Wub-Fur's Mini-Podcast (2012)

Punk Gunk, Garage, and Wild Shit is the best room going on turntable.fm right now. Here's a rockin' podcast from one of it's members!

The Dying Seconds: Panacea EP (2013)

Here's the press release for The Dying Seconds' Panacea EP:

"Panacea marks a slight departure for the band, with almost exclusive emphasis on acoustic instruments and live performance - for both the EP's tracks and the video for 10-4 where we recorded live vocals in the epic reverberance of the Greenwich Foot Tunnel under the Thames. The performances for Panacea were captured in our house in Brixton and our studio in New Cross, South London.

We're delighted to follow up our sophomore album, Glimmerers, with this live EP, both as a sidestep in style and a stepping stone to our next full album which is due later this year."

I like this EP. Pretty, mellow, short songs. Enjoy!

David Wills: God Made The Woman, Devil Made The Man (1975)

David Wills.

We Are The West

We Are The West are a Los Angeles-based duo that play really pretty, laid back acoustic folk jams. They just released their second recording, EP II.

Here's what WATW's website has to say about them:

"We Are The West uses sound and space to create an experience that is welcoming and honest. The Los Angeles-based duo has recorded in storm drains and shipping containers, performed on sheep farms and in abandoned convents, and now hosts a concert series in the underground parking garage of an office building in Santa Monica the Saturday night before each full moon. This spring they release the second in a four-part album of recordings, this installment handcrafted with love and care in a barn in Western New York during the summer months. Next month they release the second in a four part album of recordings."

The wife and I recently went to see James McCartney (Sir Paul's son), who is doing a tour with just himself and whom we assume is his man-servant. McCartney played folk guitar and piano ballads and, while technically proficient, his songs really lacked melody and, just as important, conviction -- most of them featuring vague lyrics about butterflies, rainbows, or butterflies and rainbows. We felt it was particularly bad, but others in the crowd seemed into it.

The three tracks on We Are The West's EP II, while operating in the same folk mileu, are the exact opposite of what Son-of-Paul was doing the other night. The sound is melodic, wide open, and haunting, and the singer has a sincere, distinctive voice. While McCartney may have been sincere (although at one point he freely admitted his songs weren't really about anything), the only thing distinctive about his voice was that it was often pitchy.

I don't mean to rant about James McCartney, we just really didn't care for it. We Are The West, on the other hand, is cool stuff, so give it a listen!

Yawn Tapes (2013)

Ben Levinson and Andrew Young, based out of the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California, are responsible for Yawn Tapes. They dub sound onto blank cassettes from their own digital recordings. Per Ben, they chose cassette tapes as their medium because tapes are

"the cheapest form of a physical release for music and we like the aesthetic of a cassette. It's more fun and less pointless than a cd (because free downloads are available). We don't mind that most people don't have cassette players because we aren't too worried about garnering a mass audience. One of our main interests is extremely limited editions of our cassettes. We've discussed releasing singular cassettes of improvised music recorded directly to that cassette, never to be heard elsewhere."

Rad! Check out Man and the Smells' "The More You Know":

Ben describes Man and the Smells as a meeting of James Brown and the Descendents. To hear what he means, check out:

Their other release is Andrew Young's Analog Modulations, an hour long "collection of analog modulations, sine tones, field recordings, and 2 instrumental samples. assembled sometime in february 2013, mixed and mastered over a few days in march 2013." Noise aficionados will appreciate, so check out the link.