Brendan Kelly and Joe McMahon - Wasted Potential

This digital age we live in allows for a lot of releases that maybe should have stayed in the realm of one-off tapes passed amongst friends and prospective paramours. This split release pairs one Joe McMahon of RVA transplants Smoke and Fire with Mr. Brendan Kelly of The Lawrence Arms and adheres to the time-honored 'acoustic versions and some covers' format. It's ok, but far from anything that anyone should go out of their way to pick up.

Smoke and Fire were always kinda sorta ok for me. I had seen them at least once when they were Jericho and from Boston and definitely saw them on a couple of the last Fifth Hour Hero shows, but they never really caught on for me. McMahon fares the best here, revisiting a couple tracks and doing a Johnny Cash cover. Kelly sounds like he got shit-housed and dashed off the seven tracks in the time that it took to sing them. It's that attention to detail that has kept me out of Lawrence Arms shows in recent years. There's a fine line between being shit-housed and non giving a shit and I'm finding Kelly more and more over the line. Wasted Potential, indeed. That said, I'm sure that Kelly is not losing a moment of sleep over the lack of JS-NYC advocacy and truth be told, his blog Bad Sandwich Chronicles is one of the best on the interwebs. Here's hoping he musters up an appreciable level of enthusiasm for his next release. Superfans and stalkers can get Wasted Potential here from Red Scare or as, it is a co-release with Anchorless here from them.

R

Joell Ortiz - Me, Myself & I

I guess it's ad revenue, or maybe there some cash exchange that I'm unaware of, but either way there are two things you should know: one: Joell Ortiz has a new mix tape out called Me, Myself & I and two, it's for free at DatPiff.com. I'm not sure how they give this shit away when it's better than most of the hip-hop available commercially in this day and age, but this baller on a budget isn't arguing. Most of the stuff here I've heard in various nooks and crannies of the interwebs, but there are a couple new freestyles and drops and it's nice to have them all in one place. 21 joints in just under an hour here and all pretty much bangers. The Roger That freestyle is a standout, as is the Suss One banger but there is very little on Me, Myself & I that anyone with ears could find fault in. Hear for yourself at DatPiff here.

R

Live: Off With Their Heads with Dear Landlord @ Knitting Factory 6.23.10

There was a time a couple three years ago when the prospect of an Off With Their Heads show was something that would make my month. Eight or ten shows in, their relentless touring schedule got me a little oversaturated and I found myself leaving before they played a couple times, owing to more desire to see their openers. Even the prospect of Dear Landlord as an opener had me one the fence unless there were going to be friends in tow. Then I got the surprisingly good new Epitaph record and figured I'd give the show a shot.

I rolled in as Dear Landlord was setting up. They were up in short order, opening with Motorcycle Helmet and prompting a small forest of fingerpointing. Any bastard union of Rivethead and The Copyrights is bound to be a good thing. I've been to a lot of Dear Landlord shows in the last couple years and they are rarely less than a good time. This night was no exception, everybody sounded great and the almost respectable crowd seemed to really enjoy them. Me, too.

So Off With Their Heads were up next. I tried to situate myself on Ryan's side failing to take into account that Ryan isn't playing guitar. I'm pretty sure recreational substances haven't precluded my realizing this beforehand, so I'd say this is a fairly new eventuality that has happened full-time in the wake of their signing to Epitaph. Ryan was in good spirits, joking off-mike with the crowd up front and openly soliciting coke for most of their maybe 35 minutes of set. The band was tight. Mostly new stuff, with a couple dips into earlier stuff but over in short order. Works for me. If history is any indication, OWTH will be playing three or four hundred shows behind In Desolation. You owe it to yourself to see them at least once. The band is tight as hell and Ryan's mercurial ways keep it interesting even if the set stays a little static. Keep tabs on the entertainment possibilities here.

R

BoDeans - Mr. Sad Clown

BoDeans were a pretty big part of my high school rock years. I saw the video for Only Love, assumably on the MTV and picked up Outside Looking In on vinyl. It's still a great record, as are the two releases that bookened it (Love and Hope and Sex and Dreams and Home). In my mind, some shark jumping occurred after the next record Black and White, but then the song Closer To Free was chosen as the theme song to the maudlin yet popular Party Of Five TV series and has proven to be an evergreen for Kurt Neumann and Sam Llanas.

Various live and solo releases came down the pike in the last couple of years, each featuring a decent song of two, but the general consensus was that Llanas and Neumann were best appreciated together. After a three year battle to extricate themselves from a Sony contract, the pair convened on and off in 2009 to record Mr. Sad Clown at Neumann's Texas studio. The duo recorded all the tracks themselves, then overdubbed a hired horn section. It works for the most part, but the main shortcoming of Mr. Sad Clown is that it overstays its welcome by easily five songs. This is a good hour-long record that would be a great 40 minute one. I'm still excited to hear that they are back on the road. Here's hoping they play Mercury sometime real soon. In the interim, you can get Mr. Sad Clown here at the official BoDeans web presence.

R

Nada Surf - IfIhadahifi

I always kind of liked Nada Surf, and I'm pretty sure one of my old bands played with them at Brownies back in the Popular days. Either way, I really hated that tune and its MTV ubiqity, but fell for Lucky when I reviewed it at Burning Angel. They had embraced a sort of NYC Big Star vibe I never though they had in them and consequently they saw a lot of late night play on the JS-NYC house system. Coming late to the Nada party meant that I have never really seen them live and in person, as they are playing the big rooms locally. What I have seen seems pretty decent, but it would appear I'm going to have to wait a bit longer, as the ominous 'influences and covers' record has come on the radar ifihadahifi isn't bad by a long shot, but it does beg the question why these records exist in the first place. They seem to have supplanted live records in this day as the contract fulfiller for bands on the move. I have no firsthand knowledge that this is the case in this instance, but I'll reserve the right to say I told you so down the line. You get a dozen covers for your consumer dollar here. None are particularly well known, save for the Depeche Mode cover (of Enjoy The Silence) and perhaps the short stab at the Moody Blues chestnut Question. The MB never did anything for me, and the Nada Surf nod does little except remind me that DP ripped off Joy Division pretty hard. The Spoon cover suffers the same fate, but the Dwight Twilley number was a pleasant surprise. All in all, ifihadahifi is a decent record and perhaps a harbinger of future encore material, but nothing that is going to set the world on fire. It is, however, better than anything by Monsters Of Folk, so shop accordingly.

R

Blunt Mechanic - World Record

I was (and still am) a big Kind Of Like Spitting fan. I can't remember how I first came to hear Ben Barnett, but I fell for him pretty hard. He's prolific, as much to a fault as the next guy, but his high points are top fucking notch. Recent times have found Barnett as the musical director of the Seattle arm of the Paul Green School Of Rock, I'm pretty sure around the same time that he formally shuttered the KOLS franchise. I would have never seen that coming, but I've only met the guy a couple times and he seems to be getting high marks.

On the subject of highness, I guess the kids won't be too scarred in the wake of their MD helming a band called Blunt Mechanic. Barnett recorded all the instruments on World Record and went on to assemble a live band. Two of the BP live fold do double duty in Globes, a to the best of my knowledge formed out of said School Of Rock and were two of the larger proponents of Barnett and his mentorism. The recorded tracks will be familiar to the long time Barnett fan, touching equally on his KOLS roots, his past tenure in The Thermals and his continued obsession with Phil Ochs. It's no surprise that it's on Barsuk. You can get World Record as well as the promising looking tour EP over there via this handy link. Keep track of Blunt Mechanic's tour planning here. I don't envy getting pulled over in the middle of the night with that name.

R

So Hideous My Love: Live at Lit Lounge 6.21.10

Hey Kids:

My band So Hideous My Love is playing Lit Lounge here in NYC on 6.21. For some reason we're not listed, but we're on first, around 9:30. It's our first show with our new vocalist and it's gonna be a good time.

Come hear.

Lit is at 93 Second Ave, between 5th and 6th Street. Isle of Manhattan.

R