Denney & The Jets :: Denney & The Jets EP
On "Fun Girls," Nashville's Denney & The Jets dish out rock 'n' roll as it was originally intended to be played: fast and loose, sweaty and fun, and fit for the dancefloor. With this new EP, the band's unleashed their finest sounding recording to date. When not cranking out Chuck Berry-worthy scorchers like "Close The Blinds," the band slows into drunken bar sing-along territory, as on "Paranoid," where Denney comically laments: "Honey we used to fuck. Now all you want to do is make love, but I don't like it that way."
Austin's Hundred Visions may only have a handful of releases to their name—a few digital singles, a 7" and now their first full-length—but they are quickly becoming one of the very best straight-up rock 'n' roll bands around. The group's 10-track debut Permanent Basement—free until Friday right here—combines every one of Hundred Visions' tracks to date along with 4 sparkling new wrecking balls, like "Sensory Kid," a two-and-a-half-minute arms-flailing, head-banging fastball of post-punk dynamite. While another excellent track, "Regina, Hold The Line," falls along the similarly rambunctious and racing force of previously released cuts "Red Tide" and "The Light That Starts The Day," the band also offers up a pleasantly surprising curveball with the catchy-as-hell soul number "Walk Right Up." Frontman Ben Maddox—who also plays in our other favorite Austin band, TV Torso—takes a commanding presence over the course of Permanent Basement, but it's on "Walk Right Up" where he really kicks down the listener's front door and leaves nothing but a pile of smoldering splinters. Over lingering plucks of guitar, a humming organ, and chorusing backup singers, Maddox channels the likes of Sam Cooke with his own distinctive raspy warmth and ferocity. The immediacy of these ten tracks as a whole is undeniable: you hit play and you're sucked into a 31-minute-long vortex containing some of the year's very best musicianship and songwriting. How do these guys not have a major label contract already? How are they not headlining clubs across the country? Fans of Spoon, The Walkmen, The War On Drugs, and White Denim: meet America's next great rock band, Hundred Visions.
Get Permanent Basement from Hundred Visions' Bandcamp.
Hundred Visions - "Walk Right Up" (from Permanent Basement)
Austin's TV Torso, who've already put out one of our very favorite cuts of 2012 in "No Idea Why," released a three-song EP this week featuring that track and two invigorating fresh numbers: "Clear Lake Strangler" and "Prismatic Ideation." Recorded in frontman Matt Oliver's Big Orange studio where he also tapes a multitude of Daytrotter sessions, the small but searing collection features the frontman spouting off poetry under a sea of tremolo and cranking up a heavy arsenal of brain-puddling instrumentals: swift tight strums of guitar, back-breakingly precise tornados of rhythm, and a gnarly bass synth cut and filtered into a pulsating saw. It's a dynamic hi-fi mix that's as potent in its fiercely pounding rock 'n' roll heart as it is in its thoughtful and innovative experimentation. According to Oliver, he's been big into the Stiff Records catalog ever since hearing the likes of of Nick Lowe and Rockpile in college, though he says his "output's not there yet. Always seems to wind up some place else." I'd be happy to lap up a few Stiff Records-inspired cuts—Dirty Looks anyone?—but this far-off moon TV Torso has landed on suits me just fine. That dreamy, ethereal build and segue from "Prismatic Ideation" to "No Idea Why" is just about as perfect as contemporary rock music gets.
The EP is free on Bandcamp, but if you dig the tracks, please make sure to compensate the band.
The Best Albums:
01. The Tough Shits - S/T // Burger Records
I've got nothing against The Japandroids, but I don't necessarily get all The Replacements comparisons. It wasn't loud messy guitars and anthemic choruses that made us fall for the Minneapolis band. The Mats were obnoxious dicks who purposely bombed shows just for the hell of it. Westerberg and company were hopeless underdogs with a comically poetic and always relatable sense of what it meant to be a kid, a loser, and just human. After all, they had the audacity to put "Gary's Got A Boner" side by side with "Sixteen Blue" and somehow turn it into of the greatest rock 'n' roll records of all time. If you dig The Japandroids, that's great, but if you're looking for that signature Replacements charm and Westerberg-ian wit, the group you ought to be listening to is The Tough Shits.
The Philly band's humor-filled eponymous debut riffs on the simple day-to-day goings ons of life in relatable and heavily self-deprecating fashion, hitting on topics like the "Space Heater" in their apartment, taking the "Chinatown" bus, and "Holding A Seance." The record's a bit of a classicist take on pop-punk with a clean-toned, tightly arranged, and sharply melodic set of numbers that rarely ever breach the 3-minute mark. But like the Mats, what really sets them apart is lyrics and attitude. The Tough Shits are pricks, albeit entirely lovable ones: they switch hats with ease from degenerates picking up coke from their neighborhood dealer one minute ("Hombre De La Cocaina") to sympathetic, thoughtful, and caring the next, as they talk a friend out of suicide on "Early Grave." After a few listens, you'd swear you were sitting around telling stories with a couple of your oldest buddies.
We've been keeping close tabs on Austin's TV Torso of late, as the band puts the finishing touches on its forthcoming LP. According to an update on the band's Facebook page, they're still hammering away in Matt Oliver's Big Orange studio with about 18 songs left to complete. In January, we heard one track that's going to wind up on the record: the holy-shit-this-is-good jaw-dropper, "No Idea Why." Now, thanks to Oliver, we have another track from the recording sessions: "Big Flash, No Crash." According to Oliver, this is one that may not make it on the record: "[It's] a little oddball nonce-song that nobody in our camp knows what to do with." One thing's for sure: it's hard to imagine a discard pile full of material of this quality.
Everybody Taste favorites TV Torso posted a new jam to Soundcloud over the weekend: the sonically rich genre-melting gem, "No Idea Why." Frontman Matt Oliver—who also records a large chunk of Daytrotter's sessions in his Austin studio Big Orange—transmits his vocals with a generous dose of tremolo while pumping giant analog bass synths into this far out vision of pop music. There's a touch of Britt Daniel's raspy vocal delivery and notes of Oliver's former band with Bill Baird, Sound Team, but in the end, TV Torso is unquestionably its own unique beast: a calculated assault of rhythm, hooks, and dizzyingly nuanced layers of aural goodies. If you haven't yet had a chance to snag TV Torso's two rollicking 7"s or stellar 12" EP Status Quo Vadis, we recommend you pick those up immediately. Seriously, this is one of the best and most intriguing bands around.
When not recording sessions for Daytrotter in his Big Orange studio in Austin, Matt Oliver cuts his own material with his band TV Torso. Since last writing about the group in March, they've become a favorite around here with their small but rich vinyl catalogue—a 12" EP and two 7"s—now staples on the Everybody Taste turntable. TV Torso is currently at work on their debut full-length, and while we haven't heard a peep from those recordings, the band recently posted a killer cover to their Twitter account: "My Fair Baby's Coming For Me," a deep and long-forgotten cut by Paul Kane and legendary English producer Joe Meek. The cover was recorded on 4-track cassette during the Austin quartet's Wednesday night rehearsal. (via Rollo Grady)
Connect with TV Torso and download the stellar Status Quo Vadis EP right here.
After Sound Team’s Capitol Records debut Movie Monster was panned by Pitchfork in 2006, founding member Bill Baird hilariously reenacted the review with homemade footage of a dummy being literally stabbed with a pitchfork, thrown off a cliff, and lit on fire. The video is a surprisingly accurate snapshot of Baird as an artist, with its do-it-yourself approach and aesthetic, dead-pan humor, and eye for detail, like the comically dramatic piano score he composed for the video. After Sound Team's breakup in 2007, that DIY mentality became Baird's M.O.: he founded his own studio in Austin out of an old blues bar and Fish R Us called Baby Blue, where he now hosts shows, has recorded bands like Jesse Woods and Generationals, and records and releases his own material, including a string of releases by his band Sunset.
Matt Oliver's Twitter account continues to dish out excellent musical recommendations. After introducing me to the new "Wino Strut" single by his former Sound Team bandmate Bill Baird, Oliver mentioned a band he'd recently recorded at his Big Orange Studio in Austin for Daytrotter: Hundred Visions. The band, also from Austin, is a juggernaut of rollicking drums, deeply rhythmic guitars, and resonant and wailing vocals. Over the course of the debut three-song "Last Cab From Tunis" 7", it's easy to fall under the spell of Hundred Visions' ferociously propelled post-punk fuzz, Southern-brewed funk, and playful sprinklings of cowbell and handclaps. And according to their Daytrotter session, they sound even better live. Clearly, this is a band that's going places. Make sure to grab Hundred Visions' Daytrotter set and buy their digital 7" (with accompanying vinyl on the way) from Bandcamp.
Matt Oliver of the great TV Torso recently linked via Twitter to the Bandcamp page of his former Sound Team bandmate, Bill Baird. Waiting for me there was "Wino Strut," a woozy, warm, and ambient bit of psych-rock. This song has seriously crept it's way under my skin. I don't know much about Baird, just that he releases songs under his own name as well as the Sunset moniker, and has a serious knack for experimenting with analog recording. "Wino Strut," uploaded to Bandcamp just last week, was recorded in Austin at Baby Blue Studio by Quentin Stoltzfus of the band Mazarin (Stoltzfus wrote the incredible "Another One Goes By," popularized by The Walkmen). I highly recommend snagging Baird's "Wino Strut" from his Bandcamp and then exploring the musician's rich and eclectic catalogue over at Autobus Records.
Bill Baird - "Wino Strut"
Sunset - "Loveshines II" (from Loveshines But The Moon Is Shining Too)
After the jump, watch two absolutely far-out Baird videos, one of which is wonderfully lo-fi.
Austin's TV Torso are a rhythmic tornado contained within jagged slices of guitar, rumbling drums, and the throaty vocals of Matt Oliver. Recorded entirely to analog tape at the band's home studio Big Orange, TV Torso's six-song debut EP Status Quo Vadis is a warmly toned work of sharp angles and layered guitar lines that at times recall an unmuzzled, younger Spoon. While a sense of wandering permeates throughout the EP, the songs are nevertheless quick to the task at hand, instantaneously accessible and enjoyable at every turn.
Catch the band performing on their home turf this week at SXSW. Download the EP at their Bandcamp for free or buy it on 12" vinyl.
TV Torso - "Elegy" (from Status Quo Vadis) TV Torso - "Nobodies" (from Status Quo Vadis)
Denney & The Jets :: Denney & The Jets EP
