In keeping with a commitment of working exclusively with balls-to-the-wall, shit-kicking heavyweights, Tee Pee Records now presents The Fucking Wrath, a four-piece metal juggernaut from sunny Ventura, CA. Equal parts High On Fire and Slayer, The Fucking Wrath have recently put forth the Terra Fire EP, five tracks/18 minutes that speak with volume and presence. “Low Brow,” Terra Fire‘s first cut, is by itself enough to snag ears from fans of both aforementioned influences, while at the same time beckoning lovers of the Melvins and Big Business. Don’t be surprised to see The Fucking Wrath climb the metal latter in the coming months, and, for shits and giggles, have a look at their unofficial video for “Old Man In The Water.”

It’s a good feeling, and a bad one at the same time. You get a new record, and it grabs you by the short and curlies, right there in the privacy of your own bedroom. And you love it. And it’s grand and wonderful. But you say to yourself, “Where’d it come from and why did I miss any of it?”

I got that old feeling earlier this week when I happened into the latest release from Austin, TX’s John Wesley Coleman, Bad Lady Goes To Jail. Granted, this is only the second official outing for Coleman, but hey—it’s on Goner, and it rips up and down. Bad Lady Goes To Jail sounds something like the lo-fi garage record that you and your pals always kinda dream of making, but never do, ’cause you get too caught up in the particulars. This is an album that knows damn well when to leave off the shoe polish, which is pretty much all the time, while still dishing in nasty leads worthy of respect. Bad Lady‘s got the driving backbeat you’ve been craving, the shrill treble of a shitty Tascam, and the hoot and holler you cream over on Back From The Grave comps.

The man himself just got back from tour. Now’s your chance. Give a listen. Be ready for the next time. Oh, and I think Goner’s got orange vinyl going……

-Jacob Sprecher

A common tendency derived from living in a isolated college town well past its one-time heyday as a offbeat hub for mid-level touring bands, is to assume that any hip show requiring a moderate to large capacity and/or ticket price will be one of two things: canceled three days before or embarrassingly under attended.

As much could be said for Gogol Bordello’s slot at Chico, CA’s Senator Theatre last Friday night. Bound for the Bay Area where Gogol would perform to a no-doubt packed house at Oakland’s illustrious Fox Theater, anticipation for attendance once the Senator gig cleared waivers seemed average at best, meager in likelihood. But lo and behold the place was jumping, and it was with something of an egg face that I realized just how successful and popular Bordello had become, not the least of which is owed to the inevitable name and fame that comes from working with Rick Rubin (April’s Transcontinental Hustle).

The crowd itself was young—plenty o’ pre-bar—and enthusiastic to a point near salvation. The openers, Forro In The Dark (Brazilian transplants also from NYC) appeared genuinely surprised and invigorated by the response. The expatriated gang of four made apt use of their roots, driving through a handful of simple arrangements extended and spiced appropriately with the same worldbeat flavors (zabumba, hand drums and triangle) that have seen Forro fall in good with David Byrne back in the East Village. Though the group abandoned elements of rock and country fusion heard on Light A Candle, the decision was most likely a wise one, as such efforts might well have been misguided given the warm reception of their South American flair.

After a prolonged intermission, the hordes had worked themselves to a fever pitch zeal, and when the Gogol entourage finally burst on stage, the dance floor exploded by way of what appeared to be some sort of bizarre Gypsy punk West Side Story. Swashbuckling frontman Eugene Hutz led the charge with violinist Sergey Ryabtsev closely in tow; but then again, all eight members of the group were leaping about like a rabid pack of ring-tailed lemurs, so it was with some difficulty that any one individual might trump the antics of the next.

And as the performance began to gather sway with the audience engaging in non-confrontational moshing and a mass pogo, it dawned on me that Gogol Bordello as a live entity was more than just music, it was in fact an atmosphere, forcefully pushed at full steam by the brash confidence of Hutz, who, sinewy physique and all, carries himself with the strength of 10 men behind his trusted acoustic guitar. Because as a newcomer to their live show, I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit at the Vegas-like style of their stage presence, but, the whole thing appeared so genuinely genuine, I also couldn’t help but fall under their spell, marveling at the vice grip with which they held the crowd. Before long an hour and a half had gone by, with nearly the entirety of Transcontinental Hustle in the books, when Bordello dropped their instruments and waited backstage for what turned out to be a well-earned encore by the audience, who stomped, hollered and whistled like a bunch of Rick Derringer fans circa “Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo.”

-Jacob Sprecher

Though Monster Magnet‘s credentials have often taken critical heat for vacillation between the mainstream and underground, it’s unfair to deny them a piece of the stoner lord pie. They’ve hung through thick and thin, from the ball-busting drift of their classic 1992 debut Spine Of God, the commercial success of Powertrip, and the gradual fade that has seemingly encapsulated their name as a viable commodity since leaving A&M post-God Says No.

Now signed to Napalm Recods, Monster Magnet brings forth their ninth full-length LP, Mastermind. From the outset, it’s obvious that Dave Wyndorf and the gang have stuck to their hard rock stoner guns, which when you think about it is a ridiculous thing to say. Putting a Monster Magnet album on the hi-fi is not an equivocal act; that is, to expect the boys from New Jersey to change formula with a batch of arty experimentalism is foolhardy. At this point in their long career, Monster Magnet writes, records and performs the only way they know how: loud, heavy, and straight ahead.

That being said, “Hallucination Bomb” properly sets Mastermind in motion with sludgy mid-tempo rumblings and a bass tone thick enough to clog the Hoover Dam, and the same can be spoken for “Dig That Hole” at track three. “Gods and Punks,” the first single and video, smells quite pungently of Badmotofinger-era Soundgarden, which, as a descriptor, is probably a euphemism for the entire album. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it just is what it is.

I could sit here and try and pretend that by the time you get to “When The Planes Fall From The Sky” that it’s quite evident Monster Magnet has blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah—but I won’t. Mastermind is no more a “return to form” than Signs Of Infinite Power was for Fu Manchu last year. In order to return to form, you first have to depart from an old form, which Monster Magnet did over 15 years ago; so really, what form are they supposed to be returning to? Powertrip? ‘This certainly ain’t the original gangsta swag of the early ’90s. Moreover, even if the preceding was the intended case to be made, do the majority of people that bought Spine Of God and 25 Tab nearly 20 years prior give one single damn about Monster Magnet’s current efforts in the first place? Doubtful.

So, yeah… Mastermind isn’t a bad record, it’s just another record, neither here nor there. If you like what Monster Magnet’s been up to for the past decade and half, you’ll probably really dig it. If not, don’t bother.

-Jacob Sprecher

by Jacob Sprecher

Sometimes overlooked in the grand scheme of musical hipness and underground independence amid the sparkle-flyin’  pancake flips of this here U. S. of A. is the City By the Bay, the onetime home of hippiedom, Dead Kennedy punk and Lookout pop. (Well, Lookout wasn’t technically an SF scene, but it’s close enough.) But if you live in New York, if you live in L.A., if you live in Portland, Austin, Seattle, Chicago, wherever; it would be just to make note that there’s an entire boatload of wonderful rock humanity alive and well in Tony Bennett’s heart of hearts.

The Fresh & Onlys, four pieces of psych-garage with enough pop chops to melt your arteries, are as much a representation of that  special brand of West Coast swing as any. Though together just two and a half years, the Fresh & Onlys now have three full-length LPs (self-titled, Grey Eyed Girls, Play It Strange) and a small slew of EPs (August In My Mind, etc) beneath their studded belt buckles. The latter LP, Play It Strange, enjoys this very day as its release on In The Red, and let me tell you: it’s goddamn well something to lend an ear.

In anticipation of the Fresh & Onlys official release show this Saturday at Cafe Du Nord (with Kelley Stoltz, who also happens to be releasing a shit-hot LP of his own), Hi-Fi Hangover conned lead guitarist/musical chairs specialist Wymond Miles into answering a quick batch of questions.

Hi-Fi: Why the switch from Woodsist to In The Red? Any differences in working with the two labels?

Wymond: We’re just very fortunate to have opportunities to work with labels we admire. From an artist’s perspective the labels are run quite similar, really.

I genuinely believe Play It Strange to be your most cohesive and polished work thus far, be it song structures, lyricism, production, you name it. Was any of the material in your back pocket over a length of time, or did it all come from a creative creative burst? Was there anything particularly new or special in the band’s songwriting dynamics this go round?

I think it sounds cohesive because we toured most of those songs when we were on the road last year with Thee Oh Sees. Everything was pretty razor sharp and tight when we went to record it from playing them every night for a month. We always seem to be one album ahead of the album we are touring for, i.e, Thee Oh Sees trip was the Grey Eyed Girls tour, but we had all this material burning up for Play It Strange we were more excited to play. This tour might be the same, we have another album we’re working on now and we just want to play the new stuff. Die-hards will recognize our early versions of various songs from our cassette releases, both the Woodsist Bomb Wombs and an earlier self-released cassette. Most of the tunes were written in one creative pulse awhile back, we work on songs constantly, so that initial burst feels so long ago.

Production-wise, Play It Strange seems closer to the self-titled record than Grey Eyed Girls, the latter of which was a bit more raw and noisy. Obviously the new album is not overproduced by any stretch of the imagination, but were you aiming to slick things up a bit, or did It happen to unfold that way during mixing? Were you working with anyone new in-studio through the production process?

We recorded this record at Louder Studios with Tim Green. We just wanted to try something else on and see how it fit.  See how things went outside the creature comforts of our own studios, we weren’t looking to make a glossy hi-fi record, but we did just want someone else to engineer it and handle all the technical aspects so we could just set up in a room and play the songs as we did on tour.

Tim and I both have the same tape machine so all the previous records were made at both of our homes…but the sheen that you hear has more to do with the 2-inch tape we recorded on, rather than our usual 1/4-inch.

I agree that this album is more akin to the first record, something in the song dynamics and the playfulness of it all. Also the first record we had demo versions of most all of those songs that we refined while playing live and then re-recorded for the final LP, you know, what most bands do! However, Grey Eyed Girls the songs were being written and recorded at the same time. There’s a certain pure rawness to that album, in the most honest and naked of ways because of that exposed process. It’s also a darker record than the new one. The August In My Mind EP is well worth your time to listen to if you haven’t yet, it is the strongest reflection of who we are as a band. It’s a shame EPs don’t get as much exposure as LPs. We treat them with the same fervent excitement as the LPs.

I was hoping that you might be able to explain the lyrical meaning/concept behind a few songs: “Summer Of Love,” “Waterfall” and “I’m A Thief.”

Ugh, this will require the tried and true—the art will have to speak on it’s own behalf answer. I will say “Summer Of Love” isn’t just a throwback tune to SF’s ’60s tourist nostalgia, and we were plucking that vibe in a very self-aware sort of way to describe a very modern narrative of SF. “Waterfall” isn’t about TVs. “I’m A Thief” is about thievery.

What’s your take on the rock ‘n’ roll status of San Francisco? With brief exceptions, a strong case can be made that the city hasn’t really enjoyed national recognition of a true “scene” since the punk of the late ’70s and early ‘80s. L.A. and New York are perhaps too far reaching, but, in your opinion, is San Francisco capable of putting itself back on par with cities like Portland and Austin?

The music climate in San Francisco is far superior to Portland and Austin, period. Our moment in musical history is unique, but continues along a distant winding path that has seen several genres of musical scenes emerge from it. Best not to identify ourselves with any of them but instead acknowledge our place in a greater ancestry of SF music, that if you take a few steps back, has always had a voice to offer. Everything else is just hype to push an angle to a story. Dichotomy of truth/untruth coexisting at the same time.

More musical news from the great state of Ohio? Why not?! Previously inked to Fat Possum, Athens, OH’s premiere rock ‘n’ roll four-piece (does that sound official?) Wheels On Fire are now set to release a 7-inch for Kind Turkey Records. Billed as the Cherry Bomb EP, aka a teaser for their forthcoming LP entitled Liar, Liar, this latest offering is a bull-strong 11 minutes of lo-fi garage-pop chock-full of backslapping back beats and sneering-yet-endearing vocal sass. That is, I mean to say, it’s kinda sorta as if The Spits and King Khan got together and punched out a two-armed, two-legged dandy. Ohio sound? Sounds great!!

MP3: “Black Wave”

-Jacob Sprecher

Everybody’s favorite rock ‘n’ roll gypsies, Gogol Bordello, are soon returning to the highway come October 6th.  After linking up with both Primus and Outernational!, Gogal will then join forces with East Village latin-fused hipsters Forro In The Dark, a four-piece of eclectic flavorings that pick and pull with a wide variety of world influences, the most prominent of which resides south of the border. But Forro is indeed well-versed, and a comparative listen between, say, “Caipirinha” and “I Wish” will properly reveal their influences to range even into goose-loose country. Their touring escapades kick off proper in Los Angeles on October the 13th.

Oct 13th – Los Angeles, CA : Club Nokia
Oct 14th – Oakland, CA : Fox Theatre
Oct 15th – Chico,CA : Senator Theatre
Oct 17th – Eugene, OR : McDonald Theatre
Oct 19th – Portland, OR : Roseland Theatre
Oct 20th – Seattle, WA : Showbox SoDo
Oct 22nd – Vancouver, BC : Commodore Ballroom
Oct 23rd – Vancouver, BC : Commodore Ballroom
Oct 24th – Vancouver, BC : Commodore Ballroom
Oct 25th – Spokane, WA : The Knitting Factory
Oct 27th – Boulder, CO : Boulder Theater
Oct 28th – Boulder, CO : Boulder Theater
Oct 29th – Lawrence, KS : Liberty Hall
Oct 30th – Milwaukee, WI : Turner Hall Ballroom
Oct 31st – Madison, WI : Capitol Theatre (Overture Center for the Arts)
Nov 2nd – Indianapolis, IN : The Vogue
Nov 3rd – Covington, KY : Madison Theater
Nov 4th – Pittsburgh, PA : Mr. Small’s Theatre