merely a form of gentrification."  The genre had the intangible hallmarks of "cool" without much of the danger, inevitably becoming the soundtrack for sophisticated coffee shops, cocktail bars, and car advertisements worldwide. Phantogram The last decade has seen trip-hop wane, supplanted by cutesy synth-pop drawing flagrantly from new wave, new romantic, indie rock, and shoe gaze - s...

Bombino Date:  December 3, 2013 Venue:  The Hamilton, Washington, DC Tuareg guitarist and rising star Bombino, known as Omara Moctar to his mom back home in Niger, played The Hamilton last night to a packed house.  Riding a wave of good will and critical acclaim, having released an excellent album called  Nomad earlier this year (produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys), Bombino has been on tour for the better part of 2013.  Bombino opened for Robert Plant earlier this summer at the posh suburban amphitheater Wolf Trap but, with a $50 ticket price and a 50 minute road trip during rush hour, I opted out and kept my fingers crossed for a headlining gig closer to home.  My hopes were answered. I'm no expert on nomadic Tuareg music (yet), often called African "desert blues," but I am familiar with the commonly known touchstones:  Malian guitar legend Ali Farka Toure, Tuareg super-group Tinariwen, the Festival au Desert held yearly outside o...

High on Fire, Kvelertak Date:  November 12, 2013 Venue:  Rock & Roll Hotel, Washington, DC My relatively recent dive into the pool of brutal rock & roll madness known as heavy metal proved fruitful earlier this week as I attended one of the most epic live shows of my life. No joke. No exaggeration. Oakland stoner metal titans High on Fire and Norway's "black & roll" powerhouse Kvelertak simply decimated the Rock & Roll Hotel Tuesday night. I had considered not writing a review at all, as there really aren't enough words to describe how ridiculously good this show was. Being as that I've got this blog to feed, I'll try anyway. . . Kvelertak I arrived midway through opener Doomrider's set. The Boston-based stoner/doom foursome just put out a new record produced by Kurt Ballou called Grand Blood (Ballou and Doomrider frontman Nate Newton are bandmates in metalcore band Converge). Despite looking great on paper, I just can...