Sunday, November 9, 2008

November 7, 2008

Sorry for the lack of updates this week. Election craziness & school called. I have my computer back, but it's being kind of weird for my hard drive, so listening to things/uploading stuff from my computer is still not totally functional. Anyway, here's a playlist from this week.

Cult Ritual- Guiltless
Elizabeth Herz- Easter Island
Devoid of Faith- Commodified Faith
Bloody Phoenix- Blasting Media
Faithealer- Pointless
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Montcalm- I Stopped Believing in Existence
Rodan- Milk and Melancholy
Antilles- Salvage
The Republic of Freedom Fighters- Circle High Blood Sniffer
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Little Lungs- Atlantic Bridge
Frustrations- Evil Twin
Kicking Giant- Alien ID
Sinks- Out of Control
Pink Razors- Too Obvious
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Ingrid- What Makes You
Tribe 8- Manipulate
Margaret Thrasher- Next Best Thing
P.S. Eliot- Like How You Are
Des Ark- The Subtleties of Chores & Unlocked Doors
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Lucy played 5 songs
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Libyans- No Chances for an Orphan
Health Hazard- Head Room
Get Destroyed- Dirge
Hitler SS- No Solution
Turboslut- Too Little Too Late
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Wasteland- River
Bleed- Mr. Elliott
Timber- Beginning
Logs- Tourniquet
Prevail
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Red Thread- Gasm
Nostril- Bewdong Canoe Start
On the Might of Princes- The Water vs. the Anchor
From Monument to Masses- Sharpshooter
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Religious as Fuck- Standing Still
Robocop 3- Fuck You, Doc Holliday
A Trillion Barnacle Lapse
Universal Order of Armageddon- Painfully Obvious
Autistic Youth- Victim
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Glo-Worm- Travelogue
Cheeky- Deal with It
Shorebirds- D.O.A.
Vivian Girls- Where Do You Run To?
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MV & EE Medicine Show- Harvest
Tent City- Drought
Raincoats- Lola
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I played about an hour more of stuff to because Kit the fucking dilettante did not show up for his show. Fuck that.

Monday, November 3, 2008

VOTE NO ON PROP 8

Don't be an asshole.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Tiger Trap

So today is my first anniversary and 100th post! The name of the blog if you didn't already pick up on it is a Tiger Trap song.

The song is on their self-titled LP and is one of my favorite pop love songs of all time. They formed in Sacramento, released their LP and a 10" (Sour Grass) in 1993, and were over by the end of that year. They also have a 7" (Supercrush"), a split with Bratmobile, one with Henry's Dress, and they contributed to a few comps. Please trade or sell me anything other than the LP & 7"!


The LP with my thumb

I think I love Tiger Trap so much because of the pace and energy of the pop they played. On our record in the station, spare wrote that they were the first American band that got what Heavenly was doing, which I completely agree with. They sped up indie pop, verging on a pop punk sound sometimes. Rose Melberg's girly vocals along with the often childlike subjects, however, keep their sound on the pop side.



Rose continually vies with Amelia Fletcher for my favorite lady of indie pop award. After Tiger Trap parted ways, she played in Go Sailor, the Softies, Gaze, and did some solo stuff. Maybe I'll post the interview we have with her at the station, but I think whoever the guy was did a pretty lackluster job.

Anyway, fall in love with "Puzzle Pieces" and Tiger Trap like I have!

Tiger Trap- self-titled

Chugga Chugga

I feel like this blog has devolved to complete wimpyness lately, and I vowed to post something heavy soon. I have a couple coming up my sleeve, but without my computer, my being able to post them involves remembering to bring my hard drive with me when I go to the computer lab, so I've been going with some things I already have upped.

Anyway, this may up some recent levels of wimp... I didn't really know much about Chugga Chugga until Noa sent a request out over the cookiecutterYEAH email list. I stumbled upon some of their recordings and fell a little bit in love.



They were a duo (Katie & Jean) originally from Michigan who met in high school art class. They made their first CD in 2004 before they moved to the DC area (Maryland). Chugga Chugga broke up in 2006, but I think you can catch them now in Turboslut (a bit of a change of pace). It may be obvious they were in high school when they started and they may be dated by the fact that their main website was a livejournal.

Their self-titled 7" shows off their super cute pop songs. My favorite is "Xtian BFF." Pretty self-explanatory what it's about, but it always reminds me of this girl in third grade who was one of my best friends, who I didn't realize until high school that she's an Evangelical Christian.

Chugga Chugga- self-titled

Friday, October 31, 2008

October 31, 2008

I didn't even realize it was Halloween starting this show otherwise I might have done something themed. Both turntables were working though, so my theme was quality air for the first time in a while.

Little Lungs- Loft Coffin
Queen Mab- J Is for Jesus Christ
The Bayonettes- We're Doomed
Life Partners- Ace of Spades
Mika Miko- Sex Jazz (extended)
---
Libyans- The Price We Pay
Bones Brigade- Never Meant Much
Former Members of Alfonsin- Devil's Vocabulary Test
Rabies- Zombies Ate My Neighbors
Red Thread- Double Speak
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Wasted Time- I'm Surrounded by Winners
Rot Shit- Full Retarded
Nine Curve- Shoot Sign
Faithealer- Bound and Chained
Tragedy- Call to Arms
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Trifle Tower- Criancas da Rua
Defeatist- White as Scars
Iron Lung- Future Corpse
Struggle- Culture
Turboslut- Dry
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Fire Party- Jerk
P.S. Eliot- Entrendre
Witches With Dicks- How to Cook for 40 Humans
Vivian Girls- All the Time
New Bloods- Doubles
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Autistic Youth- Smash and Kill
Torrington- Choke
Rosenbombs- Deficient
Coke Bust- Fumigation
Apeshit!- Hamster
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Timber- Ritual Curse
Plunger- Swallowtale
Shorebirds- D.O.A.
Brain Handle- Oblivion Crud
Conversions- Basement Escapism
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Flowers in the Attic- Ode to the Six Foot Hole
Econochrist- Passed On

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Ingrid

Before attempting to see DST & Sinaloa this evening with Christa & Jim and failing miserably, driving around the park for about an hour before giving up, Karen, Tammy, & I crashed a speaker event for our campus's anti-choice group. After the speech, there was a Q&A/discussion and adoption was brought up as an alternative to abortion. I brought up adoption by same-sex couples, and this old guy muttered something under his breath about gay people having "general neuroses." I was kind of in a state of shock, obvious just outraged/terrified that someone would still think this (it sounds exactly like the reading I was doing today talking about military views of homosexuality during WWII) today and also kind of just thinking it was hilarious. In the spirit of those goddamn neurotics...



If Mass Movement of the Moth became a two-piece, lost the synth, and exploded with a queer bomb, Ingrid would be the result.



The DC-based band is Ashley Arnwine (Des Ark, Mass Movement) on drums & Joey Doubek (Mass Movement Of The Moth, Danke, Bear And The Butterfly) on guitar, switching the roles they filled in their prior collaboration.



They're giving away the mp3s on their website, so I figured I'd zip it up all nice and send it out. Get the tape though for the best artwork I think I've seen all year. The covers were made out of old record sleeves and individually silkscreened. You can't tell from the scans, but the insides are screened a little bit too. Oh yeah, and the music is cool. It really does sound almost the same as Mass Movement.

Ingrid- Tryangle
Get it from Cosmic Debris

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I just dropped my computer off with computer services because it won't turn on. Luckily for me and for puzzle pieces, all my music is on an external hard drive. I'm trying to keep up on all this shit, but things might be a bit shoddy for the next couple days.

And my whole plan to dress up as Sheri Lewis & Mr. Rogers with Charlie has failed, so if you've got any recommendations, give a shout.

Gentleman Jesse and His Men

Evan came to visit this weekend. He's been doing a great job with his weekly Walkie Talkies updates. One band that he's gotten me into lately is Gentleman Jesse and His Men.



Gentleman Jesse and His Men are a power pop band from Atlanta who have put out a 7" and an LP on Douchemaster Records. "Gentleman" Jesse (Smith) plays bass for the Carbonas but switches over to guitar for these efforts. The drummer, Dave Rahn, is also in the Carbonas and plays on Baby Shakes' The First One (the most recent Douchemaster release), which I also got when I ordered Gentleman Jesse and His Men- total bubblegum.



Their self-titled LP came out earlier this year after being recorded last December. Like related projects, it hearkens back to another era while staying fresh. It's impossible not to tap your foot and sing along to this shit.

Gentleman Jesse and His Men- self-titled
Get it from Douchemaster

Friday, October 24, 2008

P.S. Eliot

I originally started this blog to post my playlists, and this is the first week I'm not posting one. The right turntable is still broken, so I still can't do what I want, and I was in a really shitty mood last night and probably played a terrible show.

I love pop punk... obviously. I proclaim it regularly, own it, etc. I obviously love fuzzy girl punk as well. When the two intersect, well, you can imagine that I get quite excited.



P.S. Eliot are a four piece from Birmingham who put out a demo earlier this spring. After that, they did a mini Southern tour, to which one of the members (Katie) said:
"so we have a demo that we made in my basement last weekend. its got 5 songs, out of about 8 that we have written. some people might think that it's a little naive of us to tour on 8 songs and a shitty van and little experience/money/etc. but i consider it kind of necessary. we have the time and we have this sort of super-zealous, enthusiastic outlook on doing a lot with what we have right now, so why not?"

Maybe they'll translate that ambition again and come all the way up North? They're headed up to Philly right before New Year's, but it doesn't seem like an actual tour.

Seriously though, check them out. Fuzzy pop punk with clever rhymes.

P.S. Eliot- Bike Wreck Demo

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Sadie Benning

Anyone who actually knows me has probably listened to me complain for the past two weeks about the presentation I have to for on feminist art today for my hist & lit tutorial. Despite all my whining about all of the feminist art I hate, I really like Sadie Benning. She used to be in Le Tigre, but way before that, she was making videos on her Fischer-Price Pixelvision camera. This one's called "Me and Rubyfruit." She made it in 1989 at age 16. I liked "Girl Power" a lot too, but that one was on a tape in one of our libraries, so I don't know how to put it up. This is my first time putting on a video, so hopefully it'll work.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Dig Me Out

Friday and Saturday were completely weird days. I spent my entire Friday listening to Des Ark and then decided on Saturday that I needed something a bit emotional enough but also kind of upbeat. Corin Tucker's voice has always resonated with me, and I found just was I was looking for in Sleater-Kinney's Dig Me Out.



I kept dragging the needle back on "One More Hour," which always slays me. The song was written by Corin and Carrie Brownstein about their break-up. Dig Me Out is their third album and came out in 1997.



A past interview in Give Me Back with sound engineers pointed out that Sleater-Kinney used a different engineer on each of their albums- I think you can always notice their different textures.

Sleater-Kinney- Dig Me Out
Get It from Kill Rock Stars

Sunday, October 19, 2008

A few housekeeping things

Boring post alert. If anyone's been going to this site through the puzzlepieces.tk address, the real one is humpypuzzlepieces.blogspot.com. It's easier to use the shorter one when on air (plus Milli would always make fun of me for announcing the latter). I always use the blogspot address, but I use the .tk one the other day and realized it makes things look really squished and ugly. Also, you can subscribe to the blogspot one.

More exciting news is that I'm going to start contributing to icoulddietomorrow. So look for me there too. The link is always on the side.

Also, look for Eunuch this Friday live on the Record Hospital.

October 17, 2008

Sharp Knife- The Unbearable Lightness
Embassy- Beyond Bridges
Turboslut- Dry
Cardiac Arrest- Fool Me Once
The Freeze- This Is Boston, Not LA
---
Timber- Beginning
Asthma Attaq- You'll Need a Shoehorn
Life At These Speeds- Younger Monkey
Antlers- White Fur
Des Ark- The Subtleties of Chores & Unlocked Doors
---
Get Killed- Use That Razor for Your Wrist
Antischism- The Web (of War)
Punch- Semantically Challenged
Lack- Zur Genealogue des Modernen Menschen
Off Minor- To an Ex
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Vivian Girls- Where Do You Run To?
Om- (Version)
Tsunami- Water's Edge
Twin- White Eyes
Mass Movement of the Moth- Riddle Me 666
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J Church- Bomb
***Shirley helping out***
Misfits- Hybrid Moments
Gang of Four- Damaged Goods
Schneider TM- The Light 3000
***end Shirley***
Life Partners- Ace of Spades
---
Bratmobile- Love Thing
Cheeky- Deal with It
Baby Guts- Shark Teeth
The Raincoats- Lola (Shirley again)
Silver Daggers- We Didn't Pay
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Frustrations- Evil Twin
Sissies- Stand Up
Tranzmitors- Teenage Tragedy
Pink & Brown- I'm Tired He's Dead
Blotto- Hunchbacked Cat
---
Tracy + the Plastics- Hey Rubella
Hey Girl!- Always Be My Baby
Gentlemen Jesse & His Men- Attention
Heavenly- Cool Guitar Boy
Screeching Weasel- She's Giving Me the Creeps
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Human Mess- Uncaged Animal
Navio Forge- A Hole Into
Walls- Calming Down
Funeral Diner- The Wicked
Libyans- I'm Done
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Pocahaunted- The Weight

Friday, October 17, 2008

Milli + Meneguar

I'm in a very weird hangover-y disconnect mood right now, and Des Ark is my oxygen. Late nights with Shirley and Jim and probably not the best plan the night before a big 21st. Today is Milli's 21st birthday, so this post is for her.

Things that start with M include one of her favorite bands- Brooklyn-based Meneguar. They don't really need much of an introduction at this point... see also Woods (Family Creeps), Woodsist, etc.



I Was Born at Night was their first album, released in 2005 on Magic Bullett and in 2006 on Troubleman Unlimited. Part power pop, part indie rock, all fun. I cannot write right now... maybe I'll do this more later. I will actually post album art later. My computer is failing me, and I am failing at life at present.


The TMU artwork perched on my failing computer before I cleaned by room/desk.

Meneguar- I Was Born at Night

Monday, October 13, 2008

More Vivian Girls

I just got my absentee ballot in the mail today. I'm sure you've heard how important it is to vote in this election, so I'm not going to go on too much about it. If you're voting in California like I am, be sure to watch out for Propositions 4 & 8. Prop 4 is parental notifcation for abortions for minors, and Prop 8 is attempting to reverse the court's discussing regarding same-sex marriage. Voting NO on both of them is really important (votes against parental notifcation and against a ban on gay marriage).

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I'm attempting to put together a last minute show for Little Lungs this coming Sunday. They're really awesome pop punk from New York/New Jersey, and if you can help out in any way (venue-wise or band-wise), it would be greatly appreciated.

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On Saturday night, KJ & I took some of the compers and met up with Christa & Jim at the Life Partners 7" release show. It ended up getting shut down, and everyone but Life Partners got to play. We only saw Eunuch (Boston's only all-female, interracial power violence band featuring members of Libyans, Red Thread, & General Interest) because we went down to get Chinese food and got locked out and came back up to a bunch of cops outside the locked door.

After interviewing Fucked Up with Dan yesterday (I'll post that soon), I went to see their show with Vivian Girls with Mary, Izzy, & Meg. We didn't end up staying for Fucked Up, but I heard their set was good from Christa & Dan.

Vivian Girls played a solid set, and I now have the biggest crush on Kickball Katy.



They're coming again in November, and we'll hopefully have them in for a set/interview then.

They were selling a CD-R of a live set on WFMU which I picked up. It's mostly songs they've recorded before with a few that are unreleased otherwise. Even though it's live, it sounds almost the same as their other recordings. Definitely pick it up if you can though I doubt it'll last through the tour (only 150 made), and be sure to see them if they make their way to your town.



The reissue of their self-titled LP is now available from In the Red if you missed it the first time around. They've got a bunch with them on tour too.

Vivian Girls- Live on WFMU

Friday, October 10, 2008

P'Haunt + the Go Team

I just got my new Pocahaunted record in the mail from Teardrops. They continue to deliver as usual. Get it from Teardrops or Not Not Fun. Any time you describe something as "post-rocky grooves, shoegaze drama, drugged funk, and Fleetwood Mac," I'm sold.

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The Go Team were a super group of Pacific Northwesterners before they were stars. They started in 1985 in Olympia and were done by '89 but managed to release a couple cassettes, a nine month series of singles, and tour the East Coast.



Calvin Johnson was already making waves with Beat Happening and K Records. The other main player was Tobi Vail, who would soon write about angry grrrls and play in Bikini Kill. The rest of their rotating crew included Billy Karen (who also went on to Bikini Kill), Lois, Donna Dresch, and Kurt (credited as 'Kurdt' on the July single) Cobain (who was swooning over Tobi at the time).

The Go Team released Archer Come Sparrow as a cassette in 1989 (I think on K). It's nice outside, and I don't really feel like writing more about this right now, but good pop. I'll probably post something heavy soon to balance things out.

The Go Team- Archer Come Sparrow