Tag: featured
Your Senses Will Collide at Upcoming Day For Night Festival, Houston
Lindsay Krause
December 7, 2016
“…We can be certain that the military, the B corporate world, the government and so on are going to use tech and I feel it is important that the artist helps define it and mold it. Because who else is going to put humanity and soul into it?” – Bjork via Creative Review related content: Headliners Rule at Outside Lands 2016 We are entering the end times for the traditional music festival model, and Houston’s Day for Night is leading the evolution toward curated immersive digital experiences. Festival titans like Coachella and Bonnaroo rose to infamy over the years by building bigger stages, pulling bigger headliners, and being taken over by big money; sticking with the traditional format which events throughout the world have replicated since the original Woodstock. However, the modern cultural connoisseur is looking to have their perceptions cleansed not only through sound, but through the merging of art, light and technology. Welcome to the future of festivals. related content: 2016 is the Year Coachella Jumped the Shark related content: Coachella: No History in Your Hate Leading this year’s lineup of electronic provocateurs, Day for Night will feature a 5-room digital experience and DJ set by experimental pop
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The Rise of Red Fang, The Hard Rock Resurgence & The Death of Nu Metal
Danny Baraz
December 4, 2016
I went to see Red Fang at The Teragram Ballroom a couple of Sunday’s ago and all I can say is… Dayum! Red Fang, along with Torche and Whores lit up the best sounding venue in town like a Xmas tree. Both by inciting attendees to engage each others arms and elbows in a way that I’ve never seen at the young but formidable Teragram Ballroom and also, dialing in the sound to a miraculous display of live audio that was unprecedented to my ear holes. Every note, fret harmonic, hi hat hit and distorted gumbo of string rakes and 1/16th notes and drum rolls building to a fever pitch- a build up of sonic rhythms synonymous with that crash, chord, combo of controlled catastrophe that defines the end of every great rock song. That thing. That thing was as clear and defined to the naked ear as the most finely produced studio album I’ve ever heard. Clearer, in fact. I mean, without making this review about the sound at The Teragram Ballroom, it not only needs to be said but it needs to be over exaggerated, so as to relay just how perfect that room sounds. And… since I
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DAPL Protests at Standing Rock: A Unified & Disciplined Act of Love
Berry Ward
November 28, 2016
Cannonball ND– I arrived in the heart of the Dakota Access Pipeline, Standing Rock protest epicenter expecting to run straight into a chaotic battle between Native Americans and riot police somewhere in the middle of the road. All I had seen were the videos that had made it into social media feeds of protestors being shot with rubber bullets, maced, and beaten down with clubs but that is all I knew of the situation. I thought it was an ongoing, everyday unrest. No militarized vehicles ever appeared though, other than the occasional sheriff’s deputy passing by, I saw little law enforcement. What did appear as I crossed over a big winding hill, was a vast expanse of tents and tepees down in a flat area where the Missouri River flowed through. These structures covered both shores of the river. The next 11 days would not be what I expected at all. As the corporate media begins it’s task to discredit the protestors as drug addicted partiers that are hardly focused on the pipeline at all, it is the job of all eyewitnesses to give their accounts so that the complicit corporate news media does not achieve it’s goal of destroying public
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Janky Fest I- A Review and Self Inflicted Wound
Janky Smooth Central Command
November 28, 2016
The first installment of Janky Fest on November 19th in Outer Space celebrating the Janky Smooth 2 Year Anniversary featured OG punks The Dwarves last week was super lame. Only a retarded music critic could throw an 18 and over event as a thank you to his all ages readership. Where does this dad rock douche bag Danny Baraz get off booking a large lineup of bands whose local fans couldn’t even attend the event, all because some anxious reactionary in a pseudo DIY venue was scared of pissed off punks in a recently Post-election, President elect, Donald Trump world? Sources tell me that’s literally the initial reason given by the venue for the switch, even though it changed to something a bit less ridiculous in the following days. Clearly, young punks of helicopter parents would breathe fire, shit on the floor and not buy enough beer and liquor because they’re pissed Trump won an election they didn’t even vote in. Zing. I don’t know Danny Baraz at all but he seems like just another privileged “straight white male” (even though Baraz doesn’t sound “white”) mansplaining and curating the injustice in the world through his pseudo intellectual political leanings, which he forces
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Gogol Bordello at The Observatory: Elevated Energy, Bliss & Unity
Jessica Moncrief
November 22, 2016
Fuck the Red party and the Blue party, what the world needs a little more of, is a Purple party! Angels don’t always have wings, sometimes they drink vodka and play gypsy party songs. Gogol Bordello felt like saviors last Thursday, offering communion, an escape from reality, and a connection through an elevated energy that allowed us to feel complete bliss and unity at The Observatory in Orange County, if only for a moment. related content: Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello- An Interview and a Spiritual Experience I could go on and on about the circus-like extravaganza that is a Gogol Bordello show but it wouldn’t be anything that hasn’t already been said before. I will however, mention a bartender that I chatted with who told me about a time years ago that he saw them open for Primus and said that they blew them out of the water. Basically, if you have seen them, you know- and if you haven’t? Check out my 2 dimensional photos in this gallery and imagine that shit in High Def, with sound. Seriously, if you haven’t seen them yet, get your shit together and do so the very next chance you get!
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Los Crudos Play The Echoplex Right When L.A. Needed It Most
Rob Shepyer
November 20, 2016
All year long, as racial tensions have been building, I have seen a steady incline in the amount of Los Crudos patches on denim jackets. While Donald Trump kept digging a grave for himself in the heart of white nationalist sensibility, with every racist, anti-constitutional comment, Los Crudos songs started appearing more and more over the loud speakers in between sets at shows. Was it sheer animal magnetism, fate or the power of attraction that Los Crudos announced a matinee show at The Echoplex for November 13th? Or could Martin Sorrondeguy sense his voice was needed in Los Angeles, now more than ever? With only a week since Donald Trump was crowned president-elect against Hillary Clinton, Angelinos reorganized, prioritized, and took to the streets but when it came to hearing the right words, every protestor needed to bear witness to Sorrondeguy speaking. related content: The Two Americas: Obama, Hillary and President Donald Trump Los Crudos is a Chicago based punk band from the 90’s that popularized Spanish lyrics in hardcore punk. They’ve always been singing about the very politicized issues that came up in this election: xenophobia, racism, economic inequality, and immigration. This was the second punk show I’ve seen
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Snapshot of a New Music Industry: White Fang, No Parents & The Birth Defects
Danny Baraz
November 18, 2016
Catching a band you love play live as they emerge from the fear and loathing of a 2 month tour insures that you will witness them at the height of their powers. Ever since the Janky team helped White Fang, No Parents and The Birth Defects send themselves off on the road in a 3 vehicle caravan of knuckleheads and thrashers, I’ve had my eye on this date to check in with the guys about how the tour went- partly because I had visions of all these guys trying to outdo each other with bad personal decisions and partly because I knew they would be as tight as the Clinton’s and Trump’s at Thanksgiving dinner. I find the dynamic of the independent DIY music scene to be fascinating. The way a wave of buzz washes over the internet and indie record stores for a band like White Fang but then gets swept away in the mountain of music being produced and released on a weekly basis, is a snapshot of how young people consume new music. Funkle said it himself in our pre- tour interview, “I want to see if we even still have a national following.” In this new
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The Two Americas- Obama, Hillary and President Donald Trump
Danny Baraz
November 10, 2016
Obama spent the bitter part of 8 years trying to convince us that there weren’t two Americas. Even though he’s a scholar and a student of history, he was optimistic his election was the beginning of the end for what Nixon started- The Southern Strategy. But it’s becoming evident, no matter how much Obama campaigned on the slogan, no one knows better than Hillary and Barack that there indeed are two Americas. It’s not just that Trump won- It’s how and what he won on. “Their” obsession with the Gordon Gecko, greed is good archetype and the fact that the “other” America has only ever excused the WASP president for lies and looting and pillaging the earth and making windfall money and grabbing every woman by the pussy- because that office has been filled with a lot of pussy grabbers, until Obama was in it. So without those types of scandals, all there was left to do was discuss birth certificates, brown suited salutes and Michelle’s beautiful exposed arms –Purr MOST white people in America do not like talking about race- PARTICULARLY Blackness. We still live in a pretty segregated society even though it’s definitely improved since I was a kid- at least
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White Girl Makin’ It Rain At Beach Goth 5- Janky Smooth Sessions
Lauren McKnight
November 10, 2016
Beach Goth/bēCH gäTH/Noun It begins with a question. A question as old as 2002… “what do you mean cash only?”. It grows through a lie… “Oh no, it’s cool, I’m supposed to be back here”. It ends with a realization. That realization is that I have no memory of Beach Goth V whatsoever, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t try to give the most accurate account possible. related: Beach Goth 4- The Party of the Year After 4 or 5 bullshit story attempts to finagle an Artist wristband, I finally secured one out of pity from a friend. Within the hour and after an appropriate amount of substance abuse, I was lost in space next to a trash can in the Artist Lounge with no pants on, a pink kimono, and shoes far too tall to be practical. I locked eyes with Eric Andre (who was hosting Beach Goth), to my surprise, he came straight up to me and told me he saw me at the liquor store. I asked him if he needed anything from Ikea, and somehow that segued into how fart jokes were “never NOT funny”. This would set the tone for the rest of day
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Pussy Riot, Partisan Politics And The Police State In America
Danny Baraz
November 8, 2016
Pussy Riot’s, Maria Alekhina spent 2 years in a Russian Work Prison along with her sisters in the band over their explosive “brand” of punk rock, performance art and protest in a place where protestors disappear on a regular basis. Through the process, facing certain imprisonment and the potentially high likelihood of political assassination, by Russian president Vladimir Putin, the women of Pussy Riot gained world wide infamy and affection for their refusal to back down to the growing totalitarian regime. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that counting views on YouTube ultimately means nothing. Internet 1- political oppression 666 Once released from a slave labor type Russian prison in a political police state that often disappears dissenters, Pussy Riot didn’t flee the country to pursue the monetary opportunities of their fast building “brand” and move to a safer proximity of distance away from the Kremlin and Putin’s new, contemporary KGB (FSB). Even though they are monetizing their story, they might’ve maximized their potential by, I don’t know, moving farther away from the political sniper rifles that must always be pointed at them in the case they need to be used as the ultimate example of what happens to the
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House of Ho99o9 Halloween at The Roxy
Rob Shepyer
November 2, 2016
Angelinos spent the Sunday before Halloween under an overcast sky, bracing against the trashing rain. 9.9.9: The dead could feel the day’s coming haunt, seeping in through the soil. Oh the Ho99o9… Not your typical Sunday, the city’s thirst to party had not be quenched by Friday or Saturday’s pre-Halloween escapades and so creepers poured onto the Sunset Strip looking for a fix. The chic elite WeHo-llowieners past The Roxy and just kept on walking while the punks checked right in, dressed in costumes that depicted such characters as: low life’s, whores, pimps, derelicts, 22nd century anal nuns, cross-dressing goo gobblers, and a hesher or two. Like a horde of roaches skittering into a crack, we all gathered to see Ho99o9 and The Shrine, two buzz bands and the cream of today’s crop. It was Ho99o9’s first Los Angeles show since dropping two new songs: The Dope Dealerz and Double Barrel. One track is heavy rap, the other is heavy punk. Yin and Yang… or actually, Yin and Yin. I had seen half of Ho99o9’s set opening for Faith No More last year at the Wiltern and wasn’t able to get sucked into it. So I wasn’t sure if they’d
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Janky Premiere: Dancing Tongues EP- Positions
Danny Baraz
October 27, 2016
Janky Smooth is proud to premiere Positions– the first EP from Los Angeles based, post-punk outfit, Dancing Tongues. The sound is a seduction of hypnotic droning and rhythmic incantation. The battery of the band is pronounced and deliberate. The rich baritone of Alex Lavayen is romantic, like the words spoken to a lover after defending their honor through physical altercation. The composition of the musical arrangements hints that London (is) Calling while Lavayen urges not to let “Love Tear Us Apart.” The Positions EP creates a dance floor environment that is masculine but not misogynistic- catchy but not campy, with just enough edge. Songs like “Saturday” summon it’s punk forefathers while tracks like “Cause” cast a wider net of dynamics and emotion. The Positions EP contains a chemical substance similar to pheromones released into the environment by animals, affecting the behavior or physiology of others in it’s species. It invokes the laws of attraction to cause a consensual submissiveness to it’s rhythms. There are more bands being formed and putting out music at this very moment than ever before- although you would never know it if you get your music through the traditional, decaying channels used by the rotting corpse of the major labels. I have
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