Toys & Tiny Instruments: what is going on?

Toys and Tiny Instru­ments, a sham­bling good­time rock band from Brooklyn, NY, are exactly as they sound. They play their sets with toys and tiny instru­ments. There is a whole mess of them – like six or eight humans are onstage when the Toys play – but they pull it off since their instru­ments are so tiny. No, I’m kid­ding. That’s not why they pull it off. They actu­ally fucking rock, and their songs are stylish pop gems that speak for themselves.

toys2
Some Toy Band mem­bers rocking out forever

The MP3 I have posted is a total pop gem called “Lot­tery Ticket,” off their 2010 self-titled EP (which you should get your mitts on imme­di­ately). From the begin­ning, the song is almost unbear­ably gleeful, and although that’s gen­er­ally not my bag (being pretty goth), I can’t stop lis­tening to it. Colin Sum­mers sings, joined by Karen Adelman on the chorus, which is really the wacky epi­center of the song. To me, the chorus invokes the kind of psy­chotic opti­mism that comes with get­ting drunk in the hours before noon: the entire day is ahead of you and you (and your BFF Jim Beam) are gonna! Take! It! On! Then after that, my favorite thing ever hap­pens: a musical break with a shouty sin­ga­long. Yeah, you can tell they’re toys, and yeah, it’s a bit ridicu­lous, but the integrity of the song’s com­po­si­tion gives it enough grown-upness for max­imum lis­ten­ability. I actu­ally think it’s a bit sur­real, like Svankmajer’s Alice, but without all the dead ani­mals. These are real musi­cians. They’re just acting real weird.

Toys & Tiny Instru­ments — “Lot­tery Ticket”

Visit the Toys & Tiny Instru­ments MySpace (and also that of My Friend Other, the band con­sisting of two core Toys Colin Sum­mers and Alec Bet­terley, around whose songs the project takes place). And if you’re in NYC, they’re playing on Jan­uary 8th at noted Bush­wick venue Goodbye Blue Monday. Oh, yeah, and you should prob­ably either trade money for it or just try to sweet-talk some of the mem­bers into giving you the five-song EP because it’s really really good.


pre-xmas cabaret: new bitter ruin song “clinging on”

Because you know I love drama, and YouTube clips — why else did I spend an unmen­tion­able amount of min­utes watching Coco T’s channel last night? But Coco doesn’t really make music that much, so let’s post some­thing else — here’s this video from cute-as-buttons Eng­lish cabaret duo Bitter Ruin. They’ve started posting some Christmas posts today, and the song they’ve chosen is a work-in-progress called “Clinging On,” set in a hol­iday living room. They threaten to take this video down if we watch it too much because it’s “rough” or what­ever, but as I myself am a mediocre singer at best, I will refuse to believe that Georgia’s and Ben’s vocals could ever be any­thing but mindblowing.

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It’s reminding me of Night­mare Before Christmas, in the good, Danny Elfman-and-swagger-monsters way, not in the mall goth way.

If you find your­self with a moment, please listen to some other songs; they are all very very good. (My favorite, again, because I favor the the­atrical, is “Out­ra­geous.”) Visit the band on their Twitter where they interact rather often. (Much like Coco T.) And then there’s always Myspace.

Boner Social Scene

My Left Tit are nine bored, horny friends in Queens who decided to start a band. What other rea­sons do you need, really? At the moment, they’re less an actual “band” than a wad of inside jokes and fake back­sto­ries. But they’re casu­ally tal­ented and glee­fully vulgar, and beneath their smutty odes to dicks and queefs you can feel real cre­ative impulses at work.

My Left Tit

I briefly hung out with these kids a few times last year, before they got to writing songs. As near as I can tell, they’re in that post-college phase of forming funny, intense, doomed little social cir­cles: a mix of drama club nerdi­ness, awk­ward sexual ten­sion, and lots of stoned bull­shit­ting. A kind of outer-boroughs Whit Stillman film where every­body ends up in debt and sleeping with each other.

But refresh­ingly it’s the girls who’ve taken the lead in trans­lating this life into loopy musical the­atre, writing and singing most of the mate­rial. The aes­thetic is remark­ably uni­fied and decid­edly vaginal, from the stage names–Queef Latina, Pussy­face, and Cunt Muffin–to songs like “It Feels Ok, I guess” and “I’m Sorry I Farted on Your Dick Last Night.” Is it My Left Tit cause they lopped the right one off, Amazon War­rior style?

My favorite song is the rel­a­tively femme “I Can’t Stop Fucking My Ex-Boyfriend.” I’m prob­ably biased because it’s sung by my cousin, who has given her­self the stage name–god help me–Titty Titty Bang Bang. Here at girl­pants we’ve paid tribute to kin before, to the way they make music a part of our lives, some­thing more than sterile lists of mp3s to be curated or ignored. Admit­tedly, that sounds a little ide­al­ized when your family member is singing about hot beef injec­tions and com­pul­sively poor sexual deci­sions, but, you know, still. The song is a love letter to All-American indie rock, a sar­donic Liz Phair con­fes­sional backed by the Pixies. But the real sur­prise is the voice: how could such a rich, bluesy thing come from my dork cousin? Christ, she kind of sounds like Scout Niblet.

It’s hard to tell how My Left Tit will develop, but you can keep abreast of the sit­u­a­tion here. They may end up a half-embarrassing lark, but this fact makes them at least as inter­esting as bands that pop out of the womb fully formed and ready to blog-hump. For now they feel organic, grounded in a real, albeit dorky Life­world, more board game than bar crawl. Some­times you just want to stay in with friends. And make dick jokes.

the psych-doom cometh: Sabbath Assembly

I’ve only been lis­tening to straight-up doom sounds. But hear me out. There’s a lot of gor­geous­ness in doom. Why else would we love the silent napalm opening of Apoc­a­lypse Now? This album, Sab­bath Assembly’s Restored To One (June 2010) is doom melody of the finest order. It’s gor­geous Age Of Aquarius-style choir psy­che­delia, con­trolled and chilling. And the origin story is truly fas­ci­nating: the songs are sourced from the hymnal of the Process Church of the Final Judg­ment. This church was a 1960s cult formed by an enig­matic power couple who, fed up with sci­en­tology and into self-improvement, started their own reli­gion. The reli­gion moved to the Yucatan, sur­vived a hur­ri­cane, and, taking this to be a divine sign, relo­cated to the USA, grew, preached, donned black cloaks, designed mag­a­zines, and recruited celebri­ties. Their teach­ings are based around the wor­ship of three major gods: Jehovah, Satan, and Lucifer, plus Christ as emis­sary to those three great gods. The Pro­ces­sians believe in bal­ance: cre­ation, exe­cu­tion. And this album is nine of their more than sixty orig­inal hymns, lov­ingly reworked by the remark­able vocalist Jex Thoth, whose voice func­tions as a clear 60s throw­back but not at all “retro” on these tracks.
 

Sab­bath Assembly — “Hymn of Consecration”

Creepiest photo yet on girlpants!

Each tune on the album seems to ded­i­cate itself to one of the deities; “Hymn of Con­se­cra­tion” is a Satan song. The first time I heard it, I nodded along, and then I real­ized I was nod­ding along to an invo­ca­tion of Satan (“purify me with the fire”). I had a chilling and beau­tiful moment with the Prince of Dark­ness. Can I say that? I’m not ever going to run for public office. But even if I did, and they impeached me, I’d still say this is one of the best of the year 2010 (anno domini). Here is a second, sexy, scary tune called “In the Time of Abaddon” — I like this one a lot because her voice cracks and it is the end of the album and it is thrilling, fright­ening and kind of sub­lime. “Amid the grand dis­order / Amid the great destruc­tion” are the final, unadorned words of the album and it’s a little bit terrifying. 

Sab­bath Assembly — “Time of Abaddon”

I want to be ter­ri­fied. If you tell me you hate this we cannot be friends. You cannot come to my house and look at my copy of the Satanic Bible and we cannot be friends.

[myspace] [Jex Thoth web­site]

who needs the sun when he goes away

I found myself in Boston once again. This time I had brought along a trav­eling com­panion, someone to act as a pho­tog­ra­pher and, per­haps, mit­i­gate (or at least doc­u­ment) the var­ious hor­rors that con­sis­tently befall me when­ever I attempt to do any­thing with my life besides huddle in a dark­ened room under a pile of blan­kets and cats. In a twist worthy of a Greek tragedy, the most ter­ri­fying moment of all occurred at the hands of this same person when he star­tled myself and the occu­pants of a nearby SUV by, appar­ently, being taken with a sudden notion of impro­vising a high-speed exit off the highway while fum­bling for a couple of bills for the toll. “Uh, maybe let me get the money,” I said, and so we survived.

But in actu­ality, this and the other var­ious brushes with death that occurred throughout the trip went unrecorded. In fact, we ended up filming a band. Hope I didn’t spoil the surprise.

it's corin tucker! (click for incredibly huge)On October 25, The Corin Tucker Band, as part of the tour pro­moting their record 1,000 Years, played the Par­adise Rock Club. Let me tell you, this club pos­sesses excel­lent columns. They appear to be made of some fine stone not unlike marble, cov­ered with an attrac­tive metal mesh. I couldn’t have asked for a better inan­i­mate object to lean against through the opening acts as I gath­ered myself to claim a spot at the stage the moment the main act appeared.

simply amazing columnsWhich reminds me: the first opening act deserves what I might call an hon­or­able men­tion. I ini­tially gave Mrs. Dan­vers a rating of “pretty okay,” giving extra credit for having broken a string and played half their set with no guitar, and still sounding good. It was the next day that I real­ized their song was still stuck in my head and decided I needed to hear it again. I’ve lis­tened to it many times since and I’ll present it to you here, just so you can have the full “lis­tening to a band I’ve never heard of and won­dering where the main act is” live show experience.


Mrs. Dan­vers — “What Did I Do (You Always Looked Good In the Morning)”


sara lundmike clark and lorca wood

The Corin Tucker Band con­sists of Corin Tucker (Sleater-Kinney), Sara Lund (Unwound, Hungry Ghost), and Seth Lor­inczi (The Golden Bears). They were joined on stage by Mike Clark (Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks) and Lorca Wood (also of Hungry Ghost). I wish to note that Mike Clark pre­sented a fright­ening visage: a strangely intense man in a tie who gave me the impres­sion that someone had hired a lawyer to play bass. Although most of the focus was of course on Corin Tucker, the whole band played excellently.


The Corin Tucker Band — “Half a World Away”

corin tuckerI’ve read a lot of com­ments online com­plaining that this band isn’t Sleater-Kinney. First of all, tell me that “Half a World Away” doesn’t sound like Sleater-Kinney. I can almost hear Carrie Brown­stein. But no, of course it’s not Sleater-Kinney. In an oft-quoted state­ment, Corin Tucker called this album “a middle-aged mom record” and yeah, you can def­i­nitely hear that. A lot of the songs don’t have much of an “edge,” and I guess any­body who was expecting a really rockin’ record might be dis­ap­pointed. But none of that is impor­tant. Take the band on its own and it’s clear that they’ve put together a great album that does exactly what it set out to do.


The Corin Tucker Band — “Doubt”

corin tuckerThat’s not to say the record doesn’t have its louder bits. “Doubt” is a great track and hearing it played live was com­pletely amazing. That’s really about all I can say about it.

It’s tough to find live music when you live two to four hours away from any­thing. To travel that far for one band involves a careful bal­ance of spon­taneity and metic­u­lous plan­ning. “Leave nothing to chance!” was my con­stant refrain as we pre­pared for the trip. “Leave nothing to chance,” I said, as I plotted every inch of the route with Google Maps. “Leave nothing to chance,” I said, as I reminded my friend to bring his ID and, because it might get cold, his jacket. “Leave nothing to chance,” I said, as we cheer­fully left my car in the parking garage and walked for a good twenty min­utes before I remem­bered that I hadn’t grabbed the tickets. I recall freezing sud­denly at that moment, pat­ting my pockets awk­wardly, then begin­ning, “So, uh…” Turns out some­thing always gets left to chance, but at least I remem­bered them before we tried to enter the club. This mod­er­ately embar­rassing anec­dote, by the way, was the pay­ment my friend required before he would send the photos to me. Thanks, Troy.

Mrs. Dan­vers is a local Boston band and they exist pri­marily on their MySpace page. Their EP, What Did I Do, is on iTunes!

The Corin Tucker Band is on the good ol’ Kill Rock Stars label, and you can buy the new album, 1,000 Years, on the web­site. Unfor­tu­nately, the band’s touring seems to pretty much be over for now, unless you’re reading this in Japan, but keep an eye out in case they go for another round. The show is amazing.

And now, I’ll leave you with a Girl­pants world exclu­sive: Corin Tucker per­forming “Miles Away” at the Par­adise Rock Club in Boston on October 25, again cour­tesy of Troy. Enjoy!

New Saul Williams song: “Explain My Heart”

Saul Williams posted a new song called “Explain My Heart” ear­lier today. The song is from his upcoming Vol­canic Sun­light, and it’s tribal-beat driven, rocking, and punc­tu­ated by a few bit of spoken word (but not annoy­ingly like what people usu­ally mean when they say “spoken word” — you know what I mean by this). You can listen to the song at the below YouTube vid, or down­load it in its entirety by signing up for Saul’s email list.

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There’s a hyp­notic riff and what sounds like an air­plane noise, and then the vocals appear, under­stated at first then building. My favorite Saul is a little unre­strained (à la both “Grippo” and “List of Demands”), and I hope for some of that from this new album. In fact, per­haps it’s in the air. Right now I am lis­tening to this on repeat in order to not listen to my neigh­bors fighting through the wall. They’re not screaming or any­thing but if I try, I can still hear them. Maybe that is the reason I want the song to be louder, more brutish. “Explain My Heart” hints at dark under­cur­rents in its second verse, when the pitch and pace both rise, but overall the song remains cool as the title com­mand repeats until the end. It’s a beau­tiful four min­utes, good for fall in the city. Listen now. 

The link for the down­load at Saul Williams’ web­site is here

The link for Saul’s Twitter is here.

Die Antwoord, or, what my brains are like lately (?)

Hey guys. I’m really busy trying to write a book, but now and again I get the chance to read Twitter, and when I do it’s often 50 Cent’s hilar­ious updates (why is he dating Chelsea Han­dler?). But today South African hip hop­pers Die Antwoord tweeted their new video, and I have to say “Evil Boy” blew my mind a little and I decided I should share with Girl­pants. Hmm, let’s see, there are a lot of dicks in this video, so it’s not really safe for work, but you shouldn’t be reading blags at work anyhow.

The other thing I like (I guess the first thing is the bla­tant dis­re­gard for tele­vi­sion appro­pri­ate­ness?) is that the dancers aren’t skinny minis. A few artists have done this lately; Lady Gaga did it in Bad Romance, I remember. I like seeing a variety of body sizes shaking it freaky deeky like amidst mon­ster boobs with eyes, rat hoodies (as opposed to hood rats), and ter­ri­fying pudenda used as ampli­fying equip­ment. Kudos, Die Antwoord. Keep tweeting this mag­nif­i­cent what-the-fuck material.

Watch the trailer below and then click through to the video at Pitch­fork here. It’s worth it, but not work safe.

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The Trials of Peter Wolf Crier

I don’t want to do this post, but I really should. I hate writing about shows, and I hate reading posts about them. But last night I saw a great, great show. This post is for all thirty some-odd people who made it out to The Met on a rainy Sunday night in Pawtucket.

so desolate

(*pic­tured here, a stage set for an absent audi­ence, replete with basic instru­ments and mood*)


THE BOYS WHO CRIED WOLVES

I had no expec­ta­tions for Peter Wolf Crier. Actu­ally, I was half-expecting Rogue Wave, given some mis­in­for­ma­tion on the bill and a slip-up regarding the date (they’re both playing Royale in Boston tomorrow night), so you could say I had a com­plete defi­ciency in expec­ta­tion. On a stage crowded with Midlake’s psych-folk para­pher­nalia, Peter

Pisano and Brian Moen sat perched on drum stools, bent over their respec­tive instru­ments: for Brian, a small white drumkit, for Peter, a ratty sun­burst acoustic and Roland PK-5 floor con­troller. Then they played, and they absolutely ruled. Peter has a pecu­liar voice, like it’s half Adam Levine and half Robin Pec­knold, and his guitar is some­thing some­where like Scout Niblett’s own fowl howl (tons and tons and tons of feed­back, no empty space). He oper­ates that Roland floor con­troller with two spry feet keeping a warm tone under each chord while using what appeared to be a Memory Boy to pile up his vocal melodies.

peter and crier, wolf notably absent

Mean­while, Brian killed two pairs of sticks, a piece of which I saved from the floor. He also did that thing that drum­mers some­times do, mouthing each hit and con­torting his face at the choruses.

Def­i­nitely download/purchase Inter-Be, and check them out on their first real tour. They seem to have a rare magic that’s con­sumed in bands all too early, so I hope those spirits con­tinue to ride high well into a good, long career.

Buy Peter Wolf Crier — Inter-Be [Jagjaguwar]



THOSE LONESOME HERMIT-TYPES

I’m one of those people you see on the forums sayin’ how the latest Mid­lake album is awe­some and under­rated and defending them against all those jerks who just like “Roscoe” or “Home” (please people they have many many more songs about the 1800s and being a sci­en­tific pan­therman). Maybe I’m get­ting pre­ma­turely defen­sive, but I want Mid­lake to keep making music; I’d hate to see them get dis­cour­aged from a few mediocre reviews. It’s tough to top some­thing like The Trials of Van Occu­pan­ther, and I was pleasantly-surprised to find last Jan­uary that the new record found them ven­turing else­where rather than working on a follow-up. Mid­lake played great; as expected, with an elab­o­rate set (four gui­tarists, two flutists, [is that a term?], tam­bourines, chimes), spot-on har­monies, and cool inter-song jamming.

I USED TO FEEEEEELL / THINGS AROUND ME STIIIIRRRRR

I spoke to Eric (Van Occu­pan­ther him­self) about the “new” direc­tion the band is taking, that earnest folk (part playing a genre, part humble sub­mis­sion) with some psych excur­sions, and it sounds like some­thing the next album will pursue even fur­ther. And for the small turnout, the show was all the more inti­mate; Eric spoke about how draining the head­lining spot can be (they’re playing right now at the Royale in Boston), and revealed that this par­tic­ular gig was a last-minute diver­sion on a hectic grand-tour (hence no Rogue Wave). 

If you haven’t heard it already, check out The Courage of Others, and if you’ve man­aged to avoid The Trials of Van Occu­pan­ther, you have some serious work to do this evening on your per­son­ality. Mid­lake has a few more stops before an excur­sion to Europe and a much needed respite in December, so catch them before they retire into the core of nature once again.

Buy Mid­lake — The Courage of Others [Bella Union]
 


I don’t wanna make this a thing, but I’m seeing The Tallest Man on Earth this Thursday, and if that shows goes any­thing like this one (it might, the venue is real remote and I can’t find much info on it), expect another post from me soonish.

Miss Marnie, or Her Majesty Shredding

Fall begins: sun­streaked school­buses, pumpkin beers fer sale, Obama in Martha’s Vine­yard, crabby home­less, and, of course, some great upcoming releases. Put away your girl­pants, and get ready to put on your girllong-johns.


Marnie Stern — Marnie Stern [Kill Rock Stars]

marnie cover

To me, a self-titled album sev­eral records into a career means a reboot, or at the very least a repo­si­tioning, but for Marnie Stern, Queen Tap Her­self, it’s of course much more mean­ingful, maybe bio­graph­ical, per­haps some­thing akin to a ten-volume memoir or a spe­cial on 60 Min­utes. So here’s Marnie Stern with Marnie Stern, the third album from Marnie Stern, and pos­sibly Marnie Stern’s best yet. Of course, the thing slays, but it’s remark­ably inti­mate too, those needling leads and gattling-gun drumz pum­meling your ears felt instead as soft kisses. I’ll put “Risky Biz” here as an example you’ll see what I mean:

Marnie Stern — “Risky Biz” from Marnie Stern


Super­chunk — Majesty Shred­ding [Merge]

superchunk majesty

SPEAKING OF SHREDDING, the new Super­chunk album is totally good. A great year for early-90’s resur­fac­ings from Merge (Teenage Fan­club also put out a killer record only a few months back), with plenty for the new hips and the old cur­mud­geons to crunch into. There’s not much I can say here that hasn’t already been said about Mac and the gang, so here’s “My Gap Feels Weird,” a title that could’ve just as easily come from Wayne Coyne:

Super­chunk — “My Gap Feels Weird” from Majesty Shred­ding


Surf City — Kudos [Popfrenzy]

surf city kudos

Long-awaited (since for­ever ago), the proper full-length from these proper boys is prop­erly solid. Because they’re from New Zealand, tons and tons of com­par­isons have been drawn by blog­gers webzine printmag-staff to nearly every suc­cessful New Zealand act, exhausting the crit­ical reser­voir (“hey dude they’re like the Clean and also the Ver­laines a little”) and putting some real heavy expec­ta­tions on Kudos. Nev­er­the­less, the guys do that nostalgia-grab pretty well, and it’s a smooth record if you are into char­ac­ter­izing records as you would a peanut butter. I picked “Teacher” for all my friends cur­rently doing the teaching thing right now.

Surf City — “Teacher” from Kudos


Dreaming as the summer dies

“Hailing from Spring­field, Mis­souri” fre­quently pre­cedes SSLYBY’s intro­duc­tion in write-ups and reviews, that asso­ci­a­tion of band and place meant to locate the name in a homey, small-town sound. But the thing is, the band isn´t really from any­where — I mean to say, yes, they have a home­town, and of course they go to bed at night some­where, but the need to pre­clude descrip­tion with loca­tion (oh, they´re from that spe­cific town) is entirely at odds with what they write and sing about. Way back on “Oregon Girl” from Broom, Will announces to his stately sweetie that “Oregon Girl / I´ve been around the world / and I´ve never seen another / Oregon girl.” The band´s been all over, and if any­thing, it´s the geo­graphic that fails to con­nect, that abo­rig­inal “Oregon Girl” who will never appear again and yet who remains a fix­ture in the speci­ficity of the song´s mountain-moving desire (see also Cora, Ellie, Rachel Lara, Anna Lee, Gwyneth, and now Everlyn). Even Per­shing, with its Springfield-isms (have you ever sat on top of the HEERS building?) was largely con­ceived, according to the band´s own trav­el­ogue, in Moscow. For a band that is rein­tro­duced time after time by that pin­pointing Spring­field, MO placemat, it would seem that the songs seek to dis­tance them from name and place altogether.

Everyone knows how much this band means to me (a little too much, maybe), so it´s a plea­sure for me to find that their latest Let It Sway will be released on August 17th via Polyvinyl. In line with talking about travel, this record took the guys across the US to record with Chris Walla and to find sev­eral other ladies to write songs about. I just received my dig­ital copy a few days ago, and I’m loving every second of it — they’ve found a way to syn­the­size vir­tu­ally every influ­ence on this one, and it serves for some moments of eerie prom­nesia (tell me you don’t hear Pinkerton on “Phan­tom­wise,” or Nothing Feels Good in the closing bars of “Stuart Gets Lost”) and, better still, new insta-classics that’ll soon become inex­tri­cably bond to mem­o­ries of my late summer months.

You can check out more from SSLYBY at their page on Polyvinyl. I also rec­om­mend heading over to iamwarmandpowerful.com for alter­nate takes, live per­for­mances, demos and other mis­cel­lany. As a former Tape Club member myself (Phil sent me the last SSLYBY pin!), I’m very, very pleased to find all these nice things avail­able in one place.

And as you can tell, we’re on a summer hiatus here at Girl­pants. I hope you’re well, and that you’re doing some­thing some­where that means just that.