Rock Star Journalist

We’ve demonstrated some love for Berwanger a lot recently, and it’ll only ramp up now that the band’s getting ready to release their full-length, All You Can Eat, later this spring. In advance of all of that, however, will come this split 7-inch with TK Webb on California’s Creme Tangerine Records. Berwanger’s contribution, as you can see, is the track “Neon Corners.” No clue as to when the split will see release, but keep an eye on the band’s Facebook page for more updates.

You can hear a live version of the band’s track below, in a live video shot by Sid from Too Much Rock during their show at the Jackpot in Lawrence on Thursday, February 7, 2013.
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The past couple of weeks, I’ve been driving to work, listening to the same CD — namely, the fourth volume of the Yo Gabba Gabba “Music Is… Awesome!” series of compilations. For them’s that don’t have kids, Yo Gabba Gabba is a show on the Nick Jr. cable network, and was co-created by Christian Jacobs, who readers of this site might better know as MC Bat Commander of the Aquabats.
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Thanks to gum surgery earlier this week, its attendant expenditures, and the fact that the records I ordered have yet to show up, the planned-out setlist I’d made for the new podcast pretty much had to be set aside. It hurts to talk, as well as to listen to me laterally lisp my way through most words, so hopping on the mic wasn’t an option this week.

That being said, I’ve signed up to Soundcloud and put together a pretty boss tracklisting from some new records, as well as unreleased shiz and so on. Soundcloud’s rapidly becoming as close to crate-digging as one can find online, so expect this show to be nicely curated. It flows well, too. Get rocked this weekend.

My wife bought me a copy of So Cow‘s Meaningless Friendly when she saw them open for Ted Leo and the Pharmacists a few years back. I listened to it, and enjoyed it (most releases on Tic Tac Totally are pretty dandy). However, I didn’t get a chance to see them until I went to CMJ back in October of last year. Dan from Inflated Records hooked me up with a copy of the split between the two Dublin acts, and I’ve been hoping that this year’s South By Southwest music festival would bring one or the both acts stateside again.

It did! However, So Cow’s the only one coming through my area, so I reached out to So Cow’s Brian Kelly via e-mail about the upcoming tour, the recent split LP, and how European acts plan their treks to the States.
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Swamp Cabbage Records (who put out that pretty amazing Cancer Is A Punk compilation a couple years back) are releasing the next bit of music from Rock Star Journalist faves the New Rochelles. It’s entitled Smile of the Tiger, and it’s a split with the DeeCracks from Austria.

300 are pressed, with 100 on orange, and 200 on black. It comes with a digital download and ships early February. It officially came out yesterday, and you can order it now from the Swamp Cabbage store. Listen to the New Rochelles’ side below, and see if you can explain why so many punk bands release songs with Spanish lyrics. I’d certainly like to know.
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Canada’s Hellshovel are described by their label, Slovenly Records, as “bumpkin punks,” and their most recent album, Hated By The Sun, as “the sound of Johnny Cash drowning in a pool of cough syrup.” These are apt descriptions, and when you factor in their work with Greece’s Acid Baby Jesus on the Voyager 8 10-inch last year, there’s a lot of drug references being thrown around. It’s not inaccurate — I’ve never heard a band who more accurately represented being fucked up through music.

Hellshovel and Acid Baby Jesus embark on a North American tour starting on February 22, at the Bell House in Brooklyn, and finishing in Milwaukee at Linnemans Riverwest Inn on April 6, as part of Lookout Weekend II. The tour hits the Replay Lounge in Lawrence on Saturday, March 2, and I’ll be there. In advance of the tour, we spoke with singer / guitarist Jeff Clarke via e-mail about Hellshovel, their collaboration with Acid Baby Jesus, and the garage scene in general.
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The new album from the Bronx keeps getting hailed as the band “returning to form” or some such nonsense after two albums as Mariachi el Bronx. Poppycock, I say. While definitely heavier than the mariachi albums, The Bronx IV isn’t the furious, rambunctious tones of the band’s earlier albums.

At one point, singer Matt Caughthran’s vocals sounded like he was shredding his vocal chords with each and every song. The desperate howls of “Bats!”, “History’s Stranglers” or “They Will Kill Us All (Without Mercy)” are not to be found on IV. Perhaps it’s the crooning to which Caughthran has been accustomed lately, but these songs are sung, not screamed.
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Lawrence’s power-pop quartet the Dead Girls released their latest LP, Fade In/Fade Out on Friday, and to celebrate, they played an album release party at the Replay Lounge. The group played the entirety of the new album, top to bottom, and it sounded fucking incredible.
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Formerly Lawrencian (now San Francsican) indie pop trio Mammoth Life debut the music video for their new single, “Being Young,” today. It’s a fun bit of stop-motion animation, which manages to capture the whimsy of a bunch of Kansas kids living by the bay. The single is also available for free download, and you can find that below.

Young Skin features members of The Ergs!, Lemuria, Hunchback, Failures’ Union, Black Wine, Full of Fancy, For Science, et al, performing under pseudonyms, and rocking some garage-y tunes. They officially released The Sticky Pages E.P. on Paper + Plastick back in October. While that means this isn’t exactly a timely article, this recently-unearthed interview has some great answers from the band’s Liz Unfair, so we had to run it. Also, the EP is super-dandy, and it got lost in the shuffle when we were making our best of 2012 list. We hope this will make a few people, who have saved money on the medifast diet, drop some coin and order the four-song slab of cranky, grungy punk rock..
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