American Hardcore On YouTube

One of the last chapters of the book "American Hardcore," recently adapted and released as a documentary film under the same name, details how hardcore finally made its way into the popular consciousness via television portrayals. Ill-informed episodes of "Quincy" and "CHiPs" apparently instilled alarm in parents and others outside the scene. Punk band Fear's 1981 performance on Saturday Night Live didn't help matters as far as public perception goes. Infamously and as detailed in the book, John Belushi and/or SNL producer Lorne Michaels invited hardcore kids from D.C. onset to rock out during the performance. According to estimates in "American Hardcore," set damage cost estimates ranged from $100 to something like $200,000. One of those taking part in the mayhem is Ian Mackaye of Dischord/Minor Threat/Fugazi/The Evens. John Joseph of Cro-Mags also reports being in the crowd. Fortunately for you, YouTube has the video. It's stagedive-arific! We also found a link to a piece of an episode of "Quincy" that may be the one referenced in "American Hardcore." Apparently one of the extras used in the punker scene was American's sweetheart Courtney Love. Here's the link for that.

Fear -- Saturday Night Live television performance, Halloween 1981.

Administrative Bidness: A Sassier URL

Well, at least a more easily remembered uniform resource locator. We've entered into a compact with the gremlins who hold aloft and arrange the pictures and text inside your computing lightbox. They have made representations to us that from now on readers may access clicky clicky music blog (which you are reading now) via the decidely more flashy URL http://www.clickyclickymusic.com. Please feel free to adjust your bookmarks accordingly. Or not, the old address will work fine, too.

-- The Management

Free Range Music: Low Skies' "Levelling"

"Levelling" has the kind of production where you feel like you can hear into every corner of the room. It's probably an aural illusion, but having so much headspace in the track allows the brushed drums to stoicly proceed while reverbed guitars face off against one another from opposite corners of the room. The track's dusty evocation, particularly the verse's two-chord trudge, suggests stifling heat and windless days spent awaiting impossible resolution out in the American plains. Low Skies singer Chris Salveter has a voice like Anthony Kiedis or Bono Vox's, but probably not in the way you're thinking (although it is interesting to think what would have happened to U2 had it taken its fixation with America as captured on Rattle And Hum and followed its vaguely bluesy, roots rock direction toward something like "Levelling"). Anyway, here Low Skies, a Chicago-based quintet that formed in 2000, display none of U2's bombast. Instead, the act seems resigned to slowly try to quit you from behind fences erected by the first few Palace Brothers singles. "Levelling" is taken from Low Skies' sophomore release All The Love I Could Find, which was issued on Flameshovel earlier this week. This MP3 comes courtesy of our friends over at Insound, and you can find several more at the act's Flameshovel page here.

Low Skies -- "Levelling."
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[Buy All The Love I Could Find from Insound]

Review: La Rocca | Sing Song Sung EP

We're often drawn to thickly applied guitars and big melodies, and Irish quartet La Rocca's debut EP pushes our buttons a bit in that regard. The title track of its Sing Song Sung EP, released earlier this month, is catchy and earns points for brevity. But the EP skids into some trite territory. La Rocca's biggest sin is writing a song about keeping a diary -- always bad songwriting turf unless you are Morrissey or Belle & Sebastian -- and attendant WB network-ready over-emoting during "Sketches (20 Something Life)." Even so, there's a great hook in its chorus under urgently delivered vocals. "Home" also has a lot of itself on its sleeve, but in a manner pleasantly reminiscent of The Alarm. You can skip EP closer "Cambodia," a story-song of sorts that seems to drift lyrically toward something like Ginger Baker's odd 1994 solo track "East Timor." Sing Song Sung EP was produced by Tony Hoffer, who twisted knobs for Belle & Sebastian's recent collection The Life Pursuit. La Rocca's full length The Truth streets May 23 on Dangerbird. Our take: the set will rate with Modern Rock radio programming computers, not so much with indie fans.

[Buy the Sing Song Sung EP at Insound]

Coming To Your Local Bandstand: The Joggers

Lovably angular indie rock quartet The Joggers will take to the streets for its first tour of the year in the second week of March. The jittery Portland, Ore.-based act released its remarkably solid second effort With A Cape And With A Cane last fall and is riding the positive buzz all the way to several South By Southwest dates and beyond. "Beyond" being Missoula, Montana and other hotspots in the middle of the country. And then there's a whole other tour with Pretty Girls Make Graves later in the spring. Anyway, in Internets time last fall was like 75 days ago. So in the event you need to be sold all over again on the altogether excellent musical juggernaut that is The Joggers, avail yourself of this MP3 that StarTime International was kind enough to send along. The track is "Since You're Already Up" and it is a sing-alonger, hand-clapper and fist-banger all rolled up into one song. And the glorious guitar tone! We forgot how much we liked this. Tour dates below the MP3 link, dig?

The Joggers -- "Since You're Already Up."
[right click and save as]
[buy With A Cape And With A Cane from Insound]

03/10 -- Davis, CA –- ASUCD
03/11 -- San Francisco, CA -– Bottom of the Hill
03/12 -- Los Angeles, CA –- The Echo
03/13 -- San Diego, CA –- The Casbah
03/14 -- Tuscon, AZ –- Vaudeville Café
03/16 -- Austin, TX –- Vice Kills Texas at the Long Branch Inn
03/17 -- Austin, TX –- East Side Scootenany at Red’s Scoot Inn
03/17 -- Austin, TX –- Moonshine Patio Bar & Grill
03/18 -- Austin, TX –- SxSW Showcase at Red Eyed Fly
03/19 -- Houston, TX -– Walters
03/21 -- Atlanta, GA –- The Earl
03/22 -- Chapel Hill, NC -– Local 506
03/23 -- Washington, DC –- The Black Cat Backstage w/Georgie James
03/25 -- New York, NY –- Rothko w/Georgie James
03/26 -- New Haven, CT -– Bar Night Club w/Georgie James
03/27 -- Cambridge, MA -– The Middle East w/Georgie James
03/30 -- Columbus, OH –- The High Five w/Oxford Collapse
03/31 -- Chicago, IL –- Schuba’s w/Oxford Collapse
04/01 -- Milwaukee, WI -– Cactus Club w/Oxford Collapse
04/02 -- Minneapolis, MN -– Triple Rock Social Club w/Oxford Collapse
04/03 -- Fargo, ND –- The Aquarim
04/04 -- Billings, MT -– Casey’s Golden Pheasant w/Pelican
04/05 -- Missoula, MT –- Higgins Alley Upstairs

Today's Hotness: The Futureheads, Loose Fur, Destroyer

>> Man, we love us some Futureheads but we have to say we're dismayed at the band's deployment of this "secret tour" chicanery, the same bozo move The Strokes pulled late last year. It’s a lame device. Just to be clear: if your tour was truly secret, no one would come and you would not make any money and it is possible you would then starve or become very cold and damp. You wouldn't be able to afford smokes. Also, your van would run out of petrol because you wouldn't be able to feed the machines the oil magnates use to extort money from us. Oh, rue the day your record label talked you into this dumb idea, Futureheads. That said, here's the scoop for people who can't wait for someone else to post the details tomorrow afternoon: go to the Futureheads web site Friday, complete a word search (?) and the dates will be revealed. The Futureheads' sophomore release News And Tributes will hit racks in May.

>> Brooklyn Vegan here points to a video hosted by YouTube for a song from the forthcoming Loose Fur record. The video, for the relatively strong track "Hey Chicken," splices together a bunch of action shots from that old kids show "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers." It's pretty fun. Loose Fur's sophomore release Born Again In The USA streets March 21 on Drag City. We've had our hands on the set for a while and it is not growing on us. It's strongly beholden to classic rock, with some experimental scrambling here and there. We'll give it a couple more chances.

>> The New York Times here profiles Destroyer and mastermind Dan Bejar. The thesis of the informative piece is that Bejar will never crossover and in fact takes steps to willfully sabotage his own prospects for stardom. We liked the rundown of all the self-referential lyrics, as we hadn't realized that was as prevalent in Bejar's writing as it is. It's pretty funny. And lines like this, from the new record's title track, are just sublimely pointed: "Quiet, Ruby, someone's coming, approach with stealth/Oh, it's just your precious American underground, and it is born of wealth/With not a writer in the lot." Stings a bit, eh, indie rock?

Review: His Name Is Alive | Detrola

Veteran indie act His Name Is Alive, the 16-year-old musical enterprise of Michigan's Warn Defever, released its delicious sixth record Detrola last month. The pleasantly scattered set opens with a bit of an anomaly, a Celtic-sounding drone ballad. But for the most part the record's music fits into two general piles: techno-driven workouts (see the scrambler "After I Leave You" and the nicely naughty "In My Dream") and '70s AM Gold-inspired pop rockers (the irresistable "Get Your Curse;" "I Thought I Saw" in particular recalls The Carpenters). The simple tremeloed guitar in album closer "Send My Face" may in fact be the most gorgeous thing on the record, but it faces strong competition from the talents of three female vocalists used on Detrola. Particularly affecting is the work of Andrea (a/k/a Andy FM), whose yearning delivery on "C*A*T*S*" is especially compelling, although she is strong everywhere on the record. Erika Hoffman's voice energizes the almost-show tune "You Need A Heart," which would be a great track for Tin Man to sing in the indie rock version of "The Wiz." Detrola, released on the band's own Silver Mountain imprint, displays a broad range but is surprisingly listenable across the board. The band has the following tour dates set for March.

[Buy Detrola from Insound]

03/11 -- Ann Arbor, MI -- Blind P.
03/16 -- Austin, TX -- Habana Calle 6
03/23 -- Los Angeles, CA -- Knitting Factory
03/24 -- San Francisco, CA -- Café du Nord
03/25 -- San Francisco, CA -- Café du Nord
03/27 -- Portland, OR -- Doug Fir
03/28 -- Seattle, WA -- Neumos