Weird Stalk, Too Lineup Announced

Last year's 3 day Weirdstock festival thrown by the Whitehaus as a 40 year anniversary to the original Woodstock was a huge success, if not necessarily in the turnout, then in proving the fact that doing a 3 day DIY fest is totally in the realm of possibility.

AWESOME NEWS: the Whitehaus is bringing it back and they're calling in Weird Stalk, Too. The sad news is that instead of taking over the Cambridge YMCA for a whole weekend, it's going to be an all nighter at The Temple in JP. But that means lots of good things, too.

Like you don't have to take a whole weekend off to enjoy what's sure to be one of the coolest parties in Boston this year. And instead of feeling bad on missing half of the 40 bands like last year, you can make damn sure you see all of 'em this time. And it's not at The Y.

So the official lineup so far looks totally fucking rad. I'm super psyched about Kurt Weisman and Blevin Blectum, but there's also power drone fiend Double Awake, the self explanatory Metal & Glass Ensemble, California's chill creeper Dead Western, another one of Angela Sawyer's endless projects Preggy Peggy, circuit bending sound artist Omnivore, and plenty of Whitehaus mainstays like Many Mansions, Morgan Shaker, and Peace, Loving. And there's still more to be announced!

This shit is gonna be so so awesome.

August 20, 2010
The Temple
670 Centre St, Jamaica Plain
8pm - sunrise

Blevin fuckin Blectum
Kurt Weisman
Dead Western
Preggy Peggy & The Lazy Babymakers
Cloud Becomes Your Hand
Ashcan Orchestra
Metal & Glass Ensemble
Kid Romance
Cave Bears
Omnivore
Double Awake
Mouse Queen
Morgan Shaker
Many Mansions
Peace, Loving

Blastfest 3!

Alright dude(ette)s, it's March, and March means Blastfest!

The Whitehaus, the coolest commune this side of of the Catskills, is throwing down the gauntlet for Blastfest 3. Check out this fuckin lineup.

Avi Jacob, Gregory J Mullen, Manners, Shai Erlichman, The Needy Visions, Duck That, The Woodrow Wilsons, Wolf Woolf, Tulsa, Ambitious Tugboat, Concord Ballet Orchestra Players, Debbie and the Bullets, Casey Rocheteau, Apollo Sunshine, Rene, Boy Without God, James Lindsey, The Great Valley, OH!OH!MINTS!, The French Cops, Girlfriends, The Meadowlarks, Turtle Ambulance, and more, YES MORE

So much fun is going to be had at Blastfest 3. You have no idea. It's going to be like the epic party you always wanted to throw but never had enough friends to make it crazy enough. Well, everybody at Blastfest is your friend (true story) and that means THIS IS THAT PARTY. The music is going to be sosososo fantastic and, get this, FREE PB&Js!! Just don't be a glutton.

They'll be celebrating the release of The Whitehaus Family Record Family Record, a 2xLP compilation featuring a ton of the people playing Blastfest and then some. And there's not just music, there's also a zine fair put on by the inimitable Papercut Zine Library (who just found a new home in Somerville!), plus a comic jam (?). Yeah, this is going to be pretty grand.

The whole hootenanny goes down on March 20 at the Cambridge YMCA from 11-11 with a "sliding scale" of $5-10 for tickets. Meaning if you can swing it, and you should be able to swing it I mean they're giving away goddamn PB&Js you guys, then you should drop a tenner in the bucket.

V/A - Whitehaus Family Record Family Record (Whitehaus Family Record, 2010)

Rene - Destination: Mars


Avi Jacob - Till The End Of Time


If you live in/around Boston, you should already know who and what the Whitehaus in JP is. It's a big place with lots of people and they all make stuff. It's a record label. It's a place where super fun shows go down. It's like something you see in a movie that is the most awesome thing ever and you want so bad to be a part of it but you realize it's way too cool to ever happen in real life (aka Empire Records). Well, these kids made it happen and the world, or at the very least Boston, is better for it.

The Whitehaus Family Record put out a 2xlp compilation, the Family Record. Clever, right? 27 songs, all different bands, all different styles, and one single cohesive mindset. Yes Wave.

This comp is full of the greatest non-noise Boston has to offer. Unnerving spoken word, dusty Americana, warped bedroom pop, whole hearted folk, tropical drone, expansion psych, hand clapping hootenannies, electro hip hop, delicate guitars, chilled out dance jams, intimate angel choirs, fiddles & banjos, Casios & drum machines, 100% FUN

I've given lots of love to these bands in the past so you should recognize plenty of the names on here. Many Mansions, Morgan Shaker, Prince Rama Of Ayodhya, Turtle Ambulance, Truman Peyote, Manners, The Needy Visions, The Great Valley, and Peace, Loving are the ones you should know. And love. And that means the other 18 bands are in great company and you'll instinctively open your heart and ears to them. The official release date is March 20, aka Blastfest 3!

Haiku Review: Morgan Shaker - L.A. Knightz (Whitehaus Family Record, 2009)

Morgan Shaker - Refective Low Lying Trinity Cloud Forms Above The Boneyard


Morgan Shaker
L.A. Knightz (download)
/muddy beats, thick drone/
/hypnotism by muffling/
/shake, rattle, and roll/

Weirdstock & Chaos First

Hope you guys don't have anything planned for this weekend because it is EPIC PARTY TIME.




First, there's Weirdstock, paying homage to the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. It'll be at the Cambridge YMCA and runs from 6:00 on Friday the 14th to Sunday night. Over 50 bands are going to be playing. All sorts of awesome stuff. Highly experimental drone, freak folk, plus video and installation art. Here's a partial list of who'll be playing.

Ducktails, Dreamhouse, Harmonizer (Greg Davis), Julian Lynch, Kurt Weisman, Keith Fullerton Whitman + Geoff Mullen Duo, Skeletons Out, Devil Music, Eat Cloud, Truman Peypte, Sore Eros, Lord Jeff, Cursillistas, Goat of Arms, Ricardo Donoso, Mudboy, Human Hairs, Cave Bears, QFWFQ Duo, Radio Wonderland, Many Mansions, Ophibre, Concord Ballet Orchestra Players, Peace, Loving, Metal and Glass Ensemble, Palm, Quilt, Omnivore, Duck That (Steve Norton), Son of Salami, Tooth Ache, Guatemala City

And plenty more. 1 day pass is $7, 2 day pass is $13, 3 day pass is $18. Buy them here. Buy them now. Full lineup and more info on the Whitehaus site.





Then there's Chaos First put on by WMUA at Umass Amherst. So, duh, this is going down at Umass Amherst. The Library Lawn and Student Union Ballroom to be precise. This show is going to be a bit more, um, noisey. And chaotic. The big name they got is Lightning Bolt, which is totally fucking rad. And if that's not enough to make your nips hard, here's all of the other bands that are playing.

Noise Nomads, Mallory, Sylphid, Belltonesuicide, Invisible Circle, Id M Theftable, Brava Spectre, Sords, Problem With Dragons, Gastric Lavage, Cellura Peptid, White Crime, Able Archer, Untitled Original, Sisters and Brothers, Yak Snot, Relics, Behaviour

So, I know like, half of those names but the ones I do know automatically guarantees this shit is going to be so so so amazing. The best part? IT'S FREE. Yeah, just show up and get your mind blown. But show up early, because there's no specific order that the bands are playing in and they said they're going to have bigger names play both early and late. And you don't wanna show up late to find out you missed Id M Theftable and Belltonesuicide do you? Starts at "2pm sharp" on the Library Lawn (rocking on the grass, love it) until 6, 1 hour intermission, then from 7 to midnight the party continues inside in the Student Union Ballroom.

Ophibre; Nature; Hunted Creatures; Peace, Loving at Church

Ophibre

Nature

Hunted Creatures

Peace, Loving

More photos on my Flickr.

I'm pretty sure it's mostly futile writing this review. Last night was the first night of the monthly, I dunno what you wanna call it, residency? of JP's Whitehaus at Church. The first Tuesday of every month, The Whitehaus will be presenting a show with various Whitehaus and non-Whitehaus related bands at Church for free. But seeing how this was the first night of that, and it was also the opening day for the Red Sox, there were almost zero people at the show. Literally, I was one of about 5 people there that wasn't in a band or "with the band." So this review? Probably only relevant to a dozen or so people. In the world.

This was another show with some serious lineup shifting, going almost in reverse. Peace, Loving was up first and they were almost nothing like when I saw them about a year ago. I remember them being very minimal, lots of scattered noise, earthy, and haunting. There was a little bit of that last night, with their wooden frame with tons of metal scraps and tape recorders playing various found sounds and radio broadcasts. But there was actually a lot of free jazz, too. I mean, most of the time, they all played actual instruments. A few drums, guitar, bass, saxophone, it was just how they played that made them less of a "jazz band" and more of a "free spirited, do whatever the fuck we want noise band." I gotta give the banjo player major awesome points, too. He played the banjo right next to a regular microphone (banjos aren't the loudest instruments, after all) and when things started getting a little crazy, he would scrape the mic against the banjo strings. It's such a simple thing but I was just so impressed by that. It sounded amazing and I fuckin loved it. Good job, banjo player.

Hunted Creatures was up next. I was really excited to see him because he put out that exquisite split tape with Ophibre and I knew his live stuff was just going to be spectacular. And of course, it was. Similar to the piece on the split tape, there was a low rumble that resonated throughout the room, creating the foundation of the song. Unlike the tape, however, there was a lot of easily recognizable beauty with something that sounded like a bagpipe (bagpipe imposter?) and the second half of the song was filled with swaths of (appropriately Church related) organs. So wonderful. It wasn't just all drone, though, as he added a bunch of pre-recorded percussion that sounded a lot like the clattering of bricks and wooden 2x4s being rolled around and dropped in a huge warehouse. Similar to the industrial sounds from the split tape, but not nearly as scary.

Nature was a band I knew absolutely nothing about prior to the show except that they were on tour with Hunted Creatures. There were two of them, one sitting behind a drum kit, the other hunched over some electronics with his back to the audience. There was a lot of quiet layered static coming from who knows what in the beginning. Eventually, the non-drummer picked up a guitar and then they started playing some awesome post-metal-noise-rock stuff. The guitar was completely washed out with distortion and delay and the drummer was just going nuts. These guys fucking destroyed. Totally was not expecting anything resembling "rock" at a show like this. The drummer picked up a set of big headphones and used them as a microphone, sounding similar to the vocals from Lightning Bolt or the songs where the drummer sings in Neptune. Fucking amazing. They finished off with weird minimal processed percussion and guitar feedback static drone that ultimately faded away into nothing.

Shit, man. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Ophibre's drone is of the highest quality. Last night's set was spacey and slightly New Agey (fuck you it can be done right) in an Emeralds sort of way. I don't know if you used to watch Battlestar at all (and if you didn't, wtf start right now) but the bedrock of Ophibre's piece was like the sound the Cylon Raiders made when they were scanning something with their red eyes going back and forth. Ophibre used it in a way that I would almost call a beat if it was regular or consistent enough, which it wasn't. But what he carefully laid down on top of that was just so perfect and special. I completely lost all concept of time and physical reality. I literally caught myself from falling over a couple of times because I just stopped paying attention to my body. I think I was traveling through space, 30,000 light years away to a sun drenched ice planet and I was exploring one of it's sparkling caverns. When Ophibre's set ended, I couldn't tell if he'd been playing for 15 minutes or an hour. I guess it doesn't really matter though. It was fucking unbelievable. That's what matters.