The adventure brings us to Union Hall, land of unisex bathrooms and Bocce ball jokes, like, what did the Bocce ball say to Mick Jagger? Or what did Mick Jagger say to the Bocce ball when they were hanging out with the Pope? Sadly, no, I can’t tell you.

Side swerving to the front of the stage, the unfortunately named band, I’m In You, starts playing. Stodgy blond guitarist flaps at his SG, and a late ‘80s post-punk sound referencing Pere Ubu flares out. Violin, trumpet, and bassist, whose five-string bass is malfunctioning tonight, evoke a violent and irritated sound. Something made me uncomfortable about this band, similar to looking at the back cover of Big Black’s “Songs About Fucking,” where you meet the gaze of the man victoriously going at it with a squinting female who’s clenching her teeth—an image of pure violation which brought me to terms with man’s animal instincts. This feeling lasted for a second while the lead guitarist delivered vocal lines with gruffness. Then a song passed and he announced that the audience should buy an I’m In You tote bag. They’ll look great at the Park Slope Co-op.

More on Wild Yaks @ Union Hall | 1.27.10

Around the coldest January corner in Williamsburg nests Glasslands, a barn full of glitter and darkwave music. On January 26th, 2010,  local arts impresario Todd Pendu brought DJs from Chicago and two local bands, Omega Jarden and Mirror Mirror, to Glasslands.

On this evening, the stage at Glasslands looked like the underside of a prom dress, or like a snug womb, depending on your life outlook. Ladies with cokebottle glasses boogied and waify boys sashayed across basslines played by DJ Harrison as the party warmed up.

More on Mirror Mirror & Omega Jardens @ Glasslands | 1.26.10

Hello! I’m your booty nurse. Listen, we need to talk. You’re having a booty crisis and you need help. Honey, all that sad energy stored in your tukkus is making your bottom unhappy. What you need is a booty-cation on Planet Rump. So, get ready to blast off!

Nurse Jezebel: Under any circumstances should anyone get butt implants, wear underwear that sculpts your tush, or wear butt pads? How about those new Skechers that are meant to firm your glutes?

Miss Strawberry: No!

DJ Tantric: Hells no! I saw a tranny once with butt-plants – it was horrible. I love trannies, though.

Nasty Ness: Hold up! It’s OK if these things help you reach self-booty love! So many people are afraid of their booties. Except butt implants. That might be too much.

I blasted off to Planet Rump this weekend and caught up with Miss Strawberry, DJ Tantric, and Nasty Ness at B-Side on Avenue B, a nice little nook for bottom worshipers. The problem from Earth I brought to these glute gurus: there are a lot of self-conscious bottoms out there, which are afraid to shake their dukes. These booty shamers sour parties and spread rotten energy. What are we Earthlings to do?
More on Alphabet City: B is for Booty Crisis!

photo by O. Mullick

Welcome, alpha-denizens! Each week in “Alphabet City” I will examine an aspect of local music that corresponds with a letter in the alphabet. The first installment, “A,” takes a look at Appalachian music, since many New York bands, from indie folksters to traditional country musicians, often describe some aspect of their music as Appalachian folk, folk, or “old time music.”

How does rural music from the Appalachian Mountains relate to us city slickers here in NYC? Well, don’t get your flannels in bunch if you can’t figure it out. Playing Appalachian music is about preserving cultural traditions, which the Big Apple is wont to do, and, of course, having some damn fun jamming on a fiddle. “Down Home Radio” host Eli Smith explains that playing Appalachian music is about “preserving the authentic music of the American rural underclass, and not just about preserving the music, but about promoting an aesthetic system which has a totally different emotional quality to the pop stuff you hear across the radio dial and on TV, and to my ear a much healthier one.”

Here’s a brief glimpse into the lives of three groups who play old time music – as Appalachian music is sometimes called – and who each preserve folk music traditions in their own way.
More on Alphabet City: A is for Appalachian Music (and secret museums)

LIVE JOURNAL
JezebelMusic.com @ Glasslands
October 4, 2009 | Tayisha Busay, Cherie Lily, Planet Rump

In a barn down by the river, skinny white boys spray glitter aerosol into their hair, and girls in bloomer dresses step spritely through theatrical smoke. An electric yellow kiddie pool is full of Sour Patch kids, and in case you didn’t notice them in the pool, one of six leotard-clad women will come over and offer you a pack.

Tonight is Brooklyn spandex-o-holics Tayisha Busay’s NASTYASS dance party, perhaps the first of a monthly dance party at Glasslands on Kent Avenue in Williamsburg. What that means is the Busay troupe has decked out the Glasslands with tinsel, glow sticks, and there’s a stop motion video booth in the back. DJ Melissa from Telepathe is DJing.

A bolt of lighting hit the stage and Planet Rump materialized to start the show. This group, coming from outer space, played three songs, one which was about fightin’ dudes off your ladies when killing it on the dance floor. Lyric of the night: “I’m just trying to get down with my funky self/ Get outta my tree you ain’t the Keebler Elf.” A fellow in a lamé jacket playing simple Casio leads and drums backed the two females rhyming. Simple wins!
More on Tayisha Busay’s NASTYASS DANCE PARTY

FRESH BAKED
in NYC
The Vandelles
Del Black Aloha
2009 | Safranin Sound and Design / Spoilt Victorian Child
C+

Del Black Aloha is Greenpoint alt rockers The Vandelles’ latest effort. This twelve song LP put out by the Safranin Sound and Design collective, and Spoilt Victorian Child in the UK, is the first full length to come from the group, and the record stands to strengthen The Vandelles presence in a Brooklyn scene that has given surf ’n’ reverb revival bands like Vivian Girls and Crystal Stilts nominal success. Del Black Aloha is analogous to Vivian Girls’ Everything Goes Wrong and Crystal Stilts’ Alight at Night in that each song conforms to the band’s cultivated aesthetic and promotes a singular trademark nostalgic reference. The most obvious nostalgic aesthetic that Del Black Aloha references is the scorching distortion and melodic vocals that The Jesus and Mary Chain conjure up on Psychocandy; it’s not reprehensible that The Vandelles sound like Jesus and Mary Chain. It is more a question of their fashioning of a consistent sound that seldom varies. Every track on Del Black Aloha has a comparable sound and structure – in other words, every song has the same haircut. And this is what causes Aloha to flatline. Each song seems to either lyrically or sonically reiterate the previous. Yet, the end product is respectable: a solid pop record for a band with a growing following.

Del Black Aloha’s quizzical name is actually quite referential to its sound: tunes of alternating equatorial sunbeams and thunder cracks. The sucrose songs, “Die For It Cowboy” and “Blue LA Strip,” have sweet I-IV-V chord progressions with white noise distortion. And the tempestuous numbers, “Lovely Weather,” “Roving Rex,” and “Going Downtown,” maintain sharp fuzz and harmonies, gritty minor thirds in the bass, and stomping drums.
More on The Vandelles | Del Black Aloha

LIVE JOURNAL
JezebelMusic.com @ Pianos
September 11, 2009 | Telefon Tel Aviv

photo by Thomas Wilk

Telefon Tel Aviv played before a half-moon shaped crowd last Friday night at Brooklyn’s The Bell House — unfortunately, the room was also half empty. My boyfriend, who was three-quarters ejaculating at the chance to finally see this band, called foul when Telefon lead man Joshua Eustis started singing. Apparently, my boyfriend best knew TTA in 2001 as a vocal-free blip and blop beat wonder, and he took it to heart that their newest BPMs vulgarly hit 120 and Eustis was clouding each jam with incoherent man singing. However, their 2004 disc, Map of What is Effortless, put out by Chicago electronica label Hefty Records, is characterized by a midtempo glitchy R&B sound with trading male and female vocals, so their current sound should be unsurprising for Telefon acolytes. If you hadn’t paid attention to TTA for the last seven years, you wouldn’t recognize the band of last Friday night — which I think most bands would find flattering.

Nevertheless, TTA’s beats were still sexy (even as the Bellhouse scene was a little too well dressed for sexy). The songs they played from their newest disc, Immolate Yourself, a disc released earlier this year in January on Ellen Allien’s German label BPitch Control, all had a bleary-eyed ambiance to them. Sonically, they seemed referential to uncomfortable mornings, insomnia, or night sweats. The message of the set seemed to project an ambiguous darkness, which given the quizzical death of former band founder Charles Cooper, could have been intended. A picture of a sweaty note on their Myspace page says, “with this song you’ve managed to musically describe the female orgasm. Nice fuckin’ job!” This sentiment seems to capture a previous blithe era of the band, and although it is likely that many still climax to TTA, it seems solemnity and “realness” are a new priority for Eustis’ project.

by Thomas Wilk