Space and the City
Posts tagged The Sour Notes
THE SOUR NOTES DO SO MUCH STUFF AT ONCE THAT IT MAKES US LOOK KINDA LIKE WE DON’T DO ANYTHING BY COMPARISON
Jan 6th
AHH. Welcome back. Atleast, that is what you might be saying to us. Yes, the holiday season was generally one long extended Shityeahturday under whose crushing weight of fun, revelry and crushes we were not well positioned to escape. Apologies to everyone that missed us while we were gone. And double plus so to all the bands that wrote us with all the things they had going on that we missed. Top of that list? The Sour Notes.
Just this last weekend they had their CD release show over at Rudz, with a bill of bills that included Listen Listen and Spain Colored Orange (more on them doing things later in the week). Though we had to take the night in, we heard report that the show was packed and that many of you have a much better insider track than we do on the goings on. Pics plz.
BUT – we are fortunate enough to tell you that, in addition to the new EP (which, is fantastic, btw, and will be coming soon to a ramble near you) our fav quartet of exiled Veronans have been up to quite a few other things. Cause you know, it ain’t enough to just put out good records for some folks.
To start with, recording a set of originals wasn’t enough, so they had to go ahead a record a much beloved Jawbreaker standard, “Accident Prone.” Yup. Grab the MP3 Here.
Oh, and what enterprising band wouldn’t take the time to make a video of one of their new tracks while they’re at it. Well, most of them it turns out, but not The Sour Notes – check this aces visualization of Is it Happening from Received in Bitterness.
‘Is It Happening?’ from The Sour Notes on Vimeo
Not enough for you? Well, you’ll have to wait a while to complain to them in person, as they’re currently in the midst of a tour taking them through the South, over to the East Coast (including a Baltimore appearance with Jana Hunter) and back again. So, if you were looking for a reason to head up to Austin on the 24th, you would be well to do so considering they’ll be up there playing (again) with Spain Colored Orange, Dizzy Pilot and We Landed on the Moon. Sadly, they have no Houston shows listed on their schedule at the moment, making it even more double plus un good that we missed their set the other night. Next time.
THE 2008 SKYLINE 50 – PART FIVE
Dec 19th
Our look at the 50 songs that were Houston music to us in 2008 wraps up today, as does voting in for the Sammies (at noon). Be sure to swing by our party Saturday night at Big Star to get the inside scoop on all our winners, and to sit and sip to the souds of all the songs on our list. Thanks for reading.
Underwater Staggie – The Mathletes
We’re the Mathletes and We’re From Houston so How About That Vol. 1 (All Star Power Up Records)
From their disc of covers of H-Town compatriots, this re-imagining of the Hearts of Animals original mines the furthest reaches of HOA’s occasional delicate shoegaze tendencies. Beginning in a reverberating warm lake of fuzzy guitar delay and harmonics, it suddenly quick shifts into a slide-acoustic and tippity top drumming that hews more closely to the spirit, if not the sound, of the original. Again, for all the goof in their collected recordings, it’s sometimes easy to wonder if the Matletes intend to be taken seriously or if it’s another Guilloteenesque example of one original sin joke playing itself out over a rather extended period. But to hear Joe Mathlete cry out “you stop singing, shush shush shuhs, I’ll stop stop singing” we know that his heart is as invested in those words as if he was the animal that wrote them and that’s a beautiful thing.
Weak at Heart – The Sour Notes
The Meat of the Fruit (self released)
This song makes us think of summer of senior year, with a class ring still on your finger and a stupid jacket on your back, uniwttingly falling in love late at night in chain diners and fast food resturants under flourescent lights too bright and diffuse to catch the glimmer in an overlooked beau’s eyes until it’s much to late. Before your lungs were blackened and your liver curdled and heart greyed with bad decisions, you were in a place where the world sounded like this, where aquas and pastel pinks were sincere and most of your major decisions involved deciding which t-shirt to wear. Only art can take us back to places like this. Thank God for it.
Westward – Buxton
A Family Light (Mia Kat)
This whole romp sounds like the entirety of Buxton is riding on the back of a bucking bronco that’s fleeing the ghosts of Eddy Arnold and Marty Robbins, who are both giving chase because they think these city kids have figured out how to bottle lightning and the new sound of the Old West in a sarsaparilla flavored elixir. Never has a song about ditching friends and family been so much fun, and then suddenly they round a corner and Charlie Daniels is there shouting THEY’VE STOLEN THE SECRET TO WHIPS USE OF THE FIDDLE! GET EM BOYS!
Who We Are! – Powerhouse
Yeah! (Self Released)
If there was never a time in your life when you knew which of your shoes were better for dancing than the others and part of your Saturday pre-party ritual included swapping out ties with your boys and strutting around the house you were all getting reading at as a gang listening to your favorite jams and feeling like the most insider outsiders in the whole world and then hitting the club and raising your outstretched hand to heaven at the climax of your favorite song and not giving a fuck and dancing with your boys instead of girls cause who needs them, then you should probably try listening to this song a lot and if it doesn’t give you that kind of a feeling then we wouldn’t worry about it because you’re likely already dead and so you should practice your harp.
503 – Flowers to Hide
Down the Stairs (Self Released)
After what seems like forever (and lord knows how many lineup changes, brief hiatuses, and aborted attempts in the studio) Flowers to Hide finally put out a record this year that captures the primal vision of who they are. No mater how good the live acoustics, they’ve never been able to get across the nuanced swirling of their guitar assault as effectively and beautifully as they do on this and all the other tracks on 503. On the stage, it often is just loud, here in beautiful headphoned comfort, available in your pocket whenever you need it, it comes across as intended – layer after delicious, devilish layer.
SPECIAL INELIGIBLE BONUS TRACKS
OK. So, we like to break the rules, and one of them we are breaking this year is including a few tracks that didn’t really meet our requirements to get on the countdown, either because they previously appeared on recordings covered in our countdown or never made the jump to a physical artifact. We’re also going to take this opportunity to stop writing because we’re just chock out of ways to be endlessly self referrential about our past and kinda need to go out and have some new stuff happen to us so we can have memories to mine for next year.
A Day in the Life of Walter Price – Piano Vines
Unreleased
Asteroid B-16 – Tod the Fox
Unreleased
Doctor Doctor – Young Mammals
Young Mammals (Self Released)
Underwater Staggie – Hearts of Animals
Hearts of Animals 7″ (Dull Knife)
All My Love – Kidd The Great
Unreleased
OK OK one more. One night we caught a cab from our place to Walter’s to check out a Golden Axe show and we got to talking with the cabbie about music and he revealed to us that he was an MC himself. So he popped a cd in the deck and we started seriously feeling this song, and we kinda recognized the sample but couldn’t really place it and weren’t terrible worried because after all the beats were sticky and his flow was good and then suddenly he (on the track, not behind the wheel), put the punctuation on a verse with the lyric “and thats all of my love” and then suddenly Robert Plant cried out “All of My Love” and we lost our freaking minds cause it was so good. So yeah, the only way to hear this track is to catch a ride in his cab (it’s not even on his MySpace) and ask to hear it and did we mention that his business card also outlines the fact that he offers voice lessons, studio time and that if you want to book him for a show he needs at least one hour notice. No joke.
THE 2008 SKYLINE 50 – PART THREE
Dec 17th
UH OH! TODAY IS HUMP DAY! You know that means it’s time for part three of our countdown.
It’s Easier to be a Hypocrite – The Sour Notes
The Meat of the Fruit (Self Released)
With an exiled pedigree that’s as rich as the production on this, potentially the best sounding release to make it onto our countdown, we’re willing to take the title on ourselves to be sure this song, band and EP gets a wider audience (technically, this doesn’t qualify for the countdown as not a single member of the band lives in Houston anymore). There’s nothing particularly shocking or world music about the instrumentation, just judicious use of keyboards, background content electric guitars and fader levels that don’t stay in the same place the entire song (hello mute banks!). Again, a disheartening example of local talent putting out their best work after moving away and a reminder that by not opening ourselves up to a wider world, we’re leaving far too much aural pleasure on the table come desert.
Jazz June – The Tontons
Sea and Stars (Self Released)
Some people get the Tontons right away, and some people need a bit of a lense from which to view it. There was, for us, always something that kept us listening to their debut EP and sticking around for their shows long after we decided we didn’t really know how to approach either from a critical perspective. It’s clearly unique around town, worthy of its numerous accolades, and fires the same synapses that has us instinctively acquiring every Daptone and Stax track we can get our hands on, especially ‘Jazz June’ with its latin percussion and bright guitar chord work balancing out the bubbly leads that fill out the second half of the song. If we asked to pick a starting point for The Tontons evolution this would be it, cause we really feel this track and look forward to having a second chance on explaining how they register in our register on their next outing.
Lazy Bones – Papermoons
New Tales (Team Science Records)
Just last night, a friend of ours made the comment that coverage of local music was in grave danger of jumping the shark (we’d give them credit, but they’re not the type that’s into backlash) and we had to kind of sit there for a second and let it soak in that we were pretty culpable in that extremely truthful statement. Later, as we sat staring at the ten empty best records slots on the Village Voice’s Pazz and Jop ballot, we realized that there wasn’t much overlap between what we would tell you the ten best records this year were and what we were going to tell them. Now granted, we have a deliberately narrow editorial scope (we don’t even take into consideration for review most of the records that people outside the city would even know, such as I am..Sasha Fierce). But it was pretty gratifying to be able to type the name of this record in alongside the Fleet Foxes and Girl Talks and She & Hims of the world. Maybe we don’t have the momentum anymore to make it over the shark tank, but as we fall, too small not to fail, discovering records like this along the way certainly made it worth the ride.
Lead Skin – Buxton
A Family Light (Mia Kat)
We won’t hazard a guess as to how the members of Buxton ended up with a post-doc mastery of touching melancholy so early in their lives or catalog, and it goes without saying that their approach to it is neither hamfisted, corny, angsty or insincere. On ‘Lead Skin,’ for example, it’s clear they don’t actually have one, even if you block the lyrics out (which are great, btw). The song’s cripple creek acoustic guitars, lap steel specter and forceful piano are a sterling example of the outfit’s updated Americana and a reminder that quite a few acts in the city should be looking to their own backyard rather than the coasts for inspiration. A+ Very Fast Shipping Would Buy Again. No Shark.
Long Brown Hair – Welfare Mothers
Long Brown Hair 7″ (Self Released)
If 2008 was anything, it was the year of the return of the rawkus garage 7″, and this Sweatbox-recorded debut from the Welfare Mothers is decidedly part of that wave. Featuring an economy of sound and plenty of OH YEAHs, this ode to having a “sexy friend” doesn’t break any new ground but is a splendid gateway into an entire subgenre of good times, pull tabs, and the best satellite (or terrestrial) radio station going on right now. If you’re looking to get a bit of the throw-back feel without coming across as skate dad, catch this 7″ if you can and one of their shows like your button-up dickies top depends on it.
Migration – Future Blondes
1111 (Self Released)
At some point in the future, people from other planets (to say nothing of internet browsing teens from other cultures) will stumble across the Future Blondes recordings. Because theirs are electronic compositions, there is the temptation for us to think that they may be perceived as somehow more modern, or forward looking (as if the cheap-guitar industrial complex could ever be ground to a halt). But for us, these recordings and “Migration” specifically are so of this point in time and a deafeningly pessimistic short term outlook. The song’s title is randomly interjected into the track, distorted, with the force of strained neck muscles behind the all caps exclamation. Forced. This is the sound of forced, strained migration. Of men fleeing war and genocide. Of children and mothers rushing from broken levies and collapsing ice-shelf floodwater. Of wage-earners hallucinating to death in the desert, moments after begging to drink their compatriots urine just to try and cross a line on a map that will make it possible for them to send their children to school. Of gas running out and white flight from the suburbs and their collapse and ghettoization. Migration is an awful, nasty thing and that is what will make this recording so prescient to those that follow, for our future is their horrid past.
Modern Girl – Something Fierce
Modern Girl (Self Released)
Can these kids do no wrong? I mean, when is it that they’re going to come out with a batch of songs that makes us shrug our shoulders and say “meh” and go back to listen to whatever it was that they recorded before this. It’s like their future selves visited them in a time traveling telephone booth with a guy named Rufus and were like “Dudes. Here is your entire catalog, don’t make the mistake most bands make by not having each subsequent thing be better and more interesting than what preceded it, so go ahead and put it in the right order and get to releasing it” and they were like “That’s chill future selves, but we think we got this on our own” and then they went and setup a show in a Starbucks parking lot, and are so cool they actually ADDED scene points for doing that, and then got bonus mods because the whole thing was busted by the police and decided that rather than sitting on their ass and bitching about gas prices being to high to tour that they would spend the summer recording their next record even though IKE kept their power out for longer than anyone we heard of. So yeah, other bands, be more like Something Fierce.
Moving Pictures – News on the March
Almost Songs (Self Released)
Though Almost Songs was intended as a stop-gap recording just so they had something to get out there and consequently doesn’t feature the full arrangement of their live sets (and their released just too late to be considered for this countdown debut EP), this rendition of ‘Moving Pictures” is almost perfect as is. Sure, we’d like to hear the cello and drums in there, but the crucial elements are all in place: the songwriting and the vocal harmonies. From henceforth (and thank goodness someone finally proved everyone speaking to the contrary wrong) we shall no longer take “the vocal monitors in Houston clubs suck” as an excuse for why the singing in your band does. High fives News on the March, we’re totally stoked on spending some quality time with you in the years to come.
Nixon – Woozyhelmet
Get Down (Soda Pop Productions)
Way back in the day there was this girl in the scene named Jessica Nixon that was monkey barrel fun and for whatever reason we had a secret compact to always drink copious amounts of Goldschlager (ok, maybe just a shot) with her whenever we saw her even if it meant walking up the street to the store and buying a bottle and a flask so that it could be consumed in locations where it was not available and it was just like being back in college except that even in college we were smart enough not to drink that schleck and if there is any upside to her having moved to Austin it’s that we haven’t had to taste a drop of that yeech since she left. Oh, and this song is about that same Jessica Nixon and one advantage California Governor Schwatzeneger has over failed California Gubernatorial candidate Richard Nixon is that is that he can pack a bunch of ideas into a single long run-on sentence and get away with it because of his accent. Why aren’t you into this album yet?
Rickshaw – Sharks and Sailors
Builds Brand New (Self Released)
Not to contradict ourselves, but to completely contradict ourselves, we were actually big fans of all that hipster metal we said Sharks and Sailors had moved away from on this record, so it’s nice that they threw us a big riffed chunky bone of a treat to go bury in the backyard and retrieve when the situation warrants. A complete list of those situations is beyond the scope of this piece, but should be said to include overcooking the chicken during the final step of a long dinner preparation, playing 5 MINUTES OF HATE style video games, driving your tank around the Iraqi countryside, needing something to transition between Queen’s “Tie Your Mother Down” and Rusted Shut’s “Godstrike”on a mix tape, running from super fast zombies, making out with someone with bad breath and taking a quicker shower than you intended before work.
REVIEW: THE GOLD SOUNDS – EP
Oct 7th
Generally, we’re not into simple arrangements. Nothing gets us hotter than some Pet Sounds action – all those clever little nuances and parts and instruments that pop up for just a moment once in a song or an album. If there aren’t 13 overdubbed guitars playing backwards and four random beats on a tympani thrown in somewhere, we feel cheated. DANIEL LANOIS WOULD NEVER ALLOW THIS! MUST BE A DEMO! But that’s the problem, as over the years we have spent more and more of our time plugged into recordings that were done by necessity on the fast and the cheap – where compositions aren’t much more than well recorded demos – we’ve come to really fall in love with recordings that weren’t. Sour Notes’ Meat of the Fruit, Papermoons’ New Tales and Powerhouse’s Yeah! come to mind as the sort of well produced releases that combine good engineering with equally meritous songwriting. But they’re all fairly ornate, and pretty far from notions of three-chords-and-the-truth bliss that comprises the larger part of the Rock and Roll cannon.
We’d lost sight of what a solid, if uncomplicated in production, rock and roll record sounded like. The Gold Sounds’ EP has completely cured us of this. With its tight songwriting, robust lyricism, blinding bright guitars, occasionally fuzzy bass and rock of Jericho solid beats, this self released CDr EP packs a more rockfreshing wallup than it’s hand-made cover could ever convey. These songs, especially the first three, are WHIPS of ACES (the closer, “Parfum,” is a drunky twilight on the trail ballad – still a good listen, but nowhere near the caliber of “Champagne”, “Keep it Rolling” and likely song of the year nominee “Two Ways”). You wouldn’t think it would be so much of a novelty to hear a band executing such, frankly, uncomplicated songs so perfectly – but in our experience it is.
Now, when we say simple, we’re not positing that these are verse chorus verse songs that milk the powerchord all the way to a Chinese Dairy Factory. Rather, there just isn’t much more to it than guitar, bass, drums and vocals. Gold Sounds are about as straight ahead, full on rock and roll as you could hope for. Full of touchstones, but none so strong that you can actually put a finger on it. It feels like it’s from another era, or perhaps another universe where this particular branch of closer to the roots music did not spill out of the early 70s into a cultural current of suck. There is a temperament to what’s being done here, think of the restraint it must take, afterall, to record an album as a trio that actually comes out of the studio still sounding like a trio played it.
There are exceptions, of course. There isn’t much tempered about the vocals on the album, for example, which is a relief because this is one of those rare local records where the vocalist can not just carry a tune, but actually sing (again, this shouldn’t be such a novelty, but it is) – powerful, raw and truthful. This EP has stolen away the top spots in our unwelcome sunrise playlist, combining the desert sky pearl-snap minimalism of Eagles of Death Metal with the aluminum-siding real-talk of “It Makes You Happy” era Sheryl Crow, wrapped up in the straight ahead big riffage and steady beat of early Queens of the Stone Age. (Oh yeah, and we love all those things, especially that one really good Sheryl Crow record – whatever, we had no cred to begin with.) The Gold Sounds haven’t really gotten much in the way of the inner loop spotlight yet, and that’s probably a good thing because clearly instead of wasting their time worrying about scenes and competing metanarratives of what it means to be a musician they’ve just focused on writing songs. These are guys that sometimes play with their shirts off, but most assuredly always without a cynical irony. Again, and sadly, how refreshing. Recommended.
The Gold Sounds are playing this Saturday’s Free Press’ Westheimer Block Paty at 12:45 pm Upstairs at Avante Garden. For those that can’t make it, they’ll be playing a free show at the Scout Bar the next night.
