SIMON JOYNER & THE GHOSTS are a living, breathing entity; a full six piece band, growing out of Joyner's double-LP record 'Ghosts' released last Summer on his own Sing, Eunuchs! label. Simon Joyner should require no introduction, but despite plaudits from everyone from John Peel to Conor Oberst, who cites Joyner as a primary influence, he remains a cult figure. His sterling reputation is mostly built on thirteen albums of lyrically astute, musically dense, uncompromising songs. As a wordsmith he is peerless, often compared to both Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, while his singing voice alternately conjures an emotionally turbulent Neil Young (think "Speakin' Out") and Gordon Gano circa "Country Death Song." But Joyner's songs also bear the influence of more modern mavericks, revealing a sharp appreciation for the fringes of the American and UK underground. It's not for nothing he cites the Dead C's raucous 'Harsh 70's Reality' as one of the handful of double albums that inspired 'Ghosts'. For lovers of lyrics, that fast-perishing breed, 'Ghosts' is Christmas morning. Listening to it, you may frequently find yourself covering your mouth in disbelief, exclaiming "Oh shit!" like someone just dropped a particularly scathing hip-hop metaphor. The music matches the intensity of the words. Joyner's band is an intuitive organism never content to merely 'back up' the singer. Each member of the group suffuses the environments of these songs with unusual color without ever overplaying or subordinating. With, 'Ghosts', Simon Joyner couldn't have made a more extreme example of an album that so handsomely rewards total immersion and a live show incorporating guitars, viola, pedal steel, bass and drums spells out something equally special.
songdrop 'mix' of the days performers
BRILLIANT COLORS are a four-piece from San Francisco, inspired by post-punk fervor, the spiky pop of C86 and early Flying Nun / Creation missives. Their 2009 album, 'Introducing', is one of the finest debuts in recent memory, and they followed it with 7"s on Slumberland and Make a Mess and a European tour with La La Vasquez that led to the release of another great single on Germs of Youth. Most recently, they teamed up with Belfast's brilliant Girls Names to release a split 7". All of these singles were recorded with Oakland garage phenom Ty Segall, who spiked the ladies' punk-pop swirl with his own special grit. Their most recent album 'Again And Again', came out last Summer on Slumberland, displaying song-writing as infectious as ever, only now the tunes are now more carefully arranged pushing the band to something as elemental as pop gets. The mood is confessional and late-night dreamy; Jess' unadorned vocals and eloquent lyrics are personal, direct and atmospherically deployed, mixed in with the songs like another instrument. They can be heard to great effect on tougher songs like "Back To The Tricks" and "Painting Truths," tempering those tunes' punchy dynamics with their melodic sensibility. Add in classic-sounding stormers like "Cult Face" and "How Much Younger" and you have all the makings of another great Brilliant Colors album, one that shows how finely they've honed their own unique brand punk-flecked crash-pop.
THE PROPER ORNAMENTS make a thrillingly taut and melodic pop indebted both to the sun balm'd West Coast and the driving, terse rhythms of the British Invasion and C86 pop, centered around the close partnership of frontmen Max Claps and James Hoare (also of Veronica Falls). In 2010 were joined by bassist Michael Lovett and Let's Wrestle frontman Wesley Patrick Gonzalez, releasing a 7" on San Francisco label Make A Mess Records. 2011 saw them release a self-titled EP on No Pain In Pop, proving the band as purveyors of abrupt, perfect pop, jet propelled by super compressed drum production and the pair's DNA tight vocal interplay.
DAVID KENNETH NANCE recently stepped out of his burned out basement in Omaha, Nebraska and steeped himself in the city of angels, provoking collective grief and inciting small riots in the hearts of the house show universe here. Rocker and singer-songwriter from that catchy, shambolic mess called The Prairies, he also plays lead guitar and shouts in Simon Joyner's band, the Ghosts. His forthcoming, vinyl debut on Grapefruit Records, "Actor's Diary," was recorded late at night alone in Joyner's warehouse studio, Casa de los Fantasmas, over a two month period leading up to his west coast pilgrimage, this is anguish and expectation and meditations on what was, is, and might be in the artist's life. Channeling Jim Shepard, heroin-era Stones and New Zealand's notorious Jefferies brothers through broken and poorly repaired gear, Nance rock is indeed the new pasture!
FORMER BULLIES
DBH
IRMA VEP
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from 3pm SATURDAY APRIL 6th 2013
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