The Tape

Our third favorite canadian band, Born Ruffians, just dropped their new album, Red, Yellow & Blue. The curiously In Rainbows-esque cover art is below. It really is a great album and surpasses by far their self titled ep, which was found in the Amoeba clearance for 3 bucks. shame.

Red, Yellow, and Blue is really a step up from the EP. Y’all know I’m a sucker for yelpy Canadian indie rock, but this album really stands on its own. The band, though it is only drums, guitar, and bass, sounds expansive and deep. Harmonized vocals and rounds make for more interesting sounds on many tracks, like Barnacle Goose. There really isn’t an obviously weak track, maybe Badonka Donkey, but the real standout is “I Need A Life” This song it just amazing. Emotional, raw, and full of that Born Ruffians energy you all know and love. Back and forth vocals speak lines like “my cup is half empty, been that way all my life.” and “the sun is shinin’ but we stay inside, stay in bed till we feel alright” but after all these seemingly dreary lines, the truth comes out: “oh but we go out at night.” Born Ruffians may be not such a ridiculous name, cause these kids were born to party.

Born Ruffians - I Need A Life

Just came across this fresh track by Orange Juice, the 80’s band credited by Belle and Sebastian and countless others as inspirational. Their hit track Rip It Up from the similarly titled album sounds fresh, almost as if it just popped out of Chromeo, or more accurately, Cut Copy.

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Orange Juice - Rip It Up

mediafire sorry

LIARS with NO AGE and IMA GYMNIST
El Rey Theater - 2/22/08

After waiting within the fire lines among the beer chugging punkers and Pitchfork hipsters awhile, the curtains of the El Rey opened to three teenagers. One wielded a bass guitar and a mullet. One mounted the drums and the emo hair fang. A girl stood in the corner, who bore a shocking resemblance to M.I.A, making this was obviously her secret side project. (jk) The three kids were definitely not over 18. As the first bass lines picked up, the drums kicked in loudly, and the show had potential. For a sec. The quiet looking girl in the corner, who i had seen walking around in the crowd before, flung the mic cord over her shoulder and began yelling into the mic, whilst jumping up and down. Unfortunately, the drums subsisted mostly on adolescent energy and not any kind of interesting drumming. The bass subsisted mostly on the bassist’s hair. He did play bass too, but he wasn’t very good at it. I imagined myself up there playing those instruments, which i have no training in, and doing it better. But the most important part was the vocals. To describe her voice pattern is to wrestle with destiny. Half shrieked, half yelled, half whispered (1 1/2 voice) lyrics repeated themselves loosely over the drum n bass… noise. Songwriting was lost, as the words coming out were barely, no, completely inaudible. I don’t want to spend any more time for this. I don’t like to give numbers to music, but i’m going to officially declare Ima Gymnist 0/10.

To really understand what I’m talking about, please, please, please spend 10 seconds on their myspace. It will make you feel so much better about the music you have. Ima Gymnist

After another wait, the curtains drew on No Age. To the left was a drumset, and on the front of the bass drum were stickers and posters of MIA, as seen in the pic below

On the other side of the stage Randy Randall stood in the stock-guitar-hero position, legs spread, face down, staring at his guitar.

He picked out the noisy first lines of Weirdo Rippers opener “Every Artist Needs A Tragedy” and as Dean Spunt smacked the drums and began singing into a special mic setup that made his voice sound as if it were floating over an old school radio. To describe No Age better I have to be less specific, and as it was said in the Pitchfork review of their album, “…the album builds into something much bigger than its constituent parts.” as is with their live show. Song highlights were the previously mentioned track, “My Life’s Alright Without You” “Neck Escaper” and “Everybody’s Down.” But the real highlight of the performance was the performance itself. The drums was raw, the guitar was reverbed and effected to the infinity and beyond, and the band was real. At one point Randy Randell tried to climb up onto the amps, but only managed to knock one half over and pull a plug out of the board he was using to loop a riff he had done seconds ago, until Spunt came over and hoisted him up, scampered back over to the drums, and as the soft guitar loop and ambient noise came to a head, Randell leaped off the amp, whacking at his guitar with a fury. Insta-Mosh. People were flying around, heads were banging, and shoes were lost, only to find their owners in between songs. No Age was loud, confident, interesting, different, and amazing. After a long built up intro to the last song, Randell tossed his guitar in the the crowd. Hands grasped and reached, and as people played the strings for seconds at a time before being ripped away, strings snapped and pieces of the guitar fell off. The noise was amazing and beautiful. He reached for the guitar back and the crowd sent it back to him, and even after the curtains closed he stayed there waiting for eveyrone to look around their feet and hand him back the bridge and various knobs that had fallen off. If I haven’t said this yet, No Age was fucking amazing.

No Age- Every Artist Needs A Tragedy

No Age - Neck Escaper

Now for the headliner. Liars are a highly respected band, and when I saw highly respected you know I mean I don’t like them. Now, there are a few tracks I really like, but as a whole I don’t really enjoy their music. The show was interesting, with the lead singer enduring a recent back injury which forced him to sit on the edge of a high stool for part of the performance, but he still was able to get his act on. Angus Andrew flailed around, waving his arms, making movements sometimes related to his lyrics, (”you” had him pointing to the audience, “no no no” was a shaking finger.) All in all, it looked like the time the band spent studying and researching witchcraft for their 2003 cleverly titled concept album They Were Wrong, So We Drowned had caused a spirit to possess Andrew, and it looks like it has not been excised as of yet. Jerky, inhuman movements were involved in most of his dancing.

I can understand why people love this band, but it’s just not for me. As with Vampire Weekend at Amoeba Hollywood where an underwhelming performance was brought up by my love of the band’s music, Liars at the El Rey was a phenomenal performance bogged down by my indifference to the music. I like this song a lot though.

Liars - It Fit When I Was A Kid