Mike Hale - Lives Like Mine

You may (or should) remember Mike Hale from his time fronting the mighty Gainesville punk rock triple threat that is/was Gunmoll. They were sort of a Gainesville Jawbreaker and were no strangers to bringing the noise to a basement or house show. They broke up sort of acrimoniously a couple years ago. In the interim, Hale has moved out to California and formed a new band called In The Red that have a record called Volume 2 out courtesy of the good folk of Suburban Home. You can get it here. Look for a review soon on JS-NYC.

In The Red are still a band, but Hale has decided to quit his job and give up his lease to become a full-time musician. It ambitious, especially in this day and age, but he's got a decent record to springboard with.  Lives Like Mine is all Hale, with spartan guitar and/or piano backing. It's nice, if not especially engaging for me personally. Hale has a nice voice and the songs are all better than the average stuff you'll hear. Forgive me, but Austin Lucas has raised the bar improbably high for me as it concerns solo fare in this day and age. It's definitely worth checking out and, as luck would have it, Suburban Home and Vinyl Collective are giving away Lives Like Mine away for free here, so check it out yourself and spread the gospel, if you see fit. Hale has a running series of posts from the road at punknews.org that you can keep up on here. His social networking engine can be found here, if you do that sort of thing.

R

The Shaking Hands - The Shaking Hands

The Shaking Hands are from Gainesville, FL and evidently used to be the millionth band to try and claim The Horror as a moniker. While they are on Kiss Of Death and probably beer aficionados, they aren't exactly the average post-Raygun beardo franchise we've come to expect from that town. 

The Shaking Hands play a little bit more of the British punk, albeit filtered through a Rancid kind of sensibility. I think we've all figured out that sleeve tattoos do not a punk (or metal for that matter) band make, but there doesn't seem to be any poser-dom lurking the band's ranks. Two of the dudes are also in The Young Livers, who I don't recall caring for, but I think I'm going to have to revisit after hearing The Shaking Hands. It's got some great shout-a-long parts and the one-two punch of Breathe and Jackson's Coal is something that most bands would give their Dual Rectifiers to have. There are 10 songs in 28 minutes, virtually insuring you'll be putting this bad boy on over and over again. Pop over here to hear some samples of what The Shaking Hands have to offer. Or just cut to the chase and buy the damn thing here.

R

Mouthbreather - Thank You For Your Patience

Mouthbreather are from Richmond, VA, like so many other quality punk franchises these days. Must be something in that river water. I like me some RVA punk, and while I will mention that the guys here used to be in Wow, Owls and The SetUp, I can't say that I've heard either of those bands. Mouthbreather bring the post-Flag ruckus with wiry guitar lines and lots of pounding and/or shouting. They sound like what I always wanted Planes Mistaken For Stars to sound like, with a of Bronx-y psychotic edge to it. There are strains of melody and even a hook or two in the sonic barrage. You can probably expect a gang of drunken beardos crowding the front line of their shows shouting along with the tunes here. 

There are some cool moments on Thank You For Your Patience, especially on the horribly titled When A Chemist Dies, Barium and the raging The Nazarene. They certainly are interesting harbingers of a direction that asks the sonic question: What would happen if Evan Patterson helmed Meneguar? The answer is: You would have the a band that rocks the shit out of you. A happy coincidence, as I very much enjoy having said shit rocked out of me. 

Mouthbreather have postponed their tour that was going to jump off the month, but are evidently touring with local heroes Bridge And Tunnel on their way to Harvest Of Hope. I'm kinda bummed that I'm not going, but hopefully we'll see Mouthbreather in the NYC area in the Spring. Keep tabs on Mouthbreather activities here. In the meantime, pop over to Kiss Of Death and pick up Thank You For Your Patience. I'll be drinking coffee and shouting along with Best Of Seven.

R

Virgins - Miscarriage

This group of Virgins is from Florida and is punk. As their Myspace points out, they are still not the crappy disco band from NYC. That's very much a good thing, although I do miss the opportunity to really lambast a truly shitty band.

My personal issues aside, these particular Virgins rose from the ashes of New Mexican Disaster Squad, a band I very much wanted to like but was always pretty bored by. While I never met them firsthand, they were always held to be solid dudes. NMDS has splintered into a number of projects as of late, this band features Sam from NMDS singing and playing guitar in the time-honored power trio format. That's the ideal paradigm from where I'm sitting: Shellac, Husker, Jawbreaker. Virgins don't resemble the aforementioned trios, save for maybe a little bit of Jawbreaker, but they bring some pretty fierce punk rock and roll to the table with Miscarriage.

There are a couple tempo nods early in the record to the rampaging tempos of NMDS, but most of the Virgins songs are pretty reminiscent of early Replacements, at last musically. Don't run too far with that. Sam doesn't have the lyrical or vocal depth of even early Westerberg, but Virgins still manage to make a pretty decent racket over the ten tracks here. I'd put them up there with The Tim Version at their best parts. Props are deserved. Virgins keep it interesting for the duration of Miscarriage They are good with a tempo change, especially on songs like Atheist In America where they start off Red Light Run It, then break it down all Mr. Whirly. Good times!

Miscarriage was recorded with Chris Owens from Lords at his Louisville studio. It's a good match, Owens is no stranger to working with rampaging bands like Akimbo, but he's equally as adept capturing hookier fare while still lending a DIY grittiness to the proceedings. If songs like Guitarmageddon (I know) and Wwzd were cleaned up Blink 182 style, they would be much lesser for it. Virgins would be great to see at a house show or a small bar. After having played this a dozen or so times, I'm really regretting not seeing them play with Monikers at Silent Barn earlier this year. I shan't make that mistake again.

See that you don't either. Keep up with the gents at their FL digs here. I don't see any tour dates soon, but hopefully we'll see them come through in the coming months. You can buy Miscarriage for that special someone from the stand-up kids at Kiss Of Death for $8 US here. Tell 'em JS-NYC sent you.

R

The Measure (SA) - One Chapter In The Book: A Collection of Waits and Measurements

The Measure (SA) are a product of the fertile New Brunswick, NJ scene. Arable soil grows all kinds of things: the same scene that fostered Lifetime also begat the nightmarish (not a compliment, jerk-offs!) My Chemical Romance. The manure that MCR and the like have left behind has fertilized the soil for bands like The Measure (SA) to thrive. They are a co-ed band with guitarist Lauren edging out Mike and Fid for most time at the mike. The early stuff has kind of J Church vibe, with maybe a little This Is My Fist! in the slower parts. One Chapter is a collection of all of their singles they have released in their first two years as a band, and as such is an interesting document of the progression of a band. It's pretty damn good for the most part. There are some definite moments of pitchiness and the requisite auto-tune on some of the early stuff, but it's not unendearing. When they do fire on all cylinders a couple of tracks in, like on the Soltero cover or Hit The Ground Running, The Measure (SA) bring it on a level rivalling the dear departed Mercy Rule. I was really taken with how much Lauren sounds like MR singer Heidi Ore, especially on their more recent material. That bodes well for the future. As the band is from New Jersey, Mikey Erg is currently manning the drum stool. It makes them a tighter band, and keeps songs like Good Soup from being totally throwaways, at least for this asshole. As you can tell, I much prefer Lauren's voice to either of her male compatriots; it's fun to hear her voice getting stronger with every song on One Chapter. I can't wait to hear what Measure (SA) releases next.

Measure (SA) are playing tomorrow at Tommy's Tavern in Greenpoint on a stellar bill with For Science, Monikers and Off With Their Heads. It should be a blast. If you don't make it out, buy One Chapter In The Book: A Collection Of Waits and Measurements from the good folk of Kiss of Death here.

The Serious Geniuses - You Can Steal the Riffs, But You Can't Steal The Talent

You've got to give these kids points for their moxy, if nothing else. They definitely are coming out swinging, or talking, really. There's not a huge amount of genius, per se, on You Can Steal The Riffs, But You Can't Steal The Talent, but golly if there isn't a whole lot of irony, especially when one looks at the boldface Archers Of Loaf rip-off that is Echo Made. The track Station is more of a Small jock, but rest assured that the Early 90s North Carolina scene is well represented in these kids MP3 collections. 

The record is ok, but the bastardization of Archers Of Loaf and Taking Back Sunday is a little grating for me. I was a big fan of the first TBS record, but it was obvious they wouldn't be able to pull it off live (and that maybe the lead singer was kind of a douche). You Can is the 2008 version of Taking Back Sunday's debut Tell All Your Friends, without being so heavy on the ProTools tweaking and auto-tune. There are some moments, like on the closing Unique, where they show glimmers of being their own band, but at this point they are a little transparent in the influences department. They are doing a fair bit of touring and will be at The Fest this year. Rolling in with a name like that, they better be bringing their A game in the Fall. Provided the modest ones survive the trip, I'm interested to see what the next record will sound like after a little more time on the road. They have a split 7" with the horribly named Jean Claude Jam Band out on Kiss Of Death, but I'm not sure when this record is actually going to be released, but I'll keep you posted. It will be on Kiss Of Death, although there's no mention of it on the KOD website currently. It appears that you maybe can buy it at the shows, if you are so inclined. Check the links below. 

Lucero tonight with Townes Earle on a boat in a thunderstorm.  

This could be unpleasant.

Review tomorrow.

R

www.myspace.com/theseriousgeniuses

www.seriousgeniuses.com

www.kissofdeath.com

Monikers - Wake Up

It's always a good day when a package from the good folk of Southern Lovin' arrives. This time around it's the new records from The Serious Geniuses, Lagrecia and most pertinently for today: the Monikers. They are on Kiss Of Death and hail from the charming little village of Orlando in the Sunshine State. 

Despite their Southern roots, the Monikers play the East Bay influenced punk rock that makes guys like me do the happy dance all around my apartment. The sound, vocally and rockingly, is pretty heavily indebted to 'lost my voice, hope I didn't break it' era Jawbreaker with a(n) (Erik) Funk edge to it. The D4 influence pops up more than once or twice in the twenty-six minutes that is Wake Up, but you'd be hard pressed to complain. The thing fucking rocks. 

Monikers have garnered themselves a little bit of a buzz out the gate for having Ryan from Discount in the band. It's a relief to find that he's gone the way of Todd Rockhill and not morphed into a vampire of London like some other Discount bandmates we could mention. Obligatory snarky digressions aside, Monikers are harder and faster than Discount, but maybe even hookier.  They are definitely the kind of band you want to see at a house show with a beer in your hand.

Wake Up comes out on 9/9 on Kiss Of Death, but check out the KOD website here for the split with Banner Pilot to tide you over in the interim.  If for some bizarre reason you need reassurance, it's pretty great. Of course, anything with Banner Pilot is a good thing, but rest assured that both parties more than hold their own. Monikers will be in New Brunswick on September 30th with the Ergs, but there are suspicious holes in the schedule that lead me to believe they'll be tearing up the greater Metropolitan area, too.  I'll keep you in the loop.

R

myspace.com/monikers

www.kissofdeathrecords.com