EtherBomb- Music MP3s and Reviews

Mary’s Party! 4th of July Portland blockbuster

rswelling — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:47:47 +0000

So I’ve added a section “Portland Bands” to list some of the great bands I’ve been seeing here since moving. Portland has a number of different thriving music scenes currently, as well as lots of great places to see bands. 4th of July we (Lana Rebel and the Broken Promises) played a really fun house party (Mary’s Annual 4th Party) There were a number of other great bands on the bill, but the one that made the biggest impression on me was Lord Master. When they were setting up it was hard to tell what to expect…a double stack of vintage National amps! Well to keep it short I’ll just say that they play a mixed bag of smart ironic rock fused with some really great metal guitar riffs, topped off with fun snarky lyrics ( a metal song about a bodybuilder etc). All in all really great stuff. Other highlights were the Birds of War, fronted by a couple of Portland veterans James Curley and Dylan Reilly whom I knew from way back in the days of punk rock in Tucson AZ. The Birds ripped through an admirable set of vintage punk rock which would appeal to fans of Black Flag or The Minutemen…the real stuff. Dylan was pleased to report his dad has finally realized that he is indeed an excellent bass player after seeing the performance. In between these bands were Thee Headliners…who are just too damn good. They had the drunken revelers all torqued up into a sweaty frenzy that culminated oddly enough into a sweaty shirtless man jam…I snapped a camera phone picture of this display featuring none other than apple of our gal Lana’s eye Kevin Mayfield banging his tambourine and singing along during a Creedence cover.

Bow before your LORD MASTER!- Myspace site
THEE Headliners- Myspace site

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum NW tour

rswelling — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:09:12 +0000

Just caught the Sleepytime show here in Portland at Dante’s last night…and it was pretty damn impressive. They are a band firing on all cylinders at this point with enough material to pull from to put on a good 2 hours of really strong music. Most impressive moments for me included the new (to me) instrument created by Dan Rathbun, I don’t know which one it was from the list on their site

The Slide-piano Log, the Percussion Guitar, the Electric Pancreas, the Vatican, & the Pedal-action Wiggler; or rare: Autoharp, Glockenspiel, Toy Piano, & Viking Rowboat.

I’m going to harbor a guess it was the Pedal Action Wiggler? It looks like a bow attached to a hi-hat stand and it sounds somewhat like a didgeridoo as he pumps the hi-hat pedal, flooding the world with a monstrous bass tone. There was an entertaining number about the “Last Human Being” which i believe may have replaced the theatrical “Cockroach” number which was a personal favorite from the past. I greatly enjoyed the “Old Grey Heron”, a song written by Dan and introduced in a humorous manner as a song he had written for his father after he passed away, except he hasn’t passed away yet, and he continues to live on at the ripe old age of 88. You still have a few chances to catch this monster of a band as they finish their NW tour down the coast.

Upcoming-

# Eugene, OR WOW Hall W/ Mute Socialite
July 07, 2008
# Brookdale, CA Brookdale Lodge w/ Jason Webley , Edmund Welles
July 08, 2008
# Los Angeles, CA the Troubadour w/ Jason Webley , Edmund Welles
July 09, 2008
(Live Show)
# San Francisco, CA Great American Music Hall w/ Jason Webley , Edmund Welles
July 10, 2008
(Live Show)

Official Website- Sleepytime Gorilla Museum

Salvador y Lluvia

juice — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:58:40 +0000

This was done by Jesus Contreras and Hannah Manfredi as a music and video collaboration. The story is about a little girl that wakes up to find herself in Mexico. She meets a young boy named Salvador who is on his way to sell mangos at the market. She doesn’t know whether she is still sleeping or awake. The animation and artwork was done by Hannah Manfredi, who also supplies the voice in the narration. Interesting enough, the music and vocals were completed before the animation was shot. All of the music was realized in Live You may need to go directly to the video on Youtube if you have trouble reading the subtitles. This is the direct link to it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=uVREtfM1AL4

Devo to Ronald McDonald “Not so fast chump”

rswelling — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:29:05 +0000

I heart Devo. McDonalds is being sued for unauthorized use of the trademarked helmet on some stupid toy, designed of course to sell crappy food to children, the McDonalds business model.

“They didn’t ask us anything. Plus, we don’t like McDonald’s, and we don’t like American Idol, so we’re doubly offended.”

Devo- Devo vs. McDonalds

Devo from 1977!

16 Horsepower live performance of Cinder Ally

rswelling — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:48:16 +0000

If you like dark gothic country filled with fire and brimstone, you are no doubt familiar with the amazing talent that was 16 Horsepower. The haunting voice of David Eugene Edwards will send shivers down your spine, and at least force you to ponder your existence. They were a notoriously great live band and here is a bit of evidence to support that claim. The video is from the Pinkpop fest in Netherlands in 2000. I could not find any info on the excellent violinist…anyone know who she is?

Sixteenhorsepower- Officially dead website
Woven Hand (Edwards post 16HP)- Official? Website

Jack’s Back! With something even more original

rswelling — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 05:00:31 +0000

Jack Conte blew a few minds with his Radiohead cover a while ago, and he’s been busy apparently preparing some original material. He proves he can also compose a pretty decent pop song, and of course bust it out in the one man band “video song” format.

Here are a couple other fun “video songs”.
Martin Dosh-

Lasse Gjertsen-

Machines can sing! Radiohead songs anyway.

rswelling — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:33:29 +0000

The author of this amazing piece James Houston claims “It doesn’t sound great, as it’s not supposed to. “, I respectfully disagree…it’s beautiful and I enjoy it more that the original! It’s a little slow to get going but hang in there…it’s pretty damn cool.

The band performing Radiohead’s Nude…

Sinclair ZX Spectrum - Guitars (rhythm & lead)
Epson LX-81 Dot Matrix Printer - Drums
HP Scanjet 3c - Bass Guitar
Hard Drive array - Act as a collection of bad speakers - Vocals & FX

Big Ideas (don’t get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

Lou Reed loves the new Moog guitar!

rswelling — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:18:21 +0000

The next time you have an extra 6k lying around you might want to pick up one of these Moog guitars. It is pretty amazing, and Lou certainly seems sold on it. The guitar has unique sustain and muting features which allow you to create some really amazing soundscapes. What sets the Moog guitar apart from other guitars? I’ll let their marketing team explain-

-The first and most basic difference is that the Moog Guitar is able to MUTE the strings, actually physically stopping the strings’ vibration.

-The Moog Guitar in the FULL SUSTAIN mode is more powerful and responsive than anything on the market. The Moog Guitar also has governors on every string that prevent excessive buzzing. It is a very strong and even sustain on every string, on every fret. The Moog Guitar can sustain full six-note chords easily.

-When in any mode (Full Sustain, Controlled Sustain, or Mute) you do not have to sacrifice one of the pick-ups for the functionality of the innovations. This means there’s always sound coming from both pick-ups. The ability to pan mute and sustain control between pick-ups (with the included foot pedal) is the source of Harmonic Blending.

-You’re always in control of the Moog Guitar. When Controlled Sustain is engaged, you pick and choose what strings are being given energy (by playing them!), without having to mute the other strings with your hands. There is no spill-over of energy to unwanted strings.

Moog Guitar- Official website

Weezer shows their creepy side

rswelling — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:43:23 +0000

I’ve never been a huge Weezer fan, it’s not that I don’t think they are good at what they do…they obviously are, it’s just not what i am interested in. That said however, they are doing something really awesomely cool right now. Traveling around and getting together with groups of local musicians to play their songs and others. They put out a call for 200 musicians in Portland…where pretty much everyone is a musician, and it seems it went swimmingly. Apparently the idea came from Rivers Cuomo’s mom…in case you were wondering, i might argue he stole it from the Boredoms…but I won’t. Here are a few videos that have surfaced recently.

Weezer and the Portland posse plays Radiohead’s Creep-

Some random Portland footage-

Tenori-on- lite brite robot music

rswelling — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 04:14:22 +0000

Sure it looks cool, and it costs like $1200…but what can YOU do with it! It appears the wise Yamaha people marketing the Tenori-on instrument have dropped a few of them on some of the music communities experimental pioneers, and videotaped the results. Here are a few videos featuring some of the results. It will be interesting to see what happens as people start hooking this up to external sound sources and such as demonstrated in the video over at CDM.

Jim O’Rourke-

Fourtet-

John Herndon (Tortoise)-

More videos and info about the Tenori-on- Official Site