1) I Hate The Kids – Suicide Invoice – Hot Snakes

2) Liquid Courage – Pretty Girls Make Graves EP – Pretty Girls Make Graves

3) Wave of Mutilation – Live at the BBC – The Pixies

4) Move On – Bandages UK Single – Hot Hot Heat

5) Rebel Without a Pause – It Takes a Nation of Millions – Public Enemy

6) Olio – Echoes – The Rapture

7) Obstacle 2 – Turn On The Bright Lights – Interpol

8) Los Angeles, I’m Yours – Her Majesty – Decemberists

9) Jesus, Etc – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot - Wilco

10) California Stars – Mermaid Avenue – Wilco

11) Orange Crush – Green – R.E.M.

12) High Fidelity – Get Happy!!! - Elvis Costello

13) Tangled Up In Blue – The Essential Bob Dylan – Bob Dylan

14) Mesmerizing – Exile In Guyville – Liz Phair

15) Look a Ghost In The Eye – The Golden Dove – Mary Timony

16) Days of Wine and Booze – Down With Wilco – The Minus 5

17) Rusty Cage – Unchained – Johnny Cash

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A recurring theme in my life is that I am always a bit late to the party with music. I’m ahead of the curve compared to my grandma, but competing with lifeless 19 year olds with giant pipes of bandwidth in their dorm room is a tough business. I snagged a copy of Pretty Girls Make Graves‘ Good Health a year ago, based mostly on recommendations that mentioned a similarity to my beloved Sleater-Kinney. Well, turns out I didn’t like Good Health much, at first. A few songs jumped out at me, but I found myself throwing it on the pile after a few listens. Admittedly, I have the attention span a goldfish.

Offhandedly dismissing Good Health like that made me miss the PGMG train completely. It wasn’t until hearing PGMG’s new release, The New Romance, that I had an opportunity to hop aboard again. The new record finds the band dialing down the speed and screaming a notch, and letting the melodies and hooks surface. The songs breathe more and have a stronger sense of dynamics, and ultimately, I think it’s a stronger album. I eventually revisited Good Health and the Pretty Girls Make Graves EP and found myself mesmerized. I loved the interlocking guitars, the thunderous rhythm section, the passionate vocals and their highly developed arrangements and songwriting. I can’t quite pin down the sound, but there are hints of Fugazi and the Avengers. There just wasn’t a whole lot I didn’t like about it, other than realizing I was an idiot for passing on it earlier.

Armed with an almost stalkerish familiarity with their entire 25 song catalog, I was more than ready to see Pretty Girls Make Graves shake down the Echo in Echo Park, home of the original Sad Girls Por Vida. The Echo’s a tiny joint, and the show looked to be a sellout, or at least close to it. Despite being an all ages show, the crowd was mostly college aged pretty girls in 80′s clothes dragging along their waifish emo boyfriends. Thankfully, there were only three or four trucker hats in the crowd.

Pretty Girls Make Graves took the stage and crammed themselves on the tiny stage. Singer Andrea Zollo and drummer Nick DeWitt lined up dead center with guitarist/keyboardist Jason Clark on the right. With the narrow stage, bassist Derek Fudesco and guitarist Nathan Thelen staggered themselves on the left with one of them always in the lone back corner, depending on who was singing backing vocals.

The set started with “Something Bigger, Something Better,” the opening track from their new album. I found this to be an awkward set opener, as it starts a little slowly before really kicking into gear. The audience as a whole didn’t really know the song well enough to respond to it. It wasn’t until older material like “More Sweet Soul” and “Sad Girls Por Vida” that the crowd began to liven up. After that, PGMG were able to mix in some of the newer material more effectively, with “Teeth Collector” and “All Medicated Geniuses” matching the older material in intensity and fire. The crowd was fairly laid back until the looped keyboards of “Speakers Push the Air” started up, upon which all the kids in Dead Center exploded. Andrea Zollo may end up writing better lyrics than “Speakers Push the Air,” but it’ll be hard to pen a song that touches the hearts of indie music lovers more than that one. Zollo continues to try though, and the keyboard tinged “New Romance” and ever accelerating “This is Our Emergency” are both future anthems to be reckoned with.

I’d heard that PGMG were a terrific live act, but I was absolutely shocked at how tight they were. These guys could flat out play, rarely missing a note no matter how many time changes, stops and starts there were. It all starts with Nick DeWitt and Derek Fudesco in the rhythm section, who are able to generate a heavy groove no matter how wild DeWitt gets with his hands. I particularly like his cymbal work during “New Romance” and his tambourine and maraca percussion during “All Medicated Geniuses.” Fudesco’s bass work gets a bit drowned out when the band is going full bore, but he’s often left carrying the melody when the band goes off on weirder tangents, or when the guitars drop out completely, like on “Grandmother Wolf.” Nathan Thelen and Jason Clark’s guitars cover the entire spectrum, from chimey arpeggios from Thelen’s Rickenbacker and distorted crunch from Clark’s Gibson to Sonic Youth-esque sheets of noise from the both of them. The band were in such unison that they even danced similarly, nervous shakes of live wire energy with the occasional head toss that would flick mists of sweat into the air. Hell, they even all sing the same way, with gravelly screams from hoarse throats.

In the midst of all this madness is lead singer Andrea Zollo, another brilliant frontwoman in a time of brilliant frontwomen. With bangs that fall over her eyes, she looks a bit like a pre-shrunk Karen O, with even some of the same microphone poses and mannerisms. The main difference is that where O situates her persona as larger than life, Zollo strives to connect with her audience on a more human level. With heavy eye contact and audience interaction, she’s insistent on making the concert as much of a communal experience as possible. Personal material like “The Getaway” and “Sad Girls Por Vida” resonate with genuine honesty and “This is Our Emergency” is performed with a sincerity that makes it difficult not to answer her call to arms.

Pretty Girls Make Graves is a rare, special band, able to fuse fierce punk rock with a high level of musicianship and heartfelt truthfulness. Judging by their progress, they seem to be improving almost exponentially. It takes a fool like me to miss out on that completely. Don’t be like me.

Currently on tour, PGMG is going door-to-door and playing virtually every city in the U.S., making believers of everyone. It’ll be hard to miss them if you’re paying attention at all. If they’re not playing in your city… uh, move.

Sartorial Tangent: There were only small and medium sized t-shirts. No Ls or XLs. Fat dudes love you too, hook a brother up.

Soundtrack:
Liquid Courage – Pretty Girls Make Graves

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I officially started my music column on DoneWaiting this week. It’s basically just an extension of all the music entries that I’ve been doing for the past few years. It’s called I Hate The Kids.

The first real entry just went up and it’s a 1400 word recap of the R.E.M./Wilco at the Hollywood Bowl.

Since those entries were the bulk of this blog, I’m not sure what’s going to fill out the space here anymore. Probably just assorted movie reviews and more whining and crap like that.

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Everyone has a First Favorite Band, and for me, it was R.E.M. I would like to say that I’ve been listening to them since Murmur and proclaim my superiority as a long time fan, but my pants would catch fire. The truth is I was in kindergarten when their first record came out, and it wasn’t until “Losing My Religion” that I, along with the entirety of the planet, finally caught on.

More than a decade later, R.E.M. has seen its popularity wane as it tries to carry on without drummer Bill Berry, who left just before the recording of Up. I remain a card carrying member of the R.E.M. fanclub (quite literally, in fact), but I must admit that I approach each new R.E.M. project with a certain sense of trepidation. Releasing a greatest hits compilation and an accompanying tour isn’t the surest way to engender confidence either. Regardless, I bought my slightly overpriced tickets for R.E.M. and Wilco at the Hollywood Bowl and hoped for the best.

I shouldn’t have worried.

The evening started off with Wilco, a band that I never quite “got.” When I listen to their records I hear the tremendous songwriting skills, but I’ve never quite fallen in love like everyone else. I saw them perform at All Tomorrow’s Parties and their show had a staid, rehearsed perfection that turned me off. Taking the stage with little fanfare, Wilco began with a punchy version of “I’m the Man Who Loves You” before settling into a string of ballads, including “Reservations” and a lovely version “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.” The band seemed to have more life than the last time I saw them, and they kept the space-rock noise to a minimum. “Jesus Etc” was helped along by a string quintet, and the 45 minute set closed when Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey joined in to play the Woodie Guthrie/Billy Bragg/Wilco penned “California Stars.”

I’d like to take this opportunity to admonish the wine and cheese crowd at the Hollywood Bowl for having the gall to actually have dinner and matching dinner conversation during Wilco’s performance. Because I got my tickets through the R.E.M. fan club, I had excellent box seats in the very front of the Bowl, mixed in with fellow fan club members and the bourgeoisie. It’s customary to picnic and have dinner in the boxes before the show, but simple manners teach you to be finished by the time performers hit the stage. There were more than a few boxes still eating and drinking and talking during Wilco’s set. If I can hear you speak over the PA system, you’re speaking too loud. Shut up and eat your salad.

R.E.M. took the stage to a roar, and the entire front section stood up from starting gun. By packing the front with fan club members, the band guaranteed themselves a good audience within reach, and avoided the common problem with lackadaisical Los Angeles crowds.

Since this is a “Best of” tour, R.E.M.’s had a pretty wide variety in their setlists. At last count, they’d played 65 different songs on tour, with only a handful being played each and every night. They went to the oldies early, opening with “Begin the Begin” from Lifes Rich Pageant before hitting the more recent “So Fast, So Numb” from New Adventures in Hi-Fi.

The band looked downright peppy, bouncing around with abandon, none more so than Michael Stipe. Long gone is the shy mumbler of the early days and the melodramtic poses of the Green and Monster tours. Instead, Stipe seems mostly himself, comfortable in his own skin at last. While he still has a set of rehearsed moves, his awkward physicality keeps it from looking choreographed and his self-deprecating stage banter is more anecdotal and conversational than ever. Instead of a ringmaster or master showman, he acts more like the concerned host of a party of 15,000 friends. The band itself is more muscular than ever, augmented by Ken Stringfellow (Posies, Big Star), Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows, Minus 5) and the thunderous drums of Bill Rieflin (Ministry, Nine Inch Nails).

There were three new songs played, the best of which was “Bad Day,” their latest single. Originally a demo cut from Lifes Rich Pageant, it feels appreciably different from modern R.E.M. It’s got a ragged quality to it, with run-on lyrics that mark it as the direct ancestor to “It’s the End of the World As We Know It,” and a couple of amateurish harmonica solos that show just how willing Stipe is to embarass himself in the name of entertainment. It’s always been one of my favorite R.E.M. rarities and I’m glad to see it get a spit and polish and a big time release.

The first big surprise of the setlist came towards the middle, when Mike Mills and Michael Stipe switched microphones. There are only a handful of songs where Mills sings lead, and when Stipe dedicated the number to June Carter Cash, it was sure to be R.E.M.’s faux country hit “Don’t Go Back to Rockville.” The performance contained the incredibly rare instance of Peter Buck singing backup vocals. I couldn’t hear him though, and chances are he was merely lip-syncing. Note: this was before the death of the Man in Black himself. Mike Mills also solemnly dedicated a song to Warren Zevon, with whom Mills, Buck and Bill Berry had recorded Zevon’s Sentimental Hygiene and Hindu Love Gods. The elegant grace of “Find the River” fit the moment well, and I think Zevon would have liked it very much.

The main set closed with the single most bizarre concert moment I’ve ever witnessed. The band played “Man On The Moon” as scheduled until Andy Kaufman’s insult loungesingercomic alter-ego Tony Clifton popped up on stage and started singing along to the chorus. Clifton and Stipe exchanged verses until the bridge, where you could see them jawing at each other. Shortly afterwards, Stipe turned around only to have Clifton splash him with an entire Super Big Gulp, drenching him. Clifton continued singing and having a mini-water fight with the band until Peter Buck unstrapped his Rickenbacker and started swinging it at Clifton. Security came out and tackled the pink tuxedo clad Clifton and reeled him off stage. The “official” story is that Clifton was invited on stage and things got a little out of hand, but with these things, you never really know. Whatever the case, it was hilarious and somewhere Kaufman’s still laughing at us, laughing at him.

The encore set was fairly blah with the exception of “Nightswimming,” which was one the finest live renditions I’ve seen the band do. With only Mills on piano and Stringfellow on synth, Stipe delivered a heartbreaking reading on the nostalgic ballad. The performance highlighted one of R.E.M.’s main strengths as an arena rock band. While they’re fairly good at rousing a large crowd into a singalong, they’ve always been exceptional at making large venues seem intimate and personal. It was the kind of number that reminds me why R.E.M. is one of the greatest bands ever and why I’ll always give them another chance at blowing me away: because they always do.

Wilco Setlist
I’m the Man Who Loves You
Poor Places
Reservations
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
War on War
Jesus, Etc.
Spiders (kidsmoke)
Kicking Television
Kingpin
I’m Always in Love
Misunderstood
California Stars

R.E.M. Setlist
Begin The Begin
So Fast So Numb
Imitation Of Life
Drive
Animal
Fall On Me
Bad Day
The One I Love
(Don’t Go Back To) Rockville
The Great Beyond
Orange Crush
Daysleeper
Electrolite
Losing My Religion
Find the River
She Just Wants to Be
Walk Unafraid
Man On The Moon

R.E.M. Encore
Everybody Hurts
Finest Worksong
Nightswimming
Final Straw
It’s The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

Note: REMHQ has an entire concert from Missoula, Montana ready to stream.

Soundtrack:
R.E.M. – Bad Day (PSA)

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Last Saturday, around 4am, my phone started ringing off the hook. I was up watching Sports Night episodes, so I was up and awake and everything. Who calls at 4am? Should I pick up the phone? What if it’s a friend in a bind?

HQD: Hello?
Random Stranger: Is Kenny there?
HQD: Nope. There’s no Kenny here.
RS: Who dis?
HQD: This is Han. I think you have the wrong number.
RS: I must, unless you on crack too.

Who calls at 4am on a Saturday night?

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Turned 27 today.

Posted in Endless Whining 1 Comment »

When Duffy asked me to join the Donewaiting team to write about Los Angeles, my only thought was “Man, this guy must be really desperate.” If you’re reading this, you might be thinking the exact same thing. I’m not a professional writer in any capacity, and my journalism experience stopped at high school yearbook. Luckily, I think Duffy’s only requirements were a passion for music and permanent residence in Los Angeles, CA.

I don’t think I’m too different from your average writer or reader here. At some point in my life, music stopped being background noise and took over my life to an unhealthy degree. I’ve been known to hum to myself and tap my fingers when the silence becomes overbearing. I make mixtapes constantly, and never miss the opportunity to shove new music to unsuspecting friends. I’ve spent countless hours of my life wasted in front of a stage in front of the worst opening acts just to get to the good stuff. Music gets me by on my bad days and inspires on my good ones. I fall in love every time I put on my headphones. If you’re reading this and nodding to yourself, I think this is going to be a good conversation. I think this might be fun.

You ready? Let’s go.

Soundtrack:
I Hate the Kids – Hot Snakes
Los Angeles, I’m Yours – The Decemberists

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