Friday, March 29, 2013
Muggys' Rock Pick: Alt J
WARNING: Recycled content! Sorry—Muggsy
Pronounced alt-j (or as Muggsy pronounces it option-j). The real question is, how does Muggsy feel about a new arty British buzz band that damn near has an emoticon for a name? Shift : shift (
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Muggsy's Rock Pick: Thurston Moore & Chelsea Light Moving
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| Light moving, cleaning and other household chores. |
Chelsea Light Moving (featuring. Thurston Moore), Cave @ High Noon Saloon, 701A Washington, Madison, WI
Thurston alert! Thurston alert!
Share an awkward moment discussing underground Walloonian 80s post pre-hardcore bands with Thurston @ Strictly Discs, 1900 Monroe St Madison, WI, 4PM
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Muggsy's Rock Pick: Kim Gordon with White/Light
Face the Strange series with White/Light featuring Kim Gordon @ Museum of Contemporary Art, 220 East Chicago Ave., Chicago
Muggsy finds it interesting that in a post-Sonic Youth/Kim Gordon-is-married- to-Thurston Moore world, these two exes will be performing in the same town within a few days of each other. It's interesting, that's all. Gordon performs with the Chicago experimental duo named White/Light (although Muggsy thinks the band name Lemos & Clark would have been a good one too).
You can read this Kim Gordon interview in the Chicago Tribune if you like.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Thank You For Your Relentless Pursuit of Excellence!: Reglar Wiglar Greeting Cards
Monday, March 18, 2013
Music Review: Iceage, You're Nothing
You're Nothing [Matador]
Iceage is not from the U.S. or even the U.K., although they sound at times like Wire crossed with Hüsker Dü or the band Ian Curtis and company would have formed after seeing Black Flag instead of the Sex Pistols. They are, depending on your preferred tag, a Danish "post-hardcore", "post-emo" or "post-punk" band. No "post" modifier is really required, however. Everything is "post" these days and Iceage travels on trails blazed decades before. The band's use of right-wing imagery and themes is certainly nothing new and hardly gained much traction as far as controversies go. The fact that a Danish post-everything band such as this can land on Matador only makes sense in 2013. In 2003, Iceage would likely not have risen above the underground VFW Hall, Book Your Own Fucking Life scene in this country. That's not to say they don't deserve to be on a higher profile label like Matador. They do, much the same as countless bands before them deserved, but never acheived that status. The other, allegedly noteworthy, thing about Iceage is their relatively young age. They were teenagers when they started the group. Teenagers playing punk rock? Pretty radical. No, they were and still are exactly the age you'd expect of a band that attacks it's music with violent, world-ending urgency.
None of the above makes You're Nothing—the band's sophomore full-length after 2010's New Brigade LP— any less worthy of loud, repeated plays. The album's opener "Ecstacy" is a washed out mess of guitars that sounds like snotty Brits taking the piss on an 80s SoCal hardcore band. It’s got a fast part and a faster part where the drums take off and the guitars seem so stupified and stuck in place, they can’t give chase. "Coalition" is all buzz saw guitars and angered alienation with a shouted one-line chorus of "Excess". "Interlude" begins with the sound of a distant train. There’s something sinister about it. It builds with the march of a snare drum. Perhaps this is one of those ultra right-wing themes that needs to be carefully monitored? Or not. "In Haze" has singer, Elias Bender Ronnefelt, in top punk vocal form (you one can almost see the spit flying into the mic) as the math rock guitars duel it out behind him. "Morals," the longest track at three minutes and twenty seconds, features a few piano chords over a guitar drone that could pass for the Strokes on heavy doses of Robotussin before it ascends into the chorus ending with those martial sounding snares again. "Everything Drifts" makes good use of a chunky Chuck Dukowksi bassline and "Rodfaestet" is a punk rock sprint sung in Dutch.
Iceage may not be the new age of anything, but they do justice to a long tradition of abrasive music that also manages to be both intelligent and tuneful—Chris Auman
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Reglar Wiglar's Favorite Irish Pubs
2. Micky O'McDonnegan's
3. McDugalstein's "Irish-Style" Pub
4. Finnegan's Wake 'n' Drink
5. The Frisky Leprechaun
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Comic Review: Dodo Comics #3
Grant Thomas
Seeing as how there is not a single written word in this new issue of Grant Thomas’ Dodo Comics, I am at a loss as to what to say about it. I feel like a real dodo. (Why are dodo’s considered dumb? Is it because they got themselves extinct? That was hardly their fault, I would think). At any rate, this issue is titled "Abstract Comics" and it features a series of six comics in the form of poetry. How does that work exactly? Well, I expected certain panels to repeat and follow the comic equivalent of an a-b-a-b rhyme scheme but I detect no such pattern. The fact that these visual sonnets do not follow the same structure as a written poem makes them no less poetic. The black and white shades and lines in the panels follow the flow dictated by Grant in a free form, stream of conscious style, like waves or freed leaves or blowing feathers. It's a simple approach, utilizing a simple technique to create a simple visual style—Chris Auman
Monday, March 11, 2013
What's the Point, Flesh Panthers?
WHAT'S THE POINT?
Occasionally, Reglar Wiglar Magazine asks a band, artist or musician: What’s it all about? What's the point and why go on? This week we ask Chicago skin cats, Flesh Panthers:
What's it all about?
This is the second year we have
hosted a St. Paddy's Day celebration. Last year was in our practice
space/living room and Flesh Panthers dressed in drag. This year it's
all about coming down to the Burlington Bar (3425 W Fullerton) March 16th, Chicago, IL. Will we be in drag this year? Who knows.
What's the point?
Flesh
Panthers will also be releasing a new EP via Exxotic Aquatic tapes.
It's got four brand new songs of feed back ridden schitzoid-garage-punk.
You can pre-order it now at http://fleshpanthers.
Why go on?
Lots of regional and Chicago dates planned for spring/summer 2013. Including May 18th at Mickey's Tavern! (Madison)
SATURDAY, 3/16
Flesh Panthers, Pink Torpedo, Wet Heat, Gypsy Blood @ The Burlington, 3425 W Fullerton Ave., Chicago, IL
Flesh Panthers, Pink Torpedo, Wet Heat, Gypsy Blood @ The Burlington, 3425 W Fullerton Ave., Chicago, IL
Saturday, March 09, 2013
Friday, March 08, 2013
Thursday, March 07, 2013
Monday, March 04, 2013
What's the Point, Puritan Pine?
WHAT'S THE POINT?
Occasionally, Reglar Wiglar Magazine asks a band, artist or musician: What’s it all about? What's the point and why go on? This week we ask wood prudes, Puritan Pine:
What’s it all about?
What it's all about is RATCHED CORE, a new sound guaranteed to
momentarily entrance rock critics, hipsters and the blogosphere. It has
something to do with girl groups, nineties rock and a dash of dissonance
from the SST/Teen Beat/Homestead realm. Puritan Pine is the sole
source, and we'll be opening this scene up on Friday, March 8 at
Township in the fashionably shabby Logan Square neighborhood in Chicago.
Also on the bill are Orions and Sentinels. Put down your Pabst and
tater tots and get RATCHED.
What’s the point?
The point is... well, we already made our point a few months back, when
we packed the notorious Mutiny Corporation in Chicago and walked off
with a big stack of cash from Ed the proprietor. Nobody got stabbed and
we got to drink our Old Style pitchers right there on the street.
Utterly ratched. What comes after that? R. Kelley can have Pitchfork for
all we care.
Why go on?
We go on because we have an EP to push: BOOMERANG. It'll be done as soon as we get it all mastered right. And
we go on because our drummer Kimmie is an ex- Sea Punk in search of a
new scene. She was orphaned when her habitat was mercilessly exploited
by some music reporters from a free newspaper desperate for indie cred.
It all got ruined quick.
To interested parties: do come to the show, but do not ask the drummer about her monocle. Do not talk at the drummer at all.
FRIDAY 3/8
Sunday, March 03, 2013
Muggsy's Rock Pick: Self Evident
Self Evident, Electric Hawk, They Dead @ Turf Club, 1601 University Ave. St. Paul MN
Muggsy holds these truths to be self-evident that all bands are created equal. They just don't end up that way.
Saturday, March 02, 2013
Muggsys' Rock Pick: Ra Ra Riot
Ra Ra Riot, Pacific Air @ UW Memorial Union, 800 Langdon, Madison, WI
"Never Been in a Ra Ra Riot"—The McMekons
Friday, March 01, 2013
Book/Zine Review: The People's Apocalypse
THE PEOPLE’S APOCALYPSE
Edited by Ariel Gore & Jenny Forrester [Lit Star Press]
OK, so the world didn’t end again this time either, but it’s for sure gonna end next Tuesday, so plan on that. The People's Apocalypse, edited by hip mamma, Ariel Gore and writer Jenny Forrester, compiles writings related to the End Times, Doomsday, The Apocalypse or Next Tuesday, as I call it. I don't know if we are more obsessed with the end of the world now than we were ten, twenty or a hundred years ago, but we certainly have many more outlets through which to feed our morbid fantasies. Doomsday Preppers, Zombies, Global Warming, Honey Boo Boo, there's an apocalyptic feeling in the American psyche for sure, so a book like The People's Apocalypse fits right into this cultural phenomenon. The anthology contains short stories and essays which seek to explain, or at least give advice on, everything from how to prepare for the impending Zombie Apocalypse to how to raise chickens. In both fictional and nonfictional forms, writers and zinesters Tomas Moniz, Yasmin Elbaradie, Evelyn Sharenov, Derrick Jensen, Roy Coughlin, Margaret Elysia Garcia, Vickie Fernandez, Dani Burlison and many more, give their own expressions, thoughts and feelings on what can be a serious or seriously silly topic. Of course, the end of the world is millions of years away, but the end of humans? That's another story and shouldn't really be the cause for too much grief or hair pulling. Who'd miss us anyway?—Chris Auman
Edited by Ariel Gore & Jenny Forrester [Lit Star Press]
OK, so the world didn’t end again this time either, but it’s for sure gonna end next Tuesday, so plan on that. The People's Apocalypse, edited by hip mamma, Ariel Gore and writer Jenny Forrester, compiles writings related to the End Times, Doomsday, The Apocalypse or Next Tuesday, as I call it. I don't know if we are more obsessed with the end of the world now than we were ten, twenty or a hundred years ago, but we certainly have many more outlets through which to feed our morbid fantasies. Doomsday Preppers, Zombies, Global Warming, Honey Boo Boo, there's an apocalyptic feeling in the American psyche for sure, so a book like The People's Apocalypse fits right into this cultural phenomenon. The anthology contains short stories and essays which seek to explain, or at least give advice on, everything from how to prepare for the impending Zombie Apocalypse to how to raise chickens. In both fictional and nonfictional forms, writers and zinesters Tomas Moniz, Yasmin Elbaradie, Evelyn Sharenov, Derrick Jensen, Roy Coughlin, Margaret Elysia Garcia, Vickie Fernandez, Dani Burlison and many more, give their own expressions, thoughts and feelings on what can be a serious or seriously silly topic. Of course, the end of the world is millions of years away, but the end of humans? That's another story and shouldn't really be the cause for too much grief or hair pulling. Who'd miss us anyway?—Chris Auman
Muggsy's Rock Pick: Lonesome Organist
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| Lonesome? I can see that. |
Lonesome Organist, Black Bear Combo, Post-Youth, Lou Shields @ Township
2200 N. California, Chicago, IL
Hear that lonesome organist/He sounds too blue to play/The midnight el is whining high/I'm so lonesome I could cry—Hank McMurphy Williams
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