Band: JOAN ARKANSAS Who: A power pop band that didn’t forget about the “power” part based out of scenic downtown Phoenix AZ. They formed out of sheer boredom during the pandemic in 2021. Their songs cover the gamut of topics but are often driven deep into what it’s like to be piece of a desert trash blowing through gentrified downtown Phoenix landscapes, just tryin’ to survive.
About the song (take a deep breath): ” It started as a writing exercise on that weird pervasive feeling that most of us have in this era: “What if I’m not the star of the show, but an extra in someone else’s movie?” Once you start diving down that rabbit hole of thought, more questions get brought up: Where the hell is the script?, What happened to all those characters who once felt so important but now you can’t quite remember? It gets pretty Camus pretty damn quick. That leads to the next question: What if you are actually in a horror movie that just hasn’t introduced the monster yet? If you are, then we all know what happens to 95 percent of the featured cast in those kind of flicks. Not everyone gets to be Neve Campbell, and we have the sneaking suspicion that we are a band full of Rose McGowan.”
TUTV: JOA’s new mindfucker moves like a nasty snake on too much acid trying to
be the serpent star in a horror movie. Sick guitars, flipped-out bass/drum thwacks,
and the biting Kayla Long vocals combine for a Sturm und Drang groove that creeps
under your skin just like that ferocious snake sneaks. JOA is the finalist pick of the day. Hands down. Don’t miss this tempestuous and bloodcurdling hellraiser.
Composer/producer Jerry Leiber was born in Baltimore90 years ago, on 25 April 1933. Along with his musical partner Mike Stoller he wrote over 70 big hits for big stars such as Elvis Presley (Hound Dog, Jailhouse Rock and more), The Drifters, The Coasters (Charlie Brown and more), Perry Como and Jacki Fontaine.
Leiber also composed songs together with others such as Phil Spector (Spanish Harlem) and Ben E. King (Stand By Me). He passed away in 2011 in Los Angeles, at the age of 78.
Since then the band is touring relentlessly (new dates below) and invited an
impressive cast of musical friends to remix songs from that album. The collection
is namedSee Trough You: Rerealized. You can buy it here. The digital version
will be available from June 2.
Remixers: Danish electronic Composer Trentmøller, post-punk anti-heroes Xiu Xiu,
the luminescent Annie Hart of hypnotic synth trio Au Revoir Simone and several more.
Andy Bell of legendary shoegaze band Ride operating under the moniker of GLOK also joined the remix party. He picked the psych-hypnotic I’M HURT track and turned it into
an ambient techno groover with Kraut-rock-like synth rhythms and chainsaw guitar fragments. Wowzers.
Turn Up The Volume will give you 5 reasons why it would be a fucking shame not to know/enjoy the a.w.e.s.o.m.e. LAMBRINI GIRLS. Three punk-crazy Amazons from Brighton, UK with vox/guitarist Phoebe Lunny and bassist Lilly Macieira upfront, recently named by imperishable legend Iggy Pop as his new favorite band. Actually, that alone should be enough to realise how fucking good they are.
Here we go.
1. Their trash-and-crash havoc makes you want to start a one-man/woman moshpit from the moment it erupts from your stereo. So far they released 3 stunning uppercuts that grab you by the throat without asking. Check them on Spotify.
2. They get in the ugly faces, with sharp-teethed panache, of male machos,
LGBT-phobics, and all other intolerant scumbags. Watch your back LADS.
. 3. Sonically they combine the sassy spirit of riot grrls Bikini Kill, the biting bitchiness of Courtney Love, the primal screams of X-Ray Spex‘s late genial vox Poly Sterene , and the unbridled DIY mentality of The Slits.
4. Live, as I witnessed, last Saturday in my hometown of Ghent (Belgium) LG are explosive punkettes with loudmouthed Phoebe Lunny more off than on stage interacting with the audience. These girls’ kick-ass bravado went (almost) through the roof. Their spunky swagger and their intrepid presence was flabergasting the whole set through.
5. As I experienced before and after the gig Lambrini Girls are for real, they’re big fun, they are totally open-minded, they’re great human beings and they like Belgian beer. Hail Hail!
PJ HARVEY, published a newsletter on her social media, revealing that
she was making a new playlist available on her Spotify account. It’ll feature
tracks from her catalogue produced by John Parish and Flood, and comes in
at just under 40 minutes.
Last Saturday the sad news of the passing of 62-year old MARK STEWART
best known as the astounding frontman of experimental post-punk band THE POP GROUP from Bristol who hit the scene back 1977. He also recorded
multiple albums solo and collaborated with lots of other artists.
Their innovative, mercurial, and left politics-infused
debut LP Y is still regarded as a classic album of the era.
The album’s wilful single SHE IS BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL
(more than 1 million streams on Spotify) is one of their
unforgettable exploits.
LICE are 5 musical mavericks from Bristol, UK. They’re part of the rebirth of
post-punk in Brexshit England with bands such as The Fat White Family, LIFE,
Silverbacks, Crows, Deathletter, Opus Kink. Back in 2021 they unleashed their
smashing debut WASTELAND: What Ails our People Is Clear. One of the
most fascinating and intoxicating LPs of the last 10 years according to my
ears.
A press statement read as follows (take a deep breath): Wastelandis a wild Burroughsian adventure melding science-fiction, absurdism and magical realism,
calling fora revolution against the reductive ‘good versus evil’ narratives of popular
satirical music. Arguing that through experimenting with the form of the song lyric
(our most widely disseminated form of creative writing) we can build more nuanced
popular discourse around the implicit forms of bias that ail us, Wasteland presents
complex characters changing their minds–along with their bodies and places in spacetime.
Set in an unearthly liminal space populated by shape-shifters, time-travellers, talking genitalia and ectoplasmic specters, the prose text evolves as the characters do: warping into cut-ups, soliloquies and even plays. Satire of satire.
‘Persuader’, one of the many highlights
TUTV‘s wrote: “After trying to make sense out of the lyrics of all Wasteland songs and
after trying to make sense out of an interview – that read like a Dostojevski book – manic frontman Alistair Shuttleworth had with Louder Than War, I had a what-the-fuck is going on nightmare and couldn’t stop listening to the LP. A razzle-dazzle roller coaster from start to finish, not one dull moment. Imagine 2005 SF movieWar Of The Worlds, but even more wasty.
In my triggered mind I saw Mad Max crossing the warfare remains of a wasted place
called Earth with his cool Stanley Kubrick space car while watching The Return Of The Living Dead on a giant iPad in the sky. To be honest, one of my best nightmares in months.”
STREAM/BUY
‘Wasteland’ here.
.
And live Lice bring their Wasteland to the people with a bulldozing force I witnessed
in Antwerp and last Saturday in my hometown of Ghent (some pics below). Go and get
to see them when they’re in your neighborhood.
In order to not miss a beat Turn Up The Volume scans the musical
horizon daily (doing it for years now, actually) to stay in touch with
all new things sonically great and shares the results on a weekly
basis.
Check the 10 new rad tracks
added to this rad 2023 playlist.
Daily noise that works faster and harder than any stimulant
24 April 2023
Last year British post-punk combo BLOC PARTY returned with their
sixth longplayer Alpha Games, their first in six years and voice/face
and guitarist Kele Okereke had his 6th solo LP out 2 years ago.
And the inspiration keeps on coming.
BC dropped a new track, named HIGH LIFE.
A guitar-funky disco ball. Top.
