THE SKYLINE 50: OUR FAVORITE SONGS OF THE YEAR, PART ONE

OH SNAP! This has been such a whips year for local releases. The beautiful people that we all rub elbows with on a daily basis have put out a slew of aces recordings, both those barely registering on the local radar and ones getting good reviews in publications across our mighty and rarely making erroneous foreign-policy decisionsish nation. Therefore, in the week leading up to the announcement of our first ever SAMMIES AWARDS (you’ve voted, right?), we are pleased to unleash upon you our fifty favorite tracks 0f 2007. To qualify, the songs need only have been released on some media or another (LP, CD, CDR, tape – whatever) and be really really party call me.

So, without further ado, we present the 2007 Houston 50, in totally non-biast alphabetical order:

Alien Abduction – Linus Pauling Quartet
All Things are Light
What better way to start our countdown than with a nearly nine minute album-opening opus by one of the 713’s has-been-around-but-definitely-not-has-been stardog champions. Combining the big fuzz that got you listening to Soundgarden in the first place with enough of a groove to tempt Herbie Hancock, Abduction rides out her parts to the last exit for Roswell and then loops back around to enjoy the drive a little longer.


Ankstiyeti – Cop Warmth
Centaur Cop Top
We remember in High School there was this total dish of a photographer who wrote angry editorials in the school paper and once took this picture of a rack of girl’s clothes, all identical and neatly placed next to each other, under a sign that said “Be an Individual.” We freely admit that we were not yet sophisticated enough to immediately understand a pictorial representation of the irony of wanting to be different just like everyone else. In a sense, Anksiyeti is similarly satiric of that part of life, with its demand that no on/every stop looking. It baffles us to no end how a song so chaotic can be so catchy at the same time.


Art of Malnutrition – Bring Back the Guns
Dry Futures
A friend of The Skyline (and BBTG) asked the question, can a song that’s been played live for so long really be considered one of 2007’s best? Yes. Absolutely. Even if it had taken another five years for this record to finally come out, this song would have been one of 2012’s best. A band notorious for not riding out any of the gunch-busting riffs that pack their songs like a wet burrito, Malnutrition is one of those rare exceptions where an almost, dare we say it, conventional approach to rocking out pays off like Casa Ole green dip. Pass the salt.


Ashes – Balaclavas
Inferno
When we first heard this ep, we immediately got in touch with Chris Ryan over at Dead City Sound to ask how he recorded the bass on it. While we won’t reveal his secret, we will say that in terms of the tone it’s a complete departure and total breakthrough for the band. It slinks around heavily and without hard edges, like a gigantic scorpion’s tail stabbing about with unknown intentions in the dark. On Inferno especially, it adds a new form of pleasurable disquiet to what was already one of the most unique sounding acts in town. It gives us the creeps and we love it.


At a Second Glance – Balaclavas
Balaclavas
Sometimes, you’re supposed to avert your eyes and not look directly at something, even when it might be polite to look just as though there were nothing shameful, awful or disturbing about what you’re seeing -because you know that, if you look away, every muscle in your neck and ocular sockets will try instinctively to go back for that second, perversely satisfying glance. For us, this song isn’t about that second look – it’s the struggle not to, and the bit of self loathing when you do.


Beatle Battle – Golden Axe
Kill Them Allah
If Golden Axe had put out a 50 song release, they would be the only band in the top 50 this year. Fortunately for everyone else who poured blood, sweat and tears into their Tele’s f-holes during 2007, Golden Axe did just a Grey Ghost single this, which means that there isn’t an overwhelming amount of material evidence that your band is not as good as Golden Axe and that you really should stop practicing right now and start spending more time planning for what the world will be like when it is ruled by James and Warren’s benevolent co-dictatorship.


Bird – Jana Hunter
There’s No Home
We iTuned this album, as it came out on the net a few weeks before the actual release, and we needed something that reminded us of home to listen to while we walked aimlessly around the akward Stevedore paradise of Long Beach, California. As such, we’ve never (to this day) seen the credits for this song and who all it is that’s singing and strumming along with our city's favorite daughter-in-exile. Even if there isn’t one, this track always sounds like home to us, and every few months we’re both surprised and not to learn of someone else we know who was sitting around the campfire when the gentle romp got put to tape. Come home soon.


Bruise the Paper – The Western Civilization
Letters of Resignation
Aside from platinum selling and prematurely deceasing rappers, Houston is generally know for bands that ride in a very different bumper car from bands like The Western Civilization. Bruise the Paper, in spite of lyrics that might get a troubadour down, is pure pop bliss. But this syrup is anything but factory processed maple that’s never seen the inside of a tree – so far from it. This taste of Karo doesn’t have a lot of local contemporaries, but they’ve sure got the pancakes to put them on.


Cuttin’ a Rug – Arthur Yoria
Handshake Smiles
We’ve heard the studio chatter lead-in to this song, “I do need a click for this one,” so many times this past year that we’re more than a little astonished it hasn’t become a catch-phrase around the newsroom along the lines of the now ubiquitous “oh word?” Frankly, we wonder why Arthur Yoria isn’t more ubiquitous either. It doesn’t speak very highly of the music industry that Cuttin’ a Rug hasn’t cut its way up the charts of some sort. Maybe it’s for the best, as it means we get to keep our local treasure around just a little longer. Party call me.


Drugs and Drawing – Wicked Poseur
Wicked Poseur 7”
Arthur Bates is a weird weird weird dude. We’re not really convinced that this song is about drugs or art. Seems too obvious and, well, not weird enough. That’s pretty subversive, to write a song about the role of chemical substances in artistic expression and spell it out plainly but still have people wondering "yeah, but what is he really talking about here.” Weird.

REVIEW: LINUS PAULING QUARTET: HAWG (GREY GHOST # 48)

adr: yusss. when is your GG coming out?
Ramon LP4 Medina: Well based on the number it's next week I guess we're number 48 and the dimes are #47. nice to follow up the dimes \m/
adr: are there other songs than Hawg on the GG?
Ramon LP4 Medina: Nah just the stupid two chord song
adr: hahah. ok - so I have it already
Ramon LP4 Medina: yup you have the rough mix I sent John
the final is a bit more full sounding
adr: killer
Ramon LP4 Medina: 2 chords 11 minutes puttign a second song would be even more torturous we're not that mean
adr: haha. I will attempt to write the review for it in less than 30 minutes
Ramon LP4 Medina: Ha. yeah I think 2 chords, 11 minutes, bikders, drugs, under age women, cops bullets, = worst GG ever :)
adr: wow. we totally have polar opposite approaches to life on that one buddy
Ramon LP4 Medina: HA
adr: i think that an edited version of this IM conversation might actually be the review
Ramon LP4 Medina: HA Ha no worries...it's not like I haven't made an ass out of myslef before. :)
adr: The song is still going.

Grey Ghost #48, Linus Pauling Quartet's Hawg (which was left off their recent full length All Things Are Light due to space reasons), is, like all Grey Ghosts, available for a single week at Domy Books for $2.

REVIEW: LINUS PAULING QUARTET: ALL THINGS ARE LIGHT

Our favorite thing that any critic has ever written about a Linus Pauling Quartet album is by Q Magazine, who commented "A large red sticker proclaiming WEIRD ALERT could not make things plainer." This was sort of the impression that had always carried with us about LP4, especially considering we knew them more through the man-about-internet writings of their man-about-town guitarist Ramon Medina than any actual first-person encounter with their music (this is not to say that Ramon is especially weird or anything, just that the threat of weirdness is a thread in most writing about them. Ok , actually, the button up silk shirts are a little weird). So, aside from a single (rather hazy) show, we really went into the listening process for this record expecting something that would confuse us like Balaclavas. To the contrary.

The other thing we often read about LP4 is that they are a psychedelic rock band. However, lighter than Philadelphia Cream Cheese is their reliance on flange, delay, loops, phase, chorus or any of the multi-tracking schenanigans that make it easy to tell which Beach Boys songs are from Pet Sounds and which are not. Yes, there is a little trip here and there (how could there not be in a nine minute song about alien abductions, though using a wah pedal on a guitar solo alone hardly makes one psychedelic), but its nothing that couldn't be chalked up to making music in post-modern era (read: there are no influences because everything is an influence).

Nope, if we had to use a single term to describe what was going on here, and you know we are going to use a single term because we are sick of not having this review done, that term would be grunge.

Grunge.

First off - eat it, we like grunge rock and this is not meant as a jab or something. Frankly, we're really over reviewing records (and writing in general) right now and just want to push out our thoughts on them, and so we're not ashamed to go back and resurrect the original meanings of a genre whose earliest prognosticators cannot be held responsible for the number of Candlebox , Creed and Collective Soul records currently inhabiting the cut-out bin at your local record store. We're all about those first couple Soundgarden and Mudhoney records. Never stopped listening to them. We love the bigness of them - sure there was louder and heavier stuff - but it all went too fast, and therefore was a small blur rather than a hulking bantha. And that's grunge for us - not JC Penny clothing collections or DOD effects pedals, but a gigantic hairy beast meandering out of the cold wet Pacific northwest with backpacks made of humbuckers and sleeves made of drop d tuning.

The fact that we take to these two acts in particular (as opposed to doling out Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains as favorites - though real talk, they are as well), has something to do with why we have been listening to this record as much as we have without actually pushing in the clutch and engaging the right mental gears to get a review of it out of the garage. First off - let's do some thematic investigation and correlation. The great thing about Mudhoney , Mark Arm once said (approximately) was that they had songs about dogs and being sick. In other words, they did not wrestle with weighty subjects - and that's whats appealed to us about them. Quick examination of All Things Are Light (isn't the title itself, by the way, telling us not to expect too heavy of material), and we can see similar thematic impulses, those being drunkenness (She Bad, She Throwed, Old Crow, 40oz), fast food (Enchirito), and sword metal (Waiting for the Axe to Fall).

But as much as it was the puerile nature of Mudhoney's lyrics that appealed to our still very teenage mind, it was the aforementioned largeness of Soundgarden that worked antidote to their unfortunate occasional mustering of subject matters inappropriate for an Archie Comic; big crunchy chords that get rode on out while the leaden lead line drives the melody forward; building, tearing down abruptly, building up again. We dig on it, but we wouldn't guess that they necessarily do. There isn't any sort of obvious grabs from the Soundgarden playbook here, more likely it's just a coincidence of tone, equipment and approach - and it works for us.

We've been told repeatedly that LP4 worked really hard on the album, and that shows in the production, the music and the packaging. Frankly, we wished this review did a better job of communicating that to you (or communicating anything at all) - but what just took you two minutes to read took us nine hours to write and we're over it. We're going back to just listening to it. Recommended.

MP3: Linus Pauling Quartet - Alien Abduction

BEAT THE STREET: GET LP4’S NEW ALBUM BEFORE RELEASE DATE+ BEER, PIZZA AND INSECT WARFARE

Yes, we are quite aware that the Doobie Brothers are playing tonight, and that there has been a near-criminal lack of coverage of this event. BUT, that doesn’t mean that you don’t need to make a stop off before you point your sexton towards the show. Yep because, this afternoon, starting at five-ish, the good folks at Sound Exchange have a treat in store for you. No, they haven’t decided to discount the remainder of the McManus collection to club-a-baby-seal-crazy prices – rather they’ve used their considerable influence over all things local and 12” in girth to bring to you (but not us, cause we’re in Midland) the new Linus Pauling Quartet record, All Things Are Light, weeks before the official US street date. Yep, while sippin on suds and biting on pie, you’ll be the first in line to buy the new record, all the while (we are told) being nurtured by the soothing and more than moderately whip ass new Insect Warfare album. So, whether your evening begs the question of what a fool believes, or whether you want to hit up Matt Pond or Say Hi, atleast you know where to get it all started. Cha Ching!

REVEALED: LINUS PAULING QUARTET ARTWORK, TRACKLIST, CONAN AFFINITY

Non self-released records are in abundance in Houston this year, and more than a few of them are even coming out as actual records. One that still remains in the category of the forthcoming is Linus Pauling Quartet's All Things are Light, which will be put out by the Australian label Camera Obscura. WELL LOOKIE HERE: it appears that the artwork for the LP has been finalized and is presented below for your anticipatory anticipation.



Plain jane black and white photo? HARDLY YOUNG SIRES! We're told that the 'white' on the image above will actually be a metallic silver. Shiny and bird attracting - into it. We're also come into the reflected light that the album will have a sticker on the front listing 1)The artists and title; 2) The fact that it contains a CDr of the tracks for listening to in the car on the way home from the record store and ripping into the iPod for the trip back from Austrailia; and 3) That it is pressed on purple vinyl. We just love that last one. Our second favorite vinyl color ever after limited edition DEATH BLACK! BUT WHAT JAMS SHALL WE HEAR ON THE VIOLET CIRCULAR VIOLATOR? OBSERVE:

1) Alien Abduction
2) Southern Pine
3) She Bad She Throwed
4) Old Crow
5) 40 Oz.
6) Encherito
7) Waiting for the Axe to Fall

Finally, we were also given a sneak peek into the album's inside, in particular some swordmetal.com inspired artwork that John Cramer put together:



In a word: Stoked.

LINUS PAULING QUARTET WILL THUNDER DOWN UNDER

WE LOVE emails that contain the subject line "Shameless Self Promotion." No seriously, spending our lunch hours and evenings scouring the internet and reading countless myspace bullitens just to drag out a story idea or two is, well, making us hungry and single. SO, it's mad refreshing when a someone has the gumption to send us the deets on something they're up to in advance. Especially something like NEW ALBUM DETAILZ.

The Linus Pauling Quartet, about whom our favorite critical comment about is "A large red sticker proclaiming WEIRD ALERT could not make things plainer" (Q Magazine), has just had their upcoming LP picked up by the Austrailian label Camera Obscura. All Things Are Light will be released late summer in a limited run of 500 on purple vinyl (it will also include a CDR of the tracks for folks like us who are way behind in getting all their records on to YE OLDE IPOD).

In the meantime, the Linus Pauling Quartet isn't playing any shows and doesn't have any scheduled. Oh. Well, i guess, in the meantime meantime, you can go download some tracks from their previous releases here. Crikey.