Tag: post punk
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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Year In Review: Top 10 Concerts of 2015 Rated by Contributors
Danny Baraz
December 18, 2015
Since the beginning of time, mankind grabbed whatever it could find to tap out and amplify the rhythm in our souls. From the most tribal roots of humanity, those rhythms brought us to our feet and inspired us into spastic soliloquies and baby making motions. Before the advent of the recording studio, there was only one way to hear music- LIVE. For true music snobs and purists, if you can’t do it live, you can’t do it. That is my segway into Janky Smooth’s Top 10 Concerts of 2015. Janky Smooth contributors attended 100’s of shows this year. Selecting the top 10 concerts of 2015 was quite a challenge. Most of the concerts we attended were in Los Angeles so while new labels, venues and promoters are taking advantage of the music explosion taking place all over the globe, Los Angeles continues to be it’s music capital. I often complain about the low energy of concert attendees in the city of my birth and while a handful of bands have been skipping Los Angeles on their tour schedules for this reason and opt for Pomona or Orange County, there’s no denying that if you hype up a Los Angeles crowd, you
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Year in Review: Top 10 Albums of 2015 Rated by Contributors
Danny Baraz
December 14, 2015
10 years from now, we might look back at the Top 10 Albums of 2015 as the year the “new music industry” became a viable business model. As the battle rages to fine tune some of the sticky points around streaming services, vinyl sales soar at the same time bands and artists offer free downloads, surrendering the traditional model and entrusting their legacy to future generations. With so many different ways to deliver musical products to consumers, our Top 10 Albums of 2015 list will include LP’s, EP’s and Mixtapes. We are not a hive mind at Janky Smooth so you will find albums we didn’t publish favorable reviews on in our contributors top 10 list. We here at Janky Smooth feel blessed to stand on the precipice with you and gaze upon the vast landscape of music that is exploding from all corners of the world. Top 10 Albums/EP’s/Mixtapes of 2015 Johnny Ramos- Photographer: Top 10 Albums of 2015 Tame Impala – Currents Beach House – Depression Cherry Alabama Shakes – Sound & Color Death Grips – The Powers That B Toro Y Moi – What For? Turnover – Peripheral Vision Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Multi-Love Hot Chip –
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Savages Ravage the Roxy Theater
Brent Smith
August 29, 2015
On a muggy L.A. summer night, Savages fans crammed into an even muggier sold-out Roxy Theatre to bear witness to yet another phenomenal west coast performance by the all-female postpunk band from across the pond. Just last weekend, Savages took over Exposition Park at FYF, and gave Angelenos something to remember them by. Last night’s performance at The Roxy sealed the deal, and at the same time, got us excited about the promises of their new album. It’s true, kids. Despite Beverly Hills’ attempt at annexing West Hollywood, awesome shows are still going off in WeHo. I entered and the floor, VIP area, and bar were already packed. Crowded and hot—the smell of B.O. and spilt beer growing exponentially by the minute—an army of black shirts and neon drink bracelets waited in hushed elation under the smoky blue lights of the famed venue on the even more famed Sunset Blvd. (Which only seems real after being so uncannily rendered in GTA V). Needless to say, the smell of ganja in the bathroom (and whoever shared it with me) was a godsend. As we heard the instruments being tested in the pitch dark of the stage, the guest DJ spun some
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Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Detonate at The Echoplex
Taylor Wong
May 8, 2015
It was a rainy Thursday night out here in Echo Park. I could imagine no other acceptable way to spend this rainy evening than at the John Spencer Blues Explosion show at The Echoplex. Now I’m a noob when it come to Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, but what I have heard is that they put on an explosive show. Pun intended. So a little fact about me- I’m compulsively early to almost everything I do. This came in handy this specific evening. There were only 2 bands scheduled to play this last night. Opening for Jon Spencer Blues Explosion was a band by the name We Are Hex. About 15 minutes before they went on I realized, being human and all, I had forgotten something necessary to cover the show. I was able to rush home and back by the time they were 2 songs into their set. I was extremely glad I made it back in time, not only because I still had a job to do but because We Are Hex were simply incredible. Front woman Jilly Weiss reminds me of a grungier Exene Cervenka of X mixed with a little Brody Dalle of the Distillers. She awkwardly/adorably danced around
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Did the Melvins play a free show at Permanent Records to support Buzz’s vinyl habit?
Lawrence Rengert
January 6, 2015
A free Melvins show at Permanent Records, I was in! A great mentor of mine once told me you can always tell who the best artists are because no one shows up at their gallery receptions. That art world metaphor seemed non-translatable today because 2 hours before the Melvins performance at Permanent Records, there were already 25 people outside in line. In fact, about an hour before the doors opened there was a queue down the block and into the Post Office parking lot. It looked like those who didn’t opt to “get there early” wouldn’t be getting in at all. The Melvins are that band who should have disappeared a long time ago- Disintegrated, vanished. Their amps are so damn loud they, at the very least, should have at some point been vaporized. I can’t think of a band that has played more concerts, gone through as many lineup changes, become huge, been dropped out a window, suffered the downside of drug addiction and yet, been able to keep things in perspective, move beyond it, keep making music, not broken up and still came out of it all laughing. And…if you go to a Melvins concert be prepared to
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Fishbone at the Troubadour-The greatest live band of all time
Danny Baraz
December 21, 2014
I’ve been trying to think of the right words to use to describe what I saw last night at The Troubadour. It’s not like it was my first time seeing Fishbone. Far from it. I’ve seen them on every size and kind of stage you can imagine from The Malibu Inn, Coachella, The Hollywood Palladium and dating as far back as Lollapalooza 1993 when they completely stole the show from all the headliners. It was almost humorous to see Dinosaur Jr take the stage after Fishbone finished their set that year. What could J Mascis have possibly done to follow Angelo Moore swimming the length of the festival audience, climbing the highest light tower and diving into that crowd during Subliminal Fascism? To date it is one of my most vivid concert memories. So how could seeing Fishbone at The Troubadour on a Friday night in 2014 compare to the times I’ve seen Fishbone co-headline shows with Primus in the 90’s or anywhere else along this journey of theirs which started as junior high schoolers in 1979? I can safely say that it was as good as any Fishbone show I’ve ever seen. How is that possible? How can 49
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Two Nights of Death From Above 1979 and MSTRKRFT in L.A. and The O.C.
Danny Baraz
November 16, 2014
Death from Above 1979/MSTRKRFT: Night 2 in LA. Within the 20 minutes between opener, Hustle & Drone leaving the stage and Death From Above 1979 taking it, the house went from sparse to capacity. The night was filled with false fire alarms and a few sound issues of the newly opened and opulent Regent Theater in Downtown Los Angeles- A gorgeous venue that is still working out the kinks. The P.A. was filled with the sounds of Johnny Cash, Hank Williams and other old country classics as a surprisingly eclectic and beautiful crowd filed in to witness a show by the experimental thrashers from Toronto. I myself discovered DFA in 2008- a good 2 years after they had already broken up. O.G. DFA fans love to separate their fan base into a B.C and A.D. category- a snobbishness I have been guilty of myself on many occasions. Now it appears there is a third category of fans that have discovered the band after their more, commercially friendly, reunion release of The Physical World in September of this year. This was my first time seeing DFA live after devouring the catalog for the past 6 years with no satisfaction or release
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