Check this out!  Minneapolis’ Dearling Physique has just released a new tune off their forthcoming record due out in January.  The song is titled “Discipline Your Hands,” and we’ve been informed that you can get your hands on a copy of it today for the low, low price of a tweet or Facebook plug.  Have a listen below and visit the following link to knab yours.

http://dearlingphysique.com/

posted August 24th, 2010 at 6:09 pm Uncategorized Dearling Physique

Well, you might have guessed it by the title – this won’t be a PG post.  But that’s alright, because sometimes its worth breaking the cycle of clean fun in place of some profane education.  I must confess that Big Fuckin Skull has done something that I have been waiting about 18 months for, and that’s for a very “out-of-the-mainstream” band that clearly doesn’t fit the “indie” genre to overlook the douchebag facade of a website like this one and send me on some brassball freakin rock!  Indeed, I accept the notion that a feel-good website like Borangutan might be seen by some as douchy, or at the very least, less cool than other sites.  That’s alright though – a site can’t be everything to everyone, right?

So when I first cracked open the package containing Big Fuckin Skull’s Skulls Rule -OK? I had to laugh!  I mean c’mon, who trounces around wearing skull makeup and singing exclusively about skulls? (Alright, well, these guys sort of fit the description.)  And whose press kit is comprised of a single hand scribbled note that says “Please review our new CD”?  To all these things the answer is this – Big Fuckin Skull does!  And you know what, it’s exactly what I would expect.  If nothing else, these guys don’t pull any punches.  They may masquerade about in skull makeup and construct elaborate stories concerning Big Fuckin Skull lore, but when push comes to shove, they are a true punk band that subscribes to a true punk ethos.

Skulls Rule – Ok? is thirteen songs about skulls.  It’s also about a lot of strange things that surround post-mortem activities, I think, but still mostly about skulls.  In fact, every song title contains the word skull in it, like: “Skulls Night Out,” “Two Skulls Have Eye,” “A Skull Strangled Peter,” and my favorite, “Tin Skull Soldier.”  The lone exception is the slightly softer “The Ballad of Captain Bored Out Left Eye Socket,” which as you can see does not contain the word skull, but nonetheless has skull overtones.  Thank the Big Fuckin Skull it does, otherwise, something just wouldn’t feel right about the impending end of the world.

Now you might be thinking, “well, I’m not really into skulls, and how could I possibly relate to skull music”?  In all likelihood, this album won’t make you like skulls anymore than you already do, but there’s a good chance that if you fancy your inner punk rocker, then you may just find yourself liking Big Fuckin Skull a tad bit more by album’s end.  Bring on the music that reminds me of my long lost Black Flag, Misfits, and Husker Du – and bring on the Big Fuckin Skull, I say!

I haven’t seen these guys live yet, but the next chance will be on August 5 at Eclipse Records on University Avenue in St. Paul.  Mark your calendars and prepare for the coming.

Tin Skull Soldier – Big Fuckin Skull

P.S. Thanks Big Fuckin Skull for sending us something we don’t often get!  Tell your friends, we want more of this!

Links

Big Fuckin Skull – Website / Myspace / Get Some Music

posted July 15th, 2010 at 12:49 am Uncategorized Big Fuckin Skull

A high school English teacher once told us in class that you could tell it was prom night in Iowa when all the farm boys drove their dad’s tractors into town. The hayseeds in my class laughed—not because the idea of driving one’s father’s International Harvester to prom was necessarily a bad idea—but because we weren’t from Iowa, and they were. Get it?! IOWA!!

Well, whatever vicious stereotypes sweeping through my hometown 18 miles above the Border about Iowans being a mostly an instant potato-subsisting, hog-smelling class of fannypackers were revealed to be entirely unsubstantiated when I moved to Des Moines for a summer. In fact, in recent years as far as trendy-worthy hipness is concerned, Iowa’s stock is rising faster than you can say “Michelle Bachman.”

Consider the recent Iowa Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage; and what about the primary win Iowa voters gave then long-shot-candidate Barack Obama? Okay, so Iowa may not be a hotbed of avant-garde progressivism, but they do have a bigtime, kick-ass indie music festival this weekend that will see Spoon and Yo La Tengo on the same stage.

This coming weekend’s 80/35 Music Festival is only the latest evidence to suggest the good people down in Iowa are doing their best to quiet the supercilious mudslingers to the north. And frankly, there’s nothing quite as exciting going on in the Twin Cities this coming weekend (outside of a renovated Taste) as what they’ve got cooked up down the I35 corridor.

The 80/35 Music Festival in Des Moines’ Gateway Park (running July 3 and 4, $35 in advance for a 1-day ticket) has a list of great bands too long to mention (but we’ll try): Spoon, Modest Mouse, Yo La Tengo, Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs, the Walkmen, Solid Gold, the Heavy, the Cool Kids, and Dawes. This is just a start. And it’s bound to be a seen-and-be-seen hipster crowd. Outside of the recent Republicans’ Presidential Straw Poll in Des Moines, this coming weekend will likely break the record for highest incidents of Croakies-sightings in the city proper.

So come on down, enjoy the best little city in the Midwest, and bring a camera—there are plenty of roadside fields on your way down the interestate to stop and see those flywatters chasing Volkswagon-sized hogs around on souped-up ATVs (likelysomewhere outside Albert Lea).

Here is “Bible Thumper” from Solid Gold, who will be waving the Minnesota flag at 80/35 (4:30 p.m., Saturday, at the Kum and Go Stage).

Solid-Gold-Bible-Thumper.mp3

“Bible Thumper” by: Solid Gold

posted July 1st, 2010 at 6:26 pm Uncategorized 80/35 music festival

The first time I saw Buffalo Moon, Preston “Danger” Holm was naked from the waist up playing a clarinet and gyrating dangerously close to a keyboard.

This wouldn’t be worth mentioning except that this band is so rad that it actually took me a couple songs in to their set at their CD release at the Bedlam to realize this.

Buffalo Moon released Wetsuit earlier this spring and will take their bossa nova meets 1960s psychedelic pop crazy train to the Kitty Cat Klub Saturday night, June 19. Black Blondie will assist.

Here Buffalo Moon wows the crowd at the Electric Fetus:

Links

Buffalo Moon – Website / Myspace

posted June 19th, 2010 at 1:14 am Uncategorized Black Blondie, Buffalo Moon, Kitty Cat Klub

(TCT Photography is the work of Borang photographer Chuck Pittman. The following footage was captured at the Too Fast For Love tour presented at First Avenue Nightclub on May 18, 2010. This series is just a sample of some of the live footage captured by Pittman each month around the Twin Cities, and more photos from these and other shows can be viewed at the TCT Photography Flickr page.)

Links

3OH!3 – Website / Myspace

Cobra Starship – Website / Myspace

I Fight Dragons – Website / Myspace

Travie McCoy – Website / Myspace

posted June 8th, 2010 at 9:49 pm Uncategorized 3OH!3, Cobra Starship, I Fight Dragons, Travie McCoy

The Envy Corps headlines Friday at the 400 Bar with It’s true and Textonka (8 p.m. doors, $8, 18+).

I prepare the traditional set of questions for my interview with Luke Pettipoole of Des Moines’ The Envy Corps: influences, stories from the road, personal demons, etc.

But when I catch a video on the band’s Facebook page in which lead-singer/songwriter Pettipoole and his bandmates taste-test corndogs and funnel cakes at the Iowa State Fair using a rating system of “buttered Shawn Johnsons,” (i.e. Olympic gymnast from West Des Moines), I opt for the off-grid questions.

“So, who’s in your Iowa super group?”

There’s a pause on his end of the line, he debates the parameters (does The Killers’ guitarist and Pella-native David Keuning count?), an obligatory mention of his “own band” is made, and then he goes for the deep ball: “I’d love to have Joey Jordison…”

Background: Jordison is co-founder/drummer for Des Moines-based Slipknot and the guy who drums while wearing a hockey mask the color of turkey grizzle. My instinct is to localize Slipknot and their macabre scene mostly to junior high locker rooms circa 1999. But, Pettipoole makes it sound like the death metal renaissance had at least a good year or two of sustained fury and hell across the shelterbelts of Iowa.

“I was really into Norweigan Black Metal back then—mostly to annoy my parents.”

Pettipoole’s musical taste has evolved. A couple winters ago in Omaha he was burrowing through thrift stores when he found an old Hammond organ for $25. He plugged in the organ at practice and started messing with the accordion-like pushbutton chords. The rest of the band picked up and the Ouija-board like result was “Screen Test,” the electro-buzz-rock anthem that the Current rightfully kept playing last fall.

Screen_Test.mp3

“Screen Test” by The Envy Corps

Read more…

posted May 20th, 2010 at 2:43 pm Uncategorized 400 Bar, The Envy Corps