Kyp Malone – Spinning Platters

Single Of The Week: “The War Clock” by Various Artists

One the list of things you don’t know you needed- Kyp Malone of NYC art-rock legends TV On The Radio is in a psych-jazz band with John Dwyer of OSees and Dwyer-verse players Tom Dolas and Brad Caulkin. They are called Various Artists and their debut album is called Moon-Drenched. Or maybe this is just the band Bent Arcana’s second record? Either way, this track of a fierce piece of brain-melting fuckery that’s also 12 1/2 minutes of pure energy. Do you need something to help you focus on spreadsheets or cleaning the bathroom? This is it. Looking to get lost in your own head? This is also it. Just looking for guitar and sax fury? Yup! This is it. The one thing “The War Clock” doesn’t sound like to me is actual war… The song is “happy” exciting, not “scary” exciting. You may interpret it as you wish.

“The War Clock” can be played loud off Bandcamp and a full length, Moon-Drenched, is coming to this world on May 28th.

Show Review: Pixies with Rain Machine at The Fox Oakland, 11/8/2009

Here Comes Your Men (and Woman!) - The Pixies

It’s been quite some time since the Fox Theater in Oakland had a show that generated such interest that it sold out within a month, and also multiplied itself to take place over an additional two nights. At the time of this writing, the first of those two extra nights is also completely sold out, and the second one is getting pretty close. What sort of band would have the magnitude to sell out the Fox Theater for three nights in a row? In May, the Allman Brothers Band did it; in mid-September it was Further, the new Grateful Dead project, and in a week, it will likely be all three nights of Widespread Panic. So, for this case, it must have been another famous jam band with thousands of followers. Right?

Wrong. Tonight, and for the next two nights, the Fox is owned by four Bostonians who helped write the book on modern alternative music: the Pixies, who are going to spend each night playing their landmark album Doolittle, along with its B-sides and an encore of their own devising.

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Show Review: Rain Machine, Diane Cluck at The Independent, 9/28/09

When TV On The Radio announced that they were going to “take a break for a year or so,” every music critic on earth wept. Mostly because we are going to go through 2009 and 2010 without a bona-fide record of the year. Yes, TVotR released the best records of 2004, 2006, and 2008. (All apologies to 2002’s OK Calculator- you were still finding your footing.) But I believe that after all that hard work and genius deserves a vacation. I’d rather the band take a break now than break up completely later.

It seems that these guys don’t take vacationing very well. David Sitek has been taking on many extra production assignments, and vocalist Tunde Adebimpe is working on a record with Mike Patton. Despite all this, the prize for the quickest end to the vacation goes to guitarist/harmony vocalist Kyp Malone. Merely five weeks after the announcement of the break, Malone released a solo album called Rain Machine and quickly assembled a four-piece backup band to take it on the road. This show at The Independent marks the fourth performance of this band with an audience.

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