Yesterday, I wrote about why I write this blog, but I left off one very important thing that has kept me going for over 2 years here: I get to listen to a bunch of music I may have otherwise missed.

That’s not entirely true; I think, ironically, if I wasn’t writing this blog, I’d be reading more music blogs, as I’d have a little more time each day. But the blog forces me to listen a little more, to give the music I listen to more than a casual listen.

An album like High Drags’ AOTKL benefits from such a listen. High Drags are an electronic indie-pop brother-and-sister team from New York and California. Their music would seem simplistic, almost minimalist, at first listen. There’s something else going on here, though.

At times, such as on “New War Games,” there’s almost a very-late ’80s dance-pop vibe going on. On “Young Kids,” however, I feel like I’m sitting in my room in 1999, listening to that kind of mellow trip-hop like Morcheeba that everyone was going on about. Other times, High Drags seem to be cut from the same cloth as MGMT’s Oracular Spectacular. he impressive thing is that 1) They totally become each thing. Like, when they go all 90s trip-hop, that’s what they are. and 2) they manage to bring these influences together without it sounding jarring. AOTKB‘s greatest feat is that, despite a few different “sounds,” it sounds like an album, rather than a collection of songs. It manages to be distant, yet warm; mechanical, yet summery; nostalgic, yet new.

There’s actually a lot going on here, and I’m just glad I was listening for it.

AOTKL is available for free on the band’s Bandcamp page.

-jason

In 1994, I was in high school. This was the height of the Alternative era in Canton, Ohio*, and everyone was forming bands and writing zines. I co-wrote one called 13,000 Parachuting Lesbians, but my work was BAAAD, so please don’t go looking for one of the 40 copies that might be floating out there.

Anyway, I was also in a couple of bands. Now, I wasn’t a particularly musical guy, having just picked up a guitar for the first time about a year before, so that, too, was BAAAD. But, it was bad in a kind of K-Records-Meets-The-Sex-Pistols sort of way, which was good back then. That was what we were doing.

I was in 2 bands: Novakane, which was made from the remains of a band called Novacaine, with me replacing the lead singer and Balthrop, Alabama’s Chris Buckridge on guitar; and Rose Walker, with me on Guitar and Vocals, Amanda Howland on Bass and Vocals, and Chris Buckridge on drums. Now, I didn’t have the discipline to stick with the music and actually get good, but playing in these bands gave me two things that I can draw a straight line to the blog from: A desire for attention, and an appreciation for music.

Now, fast forward about 12 years, and I was just getting out of a relationship. A marriage, actually. And with the newfound time on my hands and a need to discover myself, I did two things: I started a blog, and I began to listen to bands I had never heard. I listened to Belle and Sebastian; I listened to Neutral Milk Hotel. I listened to all the kinds of bands that my Korn-and-Puddle-of-Mudd-loving ex-wife would have hated because, really, these were the kinds of songs that spoke to me. And I blogged about lots of things: about life, about my dreams, and about this music I was discovering.

As I started to blog about music more, Jayson, whom I met years earlier at my Dungeon & Dragons group a monster truck rally, and I started talking about music. I thought of asking him if he wanted to start a blog, then he mentioned it before I asked and…well, you can read his post for the rest of the story.

So, why am I blogging? Because it lets me talk about all this cool music, and I get to be internet-famous.

Remember that time I got 4th billing at the Plastic Coat Hangers' show? That's when I knew I was a star.

-jason

*The actual era came to different places at different times, I’m told. Canton got it in 93, and it was ending around 96. In southern Ohio, they got it in 94, and it lasted until about 97. Canada just got it in 2007. I’ve also been told that the dream of the 90s is alive in Portland.

There was honestly a point where I wanted to wait and let pretty much every other critic review the Human Toilet record and then do my own review in the form of an infographic charting all the various influences and other bands used to describe them. Problem is that I also wanted to get my review out in some kind of a timely fashion, hot iron, striking, etc.

My two most basic impressions of Human Toilet: I really like this record. A lot. It rocks. It also sounds incredibly familiar.

The rocking I’ll put down to rocking. People get together, they make a record, sometimes that record kills it.  The familiarity stems from the fact that a lot of Human Toilet’s sound really channels the best of the spirit of rock from late/early era of college/alternative rock. They’re approaching the ferocity of Husker Du’s live recordings, lyrically delivering the contemptuous gut-punch honesty of bands like  the Afghan Whigs and yes, maybe a little Rollins Band; coupled with what I’m calling the “New York Rock Sound” which is just like, one of those things where you can kinda see the dirty streets as you listen to the album. It’s lazy to describe the band in terms of a handful or references, even though I just did. Really these guys are  playing some pretty timeless stuff. This is what you want rock to be, aggressive, honest, a little sleazy but accessible enough to throw on in the car and not alienate your passengers until they really concentrate on the lyrics. This is another early favorite for 2012.

Available as a download, on LP and on super audiophile quality DVD. 

Now I have to face the fact that when people ask me what I’ve heard lately that’s really good I gotta tell ‘em “Oh man, you should check out Human Toilet!” with obligatory caution to not just Google for “human toilet.”

In fact, these guys kind of have a general “What if the Rollins Band had not sucked?” vibe going on.

- Jayson

I don’t know if I need to draw a set of new conclusions about myself or not. Always excited to get stuff in the mail from Brave Mysteries, I checked out the description of this album on their site, which name checks Laibach & Dead Can Dance. I’ve basically spent my entire life being disinterested in things as they align to the goth-industrial axis, which is just a thing.  Stylistically this is an offshoot of something called Martial Industrial, which I had to look up on Wikipedia. Regardless, I found a lot to enjoy in the Rose Croix album. Rose Croix sound is something I’ll sum as sound like a very lush hymns sung in some elaborate religious ceremony you’ve never heard of. Vocals delivered in a language not your own have an instant otherworldly effect on me. This seems like the literal dictionary definition of occult, there is something here for sure, but the precise nature of what it is remains unknown. There’s a cultivated aura of mystery with the band and their sound, that’s part of the allure here though.  The kind of thing that really for me, fires the imagination. Mystery and intrigue aside, Rose Croix are delivering compelling music.

Rose Croix – “V” [Brave Mysteries 2011] from Brave Mysteries on Vimeo.

Available as a limited edition cassette on Brave Mysteries.

- Jayson

OK. I know I go on and on about projects that Michael J. Epstein and Sophia Cacciola are connected to, even putting two of their albums on my top 10 albums of 2011 list. The thing is, all of their projects manage to incorporate some pretty strange concepts without bringing the music down and sounding corny. A minimalist rock band based on the Prisoner? Check. A twee-pop band made up of librarians? Check. And now, members of other Epstein and Cacciola have teamed up with Catherine Capozzi of Axemunkee to create songs based on all those things you could order from old comic books.

Seriously, it’s like the E & C Music Factory are mapping my mental landscape.

Sonically, Darling Pet Munkee is part surf-rock, part garage. They sound more like Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling than Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library, but where DNFMOMD were very drum-focused, DPM’s guitars really stand out. I shouldn’t have to tell you that they rock, but they do. Lyrically, as I’ve said, the band is all about the kitschy, pseudo-science devices and artifacts that I imagine only ever worked for Grant Morrison. In the worlk of Axemunkee, these things are serious business. Many have “paid the ultimate price” for “Genuine Soil from Dracula’s Tomb,” “X-Ray Specs” will let the narrator “see into your dreams,” and “Kung-Fu Sandals” turn a weakling into “a fung-fu legend in my prime!”

And this is what I love about Darling Pet Munkee. These are a bunch of serious musicians who don’t take themselves too seriously.

Order Glows in the Dark! today from the band’s Bandcamp page and become the Hero of the Beach!

-jason

The internet blew up again yesterday over the Justice Department shutting down the popular file-sharing website Megaupload. Again, people mobilized, and this time, hackers who identify themselves as the group Anonymous, attacked and temporarily shut down the websites of the Justice Department, the MPAA, and the RIAA.

I have some thoughts about this issue. I’ve read through the the 72-page indictment and while most of it sounds like someone doesn’t understand how the internet works, it does make some points that should be addressed.

I am not one to proclaim anyone guilty before they are tried, so I am not personally assuming anything, but for the sake of this post, let’s hypothetically assume that the indictment is correct in its accusations. If this is the case, then I have to say that I’m on the side of the law here. Let me explain something, and this isn’t necessarily the opinion of To Eleven, but it is my opinion: Piracy is wrong. I didn’t rail against SOPA and PIPA because I think everyone should get free stuff; I did so because these acts are the wrong way to legally challenge pirates. Do you know what the right way is? As pointed out by my friend Sean van der Meulen, the right way is exactly what happened here. Due process is followed, complaints are filed, investigations are made, and then the law goes after the offending site.

The indictment claims a lot of things like that the Mega Conspiracy (as it is actually called in the document) was paying for pirated copyrighted material, which may be technically true, as they did pay uploaders, it doesn’t mean that they were knowingly engaging in piracy. However, on page ten, what I think, from a moral stand point at least (I’m no lawyer, after all), is a pretty damning accusation, is presented:

When a file is being uploaded to Megaupload.com, the Conspiracy’s automatedsystem calculates a unique identifier for the file (called a “MD5 hash”) that is generated using amathematical algorithm. If, after the MD5 hash calculation, the system determines that theuploading file already exists on a server controlled by the Mega Conspiracy, Megaupload.comdoes not reproduce a second copy of the file on that server. Instead, the system provides a newand unique URL link to the new user that is pointed to the original file already present on theserver. If there is more than one URL link to a file, then any attempt by the copyright holder toterminate access to the file using the Abuse Tool or other DMCA takedown request will failbecause the additional access links will continue to be available.

In other words, if a file is determined to by copyrighted, a link is disabled, but all other links to that file (not other copies of that file, but that specific file) still work. This, my friends, is piracy, plain and simple. The site makes money when people go to it, they knowingly distribute material that is copyrighted, and they are pirates.

But, you might say, maybe they didn’t know for sure! They can’t go searching for all the material on the site! They’re a file locker! It’s not like they can search the files for specific content!

Ahem. According to page 11:

In addition to copyrighted files, other types of illicit content have been uploadedonto the Megaupload.com servers, including child pornography and terrorism propagandavideos. Members of the Conspiracy have indicated to each other that they can automaticallyidentify and delete such materials on all of their servers by calculating MD5 hash values of known child pornography or other illicit content, searching the system for these values, andeliminating them; in fact, such files with matching hash values have been deleted from the MegaConspiracy’s servers. Members of the Mega Conspiracy have failed to implement a similar program to actually delete or terminate access to copyright infringing content.

So the files can actually be searched to find illegal content, assuming that the info is tagged somewhere on the file. Therefore, if the “conspiracy” actually knew about infringing files and did nothing to take them down, again, this is piracy. I don’t expect them to constantly search for movies, music, and what not, but if you are aware that certain copyrighted material is on there, you should be searching for that specific content. Failure to do otherwise is wrong, legally and ethically.

Now, please don’t take this to mean that I side with the MPAA and RIAA on copyright issues. Those guys often overreach the intended scope of their power to control their property. The business model needs to be changed to make original copies more attractive than the pirate copies. This is the only real way to fight piracy, and they seem unwilling to evolve with the digital world. However, just because they’re wrong 99% of the time doesn’t mean they are always wrong. Megaupload was a useful tool for people to distribute perfectly legal copies of things, but, assuming this indictment is correct in its accusations, the site’s owners were knowingly engaging in piracy, and justice is served.

Of course, if the justice department is just going after a file-sharing site to flex its muscles at the anti-SOPA people, then screw those guys.

-jason

When I started this with Jason there was almost no why, just a desire to start a music blog. I had a couple of basic thoughts and that was that. It was a combination of a tiny handful of “music observations” that I thought were hilarious and an abstract desire to start writing them online. It’s a strange thing, because it almost felt external. It’s not as though I thought I’d transition to a professional writing career or had profound, meaningful or even distinct perspective. I just wanted to start writing about music and quickly; why do you think we’re named after a one-note joke that everyone knows? I wanted to get this thing going and we couldn’t think of anything else to call ourselves. I think we went about 4 days before I threw To Eleven out. I think 2 or 3 days later without any better ideas we just went with it.

The motivation for doing this has shifted for me since we started. Personally “music culture” is dead. As a teen I was a flannel-wearing grunge rocker then some kind of late stage Fat Wreck style punk for a year or so but after that, I never liked and identified with a musical subculture enough to join wholeheartedly. While I can say that I honestly love music, no one genre has ever resonated with me to the degree that it’s eclipsed everything else. One genre isn’t “my life.”

What I had in lieu of being a card carrying member of a musical subculture, and this is the days before you could have anything you wanted at any time on the internet, was friends that were really into music. You found out about things through these people who found out about them through other friends, relatives, the creeps at record shops or some combination thereof. We had a shared enthusiasm for finding new music or stuff that was new to us and sharing it with each other. There’s a level of trust that builds there, to the point when your pal says you should check out Springsteen’s Darkness On The Edge of Town you’re excited that you’re gonna hear something neat, not think he’s taking a piss.

That’s my why now. In the face of time and distance, I don’t have those folks at hand anymore. Posting all the reviews I write here, I am basically going to the digital equivalent of what was there with my music nerdfan pals. When I write a review it’s because I think the music in question is worth checking out, especially because you might not have without someone saying something. I want you to walk away from a review I’ve written with some level of trust you’ll like it or not.

So the actual writing itself. When I started this I really didn’t have any idea what I was doing there either. I don’t have a background or degree in English or journalism. I wrote a lot of academic papers, but that and some occasional marketing copy here and there was the extent of my experience. For whatever reason I thought I could do it though and to whatever extent I was right. I do think having done some kind of writing  helps, compared to a person that has not at all. Still, there is a degree of self-consciousness about doing this. I adhere to the concept of seriousness in craft, but I also feel weird putting my stuff out there alongside the pros, some of which I’ve become pretty decent friends with.

One thing though, advice. The topic of advice is what really motivated me to write this. There’s a lot of advice floating around out there for writers, mostly because there are a lot of people blogging there is a general feeling among the pros that the amateurs don’t really have much of a clue most of the time. I can accept that, but it’s also can be a point of contention for me. It’s those articles and that sentiment that gave rise to me wanting to write this.

The level of dismissiveness in a lot of this advice razzes me. The one that razzed me the most was 3 part article in Invisible Oranges which was a very serious how to write about music piece. To break it down it was a thing where Cosmo Lee talks about how high his standards are then goes on to discuss writing in the style of good writers such as Stephen King and the writers at The Economist among others. I took a lot of umbrage at this, just like I did with Henry Owings two years ago. I know Joe or Josephine Pro have read a million terrible blogs at this point but this is how I see it; you can write and be successful, which is rad. At that point because you’re successful, you assume what you are doing must be good, because that’s just pretty logical, right? The thing that ends up making me angry about this is that it presumes an objectiveness in what a writer is doing is the Way To Do It. Intent presumed on the part of other writers that may or may not be there. Granted there is good and bad writing. Being able to communicate effectively is a pretty basic skill, but let’s say that I find I operate with a totally different intent from Cosmo or Hank? That doesn’t makes me a bad writer (it’s other things). Likewise if I find the Economist style writing objectively fine but subjectively an un-engaging style, that is basically just the subjectivity of taste. You can’t argue IO or Chunklet are objectively better than Metal Sucks or Hellhound unless you say they all have the same intent and mission statement. Treating your goals and style as a writer  like  immutable laws of nature is frankly insulting to everyone not doing it your way. I have made a decision to write in a first-person, conversational style. I believe it facilitates communicating my intent, that is just me choosing to create a “problem” and address it in a specific way. You can say that I’m doing a good or bad job of it, but I’d never say “this is how you write about music.”

My advice on advice is always take it with an analytical bent. All of the pro advice I’ve read has objective truths in it, but it’s likely that you’re going to have to weigh it specifically against your circumstances, goals and intent before you take it.

For what it’s worth my actual advice on writing is as follows: Define your intent in writing before you start. Doing it for your own edification or to foster a sense of community is going to lead you down a different path than trying to create a blog that makes $10,000 a month in ad revenue. Everything you do as a music writer or person that writes about music is going to stem from that defined intent, and it’s going to all be up to you to figure out how to do what you want to do.

My second (third?) piece of advice is learn to be objective about what you’re doing. If you have writer heroes is it going to really benefit you to write like them? If you do that are you only doing it superficially? (murder me if I ever start thinking I’m the Hunter S. Thompson of music reviews) Are you doing this as a “hobby” but thinking about how you’ll be “discovered” every night when close your eyes to go to sleep? Don’t count yourself in or out, but be real with yourself about what you’re doing. It is totally ok to do what you want to do as a creative person, I am 100% behind that, but also remember that there is no cookie handed out automatically for that. In my case, covering the ambient/experimental community has been extremely rewarding because of the music I’ve been exposed to, but the popularity of that music is not close to that of metal. I don’t have a problem with that, because I went into this wanting to spread the word about stuff I like, not give my page views a huge shot in the arm.

I’ma conclude by saying thank you to all the professional writer friends I have made doing this for continuing to put up with me in my attempts at being a music writaey maans.

- Jayson

Ok. I know that “old-timey” is an adjective I’ve been throwing around a lot. It seems that either a lot of people are making music that doesn’t quite belong to any specific time period, or that I’m just really digging this kind of music lately. Either way, I can’t describe Zoe Boekbinder’s Darling Specimens without using the word “old-timey.”

There’s an old-school folk influence here, but there’s also some jazz and opera in Zoe’s voice. At times she almost sounds like a musical saw; it’s an almost other-worldly sound. Other times, she sounds like Zooey Deschanel, only not bored. Musically, she has a very Appalachian feel, very folky, but naturally so. I’ve mentioned folk in a negative light before, as kind of a dead musical language. Boekbinder makes me regret saying that. Her music is alive, and though it is “old timey,” it’s timeless. The whole album’s great, though I absolutely love “Serrated Spoon,” “Gravity,” and “Make a Mess.”

Darling Specimens is available digitally on Boekbinder’s Bandcamp page.

-jason

I should have reviewed this album a while back, now it feels a little weird because I’m pals with the Supreme Intelligence that mans their Twitter account.

Whatever though. ((Thorlock))’s self-titled is a great album. It rocks. I sat down to right a proper review here and kinda failed, so I’m going to list what I like about the band.

• Strongly holding it down in the “heavy rock” sound once dominated by Clutch. Basically the heirs to that proud tradition.
• Groove/monster riff rock locked down.
• Philip K. Dick style sci-fi shadiness.
• Jams. This is seriously a thing here. Mississippi Wheelman and Beyond Cosmic Dimensions JAM IT OUT. These dudes are basically better at this than anyone who plays this style of music.

Like I said, this was a hard one to write. I kinda can’t do ((Thorlock)) justice. Their music goes straight through me. It’s not a thing that produces the desire for in-depth analytical response as much as it does the desire to crank the volume and yell ‘HELL YEAH’ even though I’m sitting at my desk. These guys aren’t a stupid band, not at all, but they’re just visceral. This is heavy rock, it’s a direct jab to the pleasure center of my brain. Gonna leave it at that.

Free download at Grindcore Karaoke

- Jayson