I Do What I Want, When I Want

The last couple of days have been a little rough for me. I get to take home a lot of expensive skincare products FO FREE thanks to my job and I tried a new one a couple days ago only to find out I am allergic to the main ingredient. For a day, I had this horrifying blotchy rash all over my neck, decolete and inner forearms. It has by now reduced itself to my neck being itchy. Sucks. It reminds me of that one episode of South Park when the boys get chicken pox and Cartman yells at his mom about calamine lotion. CAN'T STOP SCRATCHING!!! And don't even start me on eating frozen yogurt and a veggie burrito from Rico's in the same day. Shit works your system.

Complaining about nothing and over-sharing aside, we are going to see Xiu Xiu tonight at Chateau Casbah. Mostly because there are probably going to be a lot of really foxy oversensitive dudes that could be easily manipulated. I'm just kidding, I don't go to shows to pick up dudes. I don't blog to pick up dudes. Who told you that? Whatever.

I have been trying (again) to warm up to Xiu Xiu (I used to hate Sunset Rubdown and look what happened) and I'll admit I like the music a lot, I just don't really know yet if I like homeboy's voice. I've heard they put on a pretty impressive live show, I AM COUNTING ON IT, XIU XIU!!!

This here first video is for "Boy Soprano"



and this video is is for the song "I Do What I Want, When I Want" from their latest album "Women as Lovers." You know, the album they are probably touring for.



If you're into it, go hit up Kill Rock Stars and order it. Dudes can't keep making records if you steal it all from the internet.

If you hate having fun and don't want to get your tits signed (by me, you may kiss Megan's hand but not address her) you can also go to that storage closet in the middle of a swamp the Che Cafe to see some local clusterfuck. Weatherbox, Lanterns, BoomSnake, Crooks and Fever Sleeves. Starts at 6 p.m. , costs $10.

Now that all of that is out of the way, I can talk about black metal. I talk a big game about being a black metal elitist and it's true, I still love some of it. I like shit that makes me want to ride a dragon to work. Nothing wrong with that. I was even in a black metal band in high school. We were called F.A.T.E (Five Across the Eyes) and our fake three song EP was called "Dragon Kick." I was in a period in my life where I wanted to be as offensive as possible and simultaneously play guitar as loud and fast as I could. The good news is, I'm still pretty offensive. I like black metal because it's fucking ridiculous. The corpse paint, the costumes...if you want to be taken seriously in black metal you best be lookin' right. Fine examples of corpse paint below:



My favorite bands are of the Norwegian symphonic persuasion, like Emperor. They ditched the corpse paint after a while and a couple of their original members got in a hot mess of trouble for shit like church burning. Fuckin' brutal. Now they are "broken up" (played a show in Los Angeles in June) and doing shit like voice acting in Metalocalypse and getting endorsements from Ibanez. They unfortunately don't have a video for one of my favorite songs "In the Wordless Chamber" but here is a video that was made in the last decade, for the song "Empty." I just really like the violin.



In a display of total ludicrousness, stupid costumes and all, the video for "The Loss and Curse of Reverence:"





gotta find my upside down cross necklace,

'stina

FREAKY OUTTIE

Yeah, I just made a Home Movies joke. Whatever. Go look it up, episode 308-Guitarmageddon.

Anyways, there is this band I have seriously been losing my shit over for a couple weeks now. They have described themselves as "post-apocalyptic Vaudevillian punk" and I agree. I would also throw in post-prog-math WHATEVER, mostly because there are no adequate adjectives for this band.



Genres aside, 31Knots will make you want to rip your skin off and flail about in a bath of your own blood. The songs are beautifully constructed and they are nothing short of enthralling live. As I previously mentioned, we stumbled upon this precious northwestern commodity (way more valuable than buffalo meat on the Oregon trail!) at UCSD's Che Forest Sewage Collective. We showed up late (thanks for being full of traffic, I-5...) to see Joan of Arc and I was sold the moment I heard 31Knots' front man, Joe Haege (donning a crappy Satan mask), howl "hey you," from the first non-sampled line of "Sanctify" (from their 2007 Polyvinyl release "The Days and Nights of Everything Anywhere"). Haege, sans Satan mask, swiftly snaked his way into the middle of the crowd in his Pee-Wee Hermanized Southern preacher-man suit, mic in hand and commanded the attention of the entire room. All eight of us. No, I think there were more people. Maybe 14. Regardless, I would really love to see these dudes shred it at the Casbah and I'm not just saying that because the Casbah has Arrogant Bastard. MAKE IT HAPPEN, SAN DIEGO!

This here youtube video is a live recording from some show I wasn't at that for the most part maintains the audio integrity of "Sanctify:"



31Knots really uses technology to their advantage- samples are obviously present yet their presence does not take away from their live performance. Recording-wise, the samples add a pleasing, quirky yet serious depth. They also use good old-fashioned musicianship to their advantage, bassist/sweater connoisseur Jay Winebrenner and drummer/engineer Jay Pellicci throw down their share, contributing both to the balance of the live show and powerfully supporting the chaos that lies in the recordings. Lyrically, Haege brings a delightful amount of snark with the storytelling, which is undeniably a breath of fresh air from the sad-bastard crap the kids are into these days.

I managed to procure the "Polemics" EP as well as "The Days and Nights of Everything Anywhere" at my local record store (I'm not saying which one, I don't need any of you night prowlers coming up to me asking me for autographs) and am very pleased with both acquisitions. "Polemics" is aesthetically pleasing despite the fact that it won't play in my car (life is rough, obviously) and is an overall good album. "The Days and Nights of Everything Anywhere" is definitely the mind-blower for me and "Compass Commands" from the upcoming Aug. 19 Polyvinyl release "Worried Well" is more than promising.


"Hit List Shakes (The Inconvenience Of You)" is another standout track (you know, aside from "Sanctify") on "The Days and Nights of Everything Anywhere"- though lacking a traditional discernible "breakdown," I feel like the song picks itself up at around 3:48 to serve you your own pretentious ass on a tarnished silver platter. The volume definitely needs to be up to 11 for the last half of this song. Which reminds me, does anyone want to hire a now 3/4ths deaf audio engineer? HAH just kidding! This is officially the second post I have made a joke in! I digress. Going all the way back to the beginning of the album, one will find "Beauty." No, seriously, that's the name of the song. it's a good'un. Here's the video:




existentially yours,

'stina.