Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Posted By on Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 8:44 AM

Each Labor Day weekend, the fine folks at Club Congress host the city's biggest musical bash of the year. It runs Wed. Aug. 30-Sunday, Sept. 3. The Tucson Weekly is down with it.

So down with it we'll be doing drive-by previews of bands and artists performing the Hoco Fest fest, local and international. Here's a bit about the heady, adrenaline-stoked combo Ho99o9, playing the fest on Thursday, Aug. 31:


Those who caught New Jersey’s Ho99o9 (pronounced Horror) when they hit the Moldy Pueblo on Mike Patton’s Dead Cross tour will know how much of a spectacular mindfuck they are live. Mashing Ministry’s grimy industrial scrum with Manson-esque (Marilyn and Charlie) goth-horror, some Suicide minimalism, and smart, skull-crush hip-hop that’d do Massive Attack proud, few new bands excite more than Ho99o9. The main duo of theOGM and Eaddy work together because of their musical and, perhaps, subtle ideological differences—sorta like a brainy, punk-rock Outkast. Tension is critical. On record they’re great, but live is the shit.



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Monday, August 14, 2017

Posted By on Mon, Aug 14, 2017 at 2:12 PM



Know Your Product: The Head

Straight outta Atlanta, Georgia, The Head formed a decade ago when twins Jack (drums) and Mike (vocals/bass) Shaw took their love for The Beatles, as well as The Stone Roses and the cynically witty Madchester scene, and created something rooted in garage nostalgia yet ultimately contemporary. Packed with big rock choruses and killer fret-work courtesy of guitarist Jacob Morrell, the band’s recent Millipedes EP shows just how much they’ve grown into themselves over the past 10 years. They hit Tucson tonight, so the trio told us their collective picks for the five albums that shaped The Head…

Monday, August 14 at The Flycatcher, 340 E. 6th St.

1. Echo & the BunnymenOcean Rain
The whole album feels like you're listening to a concert hall performance. It's such a big-sounding record that feels intimate. The overall record is sexy and spooky at the same time.

2. Scott WalkerScott IV
Because without this record, Ocean Rain wouldn't exist.

3. REM - Murmur
This record was a big statement. It came out at time when albums like Thriller (Michael Jackson) and She's So Unusual (Cyndi Lauper) were floating around the airwaves. Murmur was its own beast and defied everything else around it at the time. It taught us to embrace the lead vocal as an instrument.

4. The Stone RosesThe Stone Roses
Everything about this record just gives us chills — the textures, the guitars, the vocal melodies. It's a very layered, polished sounding record that still has edge and grit.

5. The BeatlesRubber Soul
Words can't describe the impact Rubber Soul has had on us. It's a powerhouse of a record that redefined how every subsequent band should make a record.


Friday, August 11, 2017

Posted By on Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 12:17 PM


Inimitable punk rocker Bob Spasm, frontman for the riotous Blood Spasm—once hailed by the local press as Tucson’s biggest punk rock band—died on Aug. 9 after a struggle with multiple sclerosis.

Renowned for his on-stage histrionics, Bob “Spasm” McKinley formed Blood Spasm in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in 1983. A revised version of the band was a staple on Tucson’s punk scene, playing notorious shows mostly at house parties, warehouses and some local watering holes, from ‘85 until 1992. Even after disbanding, Blood Spasm continued to reunite and play semiannually at SpasmFest.

Blood Spasm released one album, which included the hardcore earworm, "We Got Cactus." McKinley told New Times in an interview (from Feb. 2012) that “he wrote the lyrics in about five minutes over a pitcher of beer at the Bay Horse Tavern.”

Spyder Rhodes (longtime Tucson DJ/musician) said, “For a local punk band, it was a hit.” Cowpunk legend Al Perry, who covered the song on his 2004 album Always a Pleasure, considers McKinley’s song to be the alpha and omega of songs that perfectly depicts life in Tucson.

Rhodes says, “Blood Spasm and my band [The Host] used to play together quite a bit. They were amazing to see live. Bob was a real nice guy, with an enormous personality and well-loved in the punk community.”

Outspoken, with punk ‘tude, McKinley stayed true to the playbook he embraced in his youth. “Playing punk rock in Tucson 20 years ago meant living the lifestyle, and sometimes paying the price for doing so. Today, punk rock is pretty much a safe thing. There's no penalty for being a punk rocker. You don't have to walk down the street and fear getting jumped and beat up all the time."

But behind the sneer and rapid-fire delivery in his performances, there was humor, gentleness and love of home. as evidenced in this excerpt from McKinley’s lyrics for “We Got Cactus”:

Spring without flowers is just as remorseful/
As an autumn denied the colored leaves fall/
Long is the winter when there's no snow/
And summer is painful when the wind won't blow/
Welcome to my home, no fear of pneumonia/
This is paradise, in Tucson, Arizona.
Bob “Spasm” McKinley was 57.


Al Perry's cover of Blood Spasm's "We Got Cactus":  

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Posted By on Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 9:50 AM

Prior to its launch, WTF AF organizer Molly Ragan excitedly tells Tucson Weekly about her latest passion project, a new new zine called Not Just A Pretty Face.

“It's a collective project featuring numerous women and female-identifying people from the downtown community with the goal of elevating our voices, art and experiences," Ragan, who is also the mag's editor, says. "This first release revolves around sexual harassment and assault, personal experience and otherwise, largely in response to recent discoveries about abuse from certain male members of the community.”

The short-run zine—available at Wooden Tooth Records—is a work in progress with hopes of evolving into a quarterly.

WTF AF is, you'll note, a monthly series, staged at Hotel Congress, designed to create a platform for our women/trans/femme community’s voice to be heard.

Ragan adds, “While all are encouraged to attend these events, they are specifically open to queer, POC and handi-capable female-identifying folks.”

A party was held, this past Sunday, Aug 6, to mark the launch of Not Just A Pretty Face at Club Congress with live performances by:


Cool Funeral

Funeral services are generally somber affairs. Yet Cool Funeral’s wistful shoegaze had enough light and punch to surpass boundaries of what's "normal" at a funeral. Besides, WTF AF’s audience were smitten, welcoming these newcomers to the Tucson music scene with cheers and yelps.


Chezale

A gemstone whose mutable facets reflect an underlying symmetry—singer, songwriter, emcee, model, actress, dance instructor—Chezale personified the spirit of the event.

With a message of self-love and empowerment, Chezale’s “Our World,” which borrows from James Brown’s '66 classic “It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World” (a ditty Rolling Stone called “biblically chauvinistic”) into a modern day call for respect and unity between sexes.

Chezale’s delivery and lyrics exude grace and strength inherent in the female universe, and she raps truth to power: “They say we’re living in a man’s world/But I guarantee one thing/That it’s nothing without a woman ... When your life is a mess/Like chess/The queen will protect.”

The message is simple: “Both worlds must unify in order to elevate.”

Chezale’s latest, Mavmuzik, is available on iTunes, Amazon Music, Google Play and Spotify.


Julia Kinu

A last-minute addition to the event, Julia Kinu (writer and head editor at Words on the Avenue) recited a poem, sang and performed a couple of numbers on mandolin.  

One of Kinu’s thought-provokers, “Day After/Days After,” appears in Not Just A Pretty Face: Vol 1.


Fawn Bones

Sweet and gentle, singer-songwriter Fawn Bones has the voice of an angel. Her understated musical grace slowly weaved a sonic web that ensnared; a slide and violin-bowed guitar built up layer upon layer of sound on a loop, as she carefully plucked delicate melodic riffs from a Telecaster over the top. The bluesy folk artist delivered an impactful set of experimental songs that created vivid dreamscapes.


Shovel

Dusty Rose, Shovel’s vocalist-guitarist, greeted a stoked audience (who stood at the stage in anticipation of their set) with, “Were gonna rock ‘n’ roll a little bit,” before she and stickman Ward Reeder, also known as “Phoenix’s Keith Moon,” commenced to do just that.

Referencing Sub Pop grunge, this Vally of the Sun duo laid down thick slabs of garage/noise/punk with elements of heavy metal, without all of the H.P. Lovecraftian occult mysticism. In the tradition of great one-name bands, like Hole, their big sound belies smallness.

Head-banging and long hair flailing wildly, Shovel rocked Congress hard. At the climax of their set, Rose unstrapped her guitar, thrashed it about, bouncing it off the stage floor repeatedly before falling to her knees to coax unearthly sounds from it by hammering fists on the strings and tweaking knobs before leaving it to feedback in front of her amplifier, in force, bringing WTF AF to a raucous close.


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Thursday, August 10, 2017

Posted By on Thu, Aug 10, 2017 at 5:25 PM

Producer Guy Stevens (Mott The Hoople, The Clash) is the sort of character rock 'n' roll mythology offers up. In fact, his sense of music and management led to the pairing of lyricist Keith Reid and singer/pianist Gary Brooker to become prog-rock forebearers (and darlings) Procol Harum.

The band survived the '60s and stood beside their peers as a vast island of creativity, one that overcame Death by Smash Hit Single in the monster, classical-music enhanced, "A Lighter Shade of Pale."

The group sounds more like a consortium on it's third LP, '69's A Salty Dog, and it's cover art depicts the ocean, a life-raft and a sailor, an homage to the old Player's Navy Cut cigarette logo. The 10-song affair was produced by band member Matthew Fisher, whose Hammond organ swells tactfully throughout. He accompanies the title song's first strafe of seagulls, a lone keyboard and "all hands on deck" as Brooker reports, urged on by a tug of strings each half-measure. (Has anyone else ever noticed how Giorgio Moroder lifted parts "A Salty Dog" for the key "Tony's Theme" in the Scarface soundtrack?)
With a beautifully languid meter by drummer B.J. Wilson, the nautical theme where "ships come home to die" shines with considerable power. Lyricist Reid steers the ship "across the straits" and "around the horn" till the chorus breaks with sweeping gusts of instrumentation (featuring young Robin Trower's tasteful guitar): "How far can sailors fly."

It's a bargain drawn between classical and pop and ends thankfully in just over 4 minutes, but in those seconds the narrative is a call across water to find humanity and serve a purpose greater then oneself.

Keith Reid wrote all of Procol's lyrics, in all their manic metaphors, for 12 record albums.

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Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Posted By on Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 5:57 PM


Fresh from a tour of Japan that took them to Tokyo, Ashikaga, Tokushima, Osaka and Kyoto, Lenguas Largas played their first show back at Club Congress Saturday Night with Zen Mother (from Seattle, Washington) and Phoenix’s Vatican Ratlines. It was a well-attended congregation of the devout.  

In Spanish the band’s name refers to a gossip whose talk is mostly horseshit. Having said that, more people should be talking shit about Lenguas Largas. The truth: Lenguas are a badass genre crossing amalgamation delivered with punk-rock sneer. Absorbing the cross-cultural communication that overlaps two worlds—psychedelic, norteño, indie, rock en Español, soul—Lenguas Largas’ sound reflects life in the borderland.

Born in Nogales, frontman Isaac Reyes tells us that "he grew up on the Arizona side. Two streets north of the border. [Guitarist] Ricky Shimo grew up on the Mexican side. I got into punk through skateboarding.” Saving their lunch money to buy comic books and Thrasher magazine.

Reyes’ and Shimo’s musical interbreeding began while they were in junior high. A friend's older brother opened a record store in Nogales, AZ called Roca Rola. Most days after class the pals would walk first to Instrumentos Musicales (a branch of Tucson’s venerable Chicago Store). They were poor kids with no coin.

“We would play every guitar in the store until they kicked us out for not buying anything.” Then they’d head to Roca Rola for another music fix. Reyes reflects wistfully, “We would hang out there everyday listening to everything they played ... people from both sides of the border would hang out there.”

Fast forward. So how did these young punks from Nogales end up touring Japan? Reyes explains: “The reason we toured Japan ... was to tour Japan!

“Everything in Japan was amazing," he continues. "Everywhere you look you see cool, rad shit. Besides the food and culture, the raddest thing in Japan is the way everyone in the music scene respects each other. The sense of community is very strong regardless of musical style.”

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Posted By on Tue, Aug 8, 2017 at 3:57 PM

Days 19-21 and Epilogue.

Sometimes, it feels like the road does go on forever. There are the days that are so triumphant, you wish that it would go on forever. Some days, you wonder what on earth you are doing out here, what kind of madman you are for going through all of this.

I don't have a straight answer for any of it. Hahahaha.

I've been doing this for more than three decades and I still wonder about it, at times.

I'm sitting here in the Admiral's Club at London Heathrow, writing this down, waiting for our 11-hour flight to Phoenix, then Tucson. I'm sure I will sleep, at least a week or more.



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Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Posted By on Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 11:59 AM

Day 17-18
Toulouse and Bordeaux, France.


Cooperation, sacrifice, and The Hang.

Being in a band, is as Don Henley says, "is like being in a marriage. In our case, amplify that by five." I don't quote him, too often, but... he's right. But, it's not that simple. Human beings are fascinating. Sit quietly and watch one. It's never boring.

In all the time spent on and off the road, playing in bands, you get to witness many things, bizarre and ordinary. We're out here, on the other side of world, making the best music we know how to.
We have a little gang, and each member is a specialist. Those roles unveiled themselves along the way; the harder we worked, the tighter we got. We are also human, with all that entails.
You can use your imagination.

There are some basic things one needs to know, when you're out here, far, far from home.

—Do your effing job. That's why you're here and other guy isn't.

—The Hang. Being good on your instrument isn't enough; your little world is back at home, as soon you leave your house. It's important as a band member to be aware of this simple fact. Everyone is different, but we all have faults and proclivities; and there's love and anger and anything else in the human soup. The road magnifies all of it. There is very little quarter, let alone privacy. When you play locally, you go home and sleep in your bed. Not the case out here. You lay your head down, where thousands of others before you have. This is not for everyone. You are going have the occasional bad day. You are human.

—Failure, in the field, is not an option. You get one chance to make a first impression. You leave your baggage at the stage door. The stage to me is sacred—it is, to me, the pulpit of universal communication. I consider it blasphemy to take whatever triflings one has to the stage. Period. You can finish the fight, after the show. Hahahaha.

—Finally, enjoy what you do out here. Your band is counting on you, so are the good people who are coming just to see you. These pictures are small portion of what you will see when you are as lucky as we are; friends making music, all over the world.

Stay tuned.

WW




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Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Posted By on Tue, Aug 1, 2017 at 10:00 AM

Day 16

Ariano, Italy

I've been to many cities in Italy, but, Ariano has its own special, unique charm, much like how Tucson isn't really like the rest of Arizona, or like how Austin isn't like the rest of Texas.


After being fleeced in Turin, we were elated that our next stop after Ravenna was Ariano.
Some of you may remember last year, when Air Malta left my suitcase in Milan and didn't lift a finger to find it, after 11 days. Ariano is where I was reunited with my clothes.

It's a smaller community than most, but has a giant heart. It's in the hills, with the narrowest streets you've ever seen. Not the easiest place to find, even with GPS. Long story short, we feel at home there.

When the cities start to blur, it's great to discover someplace truly special. So, it is with Ariano.

Arrivederci, bellissima, Ariano.

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Saturday, July 29, 2017

Posted By on Sat, Jul 29, 2017 at 6:09 PM

Days 14-15

Resolution and reconciliation.

After the events that took place in Turin, a million thoughts go through your head. Should, coulda, woulda.

All for naught.

Life moves on, you dust off, you keep moving.

Today, we are in Ravenna, Italy, to do a show tonight. Then it's on to beautiful Ariano, Italy, and eventually, France, before we return home.

This entry lacks a little verve, because my knee is killing me, I've had to write all this while in a moving vehicle, on a tiny phone.

And, I miss Maggie.

Stay tuned.

We will talk about, food, hotels, privacy (or lack of) and speaking different languages, rum, sodomy, and the lash... Obviously, I'm kidding about the last three. I just that thought album had a great name. I'm a Pogues fan.

—WW

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