Month of February , 2007

While most aging rockers tend to accidentally slip into perversion, addiction, and eventually self-parody, Nick Cave has decided instead to think outside the box, grow an awful looking goatee and take all three head-on in his new project: Grinderman.

"My face is finished, my body's gone.
And I can't help but think standing up here in all this applause and gazing down at all the young and the beautiful.
With their questioning eyes.
That I must above all things love myself."

Thanks to that opening, what would have been a paean to post-pubescent frustration instead (intentionally) casts Cave and his cohorts as The Dirty Old Men leering from the stage. Cave plays the part of the massively egotistical front man, and the band plays what is perhaps the most simple sounding rock and roll song ever.

Focus your attention on the mad (balding) man with the microphone and the guitar, it says.

The name "Grinderman" evokes both a pathetic organ grinder, spinning the handle on his box to play simple tunes for small bits of cash, or an alternate universe pornographic superhero. That duality is probably exactly what they were going for. It's easy to watch this video and see it as four old guys trying to look cool by playing to young folks, but then it ends with animal on human sex and you realize that Cave, Sclavunos, Ellis and Casey have been at this "fucking with people" thing for a long time.

And who doesn't like the sound of an amplified violin coming through a wah pedal?

No Pussy Blues

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Many thanks for Jim Testa for finding this gem and putting it in the recent Jersey Beat Podcast; WWIII delivers a swift kick in the nuts to the hipster crowd with some of the funniest comedy-metal I've heard in a while (comedy is the True Calling of Metal):

Check out WWIII's myspace over here, where he describes himself as "METAL POO GENIUS RETARD ROCK PANTS" and where you can also listen to the excellent "Emo Days."

Tom Waits performs "Day After Tomorrow" from the album Real Gone on The Daily Show, much to the delight of Jon Stewart. Never mind that the song gets cut off at the end - the performance of this poignant song is well worth the interruption.

Deerhoof

In part two of Good New Music Friday, Adam officially eats his own hat.

I at some point mentioned on this very website that I was having trouble with another "deer" band - Deerhoof, that is - mostly because of vocalist Satomi. I listened to 2005's The Runners Four again today, and I am such an asshole. This album is amazing. In particular, "Running Thoughts":

[mp3] Deerhoof - "Running Thoughts"

Deerhoof have a new album out this year, Friend Opportunity, and it too is knocking my socks off. Here's a cut from that album.

[mp3] Deerhoof - "+81" (KRS)

"Choo choo choo choo beep beep"!

Time for a start of a new tradition on Sceneless. I'd like to post some new music at least once a week. That's not too much to ask, is it?

This week, I'm going to join the web bandwagon and proclaim Deerhunter as "Good New Music".

Their second full-length album Cryptograms is the result of two short sessions separated by one year. The first half is mostly like a softer cousin to Liars' Drum's Not Dead, and the second is truly illuminating pop disguised by psychedelic artifice.

Give the title track a spin. It starts out with a pulsing bass and eventually builds layers of delayed noise to a coda of fevered chanting. I love it:

[mp3] Deerhunter - "Cryptograms" (kranky)