Cicada Radio Kicked off Their Tour at Wonder Bar with New Strange and Negative Traction, 10/26/15

Happy Monday

It had been 10 days since I got out to a show. The closure of a very important venue in Asbury Park has had me re-calibrating a little bit, and I've been spending a little more time with the CoolFam. It's been nice, but I was feeling a little bit of an itch last night. Once I saw that Cicada Radio were playing this week's Happy Monday, I decided to head out. At the end of last year, Cicada Radio released the very strong Crimewaves on Killing Horse Records. This was, surprisingly, my first time seeing them since; and they did not disappoint.

The Jersey City quartet are departing for a tour with Cincinnati's New Strange who joined them on the bill last night. Also part of last night's line-up were Belmar punks Negative Traction. It was a loud, sometimes rowdy, evening and a nice kickoff to what will likely be a busy week.

Check out the photos from each set by clicking on the links below.

Cicada Radio

Negative Traction

New Strange

Even More Stuff I Missed from Cicada Radio, Life Eaters, Vomitface

Jared Micah of Vomitface at Silent Barn last June

Roundup 3: Jersey City

In my last roundup this week, I want to mention a few releases from our friends in Jersey City. It's really easy for me to get to shows in the Asbury Park area, and even New Brunswick is only about a 40 minute drive. I tend to focus here, therefore, on the bands I see regularly and get to know.

Sure. Every once in a while a band like Jersey City's Overlake or Bordentown's Roy Orbitron make it onto my radar; but I'm just as guilty of parochialism as the next guy. With that in mind, I wanted to close out this week by taking a look at some releases that have been in my CD pile and in my iTunes library from bands in and around Jersey City.

Cicada Radio, Crime Waves

I first saw Cicada Radio as part of the Tiny Giant Artist Collective Summer Bummer at Asbury Lanes a few years ago. What I've always remembered about them was the intensity they brought to a performance that I believe took place at about 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon on a sunny beach day in a dark bowling alley several blocks off the beach. To say that the house wasn't packed at that point would be an understatement, but Cicada Radio brought it as if they were playing to wall to wall sweaty bodies of crowd surfers.

In somewhat of a surprise at the end of last year, the band released the 6-song Crimewaves. I heard "Funeral" on Al Crisafulli's Signal2Noise NJ radio show and decided to check out more. The song is fast-paced and surfy, the vocals coming at you as if from a room on the other side of the house. On the record, "The Patriot" precedes "Funeral" and also comes down on the more indie rock with a hint of surf side of things.

Opener "Carcosa" hews a little more closely to the band's self-professed post-hardcore sound with its orchestral, wall-of-sound guitars and shouted vocals. The title track also swirls around with that same overall feel. The set closes with "Mercenaries" that revels in a lot of Cicada Radio's 90s influences.

Crimewaves is out now on Jersey City's Killing Horse Records. You can stream it over at Cicada Radio's Bandcamp page.



Life Eaters, Life Eaters

Another Jersey City / Killing Horse band that put on a pretty crazy live show are Life Eaters. Featuring former members of Rye Coalition, The Black Hollies, ¡No Pasarán!, and Killing Horse label honcho Mike Sylvia, Life Eaters go all out in their live sets. The first time I saw them, as part of The Everymen's farewell to Maxwell's show, frontman Sylvia came out in a Rip Curl wetsuit in preparation for all the beer that would rain on him from the crowd. He was wise to be so prepared.

The band's self-titled full-length is straightforward hard rock with a heavy blues influence on several of the songs. "I'm The One You Wanted" is a fast-paced opener that features the intertwining, harmonizing guitars of Romel Espinel and John Gonelli. The pace slows down, but things don't get any less heavy on the bluesy, six-and-a-half minute "Man Pain." "Look Out" and "Lock It In" are a pair of punk-influenced jolts that give way to garage rocker "Atom Bomb." "Animal" features more of those dueling guitars. "Lie to Me" starts off with a call-and-response pair of guitar riffs and barrels along like a train before reaching a psychedelic break about halfway through.

There are doses of punk, garage rock, and metal (of the Black Sabbath variety) here. They all add up to a collection of unadulterated hard rock delivered by several veterans of the North Jersey scene.

Life Eaters is another 2014 release from Killing Horse, and you can stream "I'm the One You Wanted" over at Life Eaters' Bandcamp page.



Vomitface, Another Bad Year

We're coming up on Northside Festival again. Last year, I headed over to Silent Barn to catch Big Ups and lost boy ? and ended up being really pleasantly surprised by Jersey City's Vomitface. I remember it being super hot inside Silent Barn. The crowd was a little lethargic, but the loud-quiet-loud noise pop of Vomitface should've had them moving.

Last month, the band released a five-song EP called Another Bad Year. Things start of with "Never Make It." Heavy chords, throbbing rhythms, some discordant guitar noodling; but Jared Micah's vocals come through clearly. He kind of accepts his lot of being a loser, so why try? You know?

"Bruise" combines quirky Pixies almost surf pop with interludes of Nirvana-esque rage. The Pixies / Nirvana influence is evident again on "Did She Come Alone?" The guitar noise and the relentless rhythm section of Peetma Singh and Sam Palumbo give the track kind of a stalker-y feel as Micah sings, "Did she did she come alone or did she have someone? I could I could take her home. I could be her number 1."

Vomitface describe their sound as "black surf," and I can see that. If you dig past the distortion, there are definite hints of surf and pop in these songs.

Another Bad Year is out now on Boxing Clever Records and you can stream it at the Vomitface Bandcamp page.

Wreaths, Wreaths, 2014

Album Review

I was at The Saint one night a couple of months back. Asbury Park's Wreaths were playing. At the end of their planned set, they got the nod from the sound man that there was time for one more song. The band complied and lit into what had to be an approximately seven-minute version of psych-blues jam, "I Love Me, Dark Wizard." The song swirled around The Saint, and I'm sure a few people allowed themselves to get lost in it. One more from Wreaths and you really get your money's worth.

"I Love Me, Dark Wizard" closes out Wreaths' self-titled, debut full-length. Over the course of the LP, Wreaths employ just about every drone-y guitar style  there is -- from late 1960s psychedelic space rock to Jesus and Mary Chain-style walls of sound to My Bloody Valentine-esque dronescapes -- usually pairing them up with a Motorik beat to produce a record in which it is quite easy to lose yourself.

"Coke Straw" starts things off. It's a psychedelic ramble that feels like it's leading you down a path into the depths of the rest of the album. "Goin' Back to Haiti" rides that Krautrock beat into a squall of noise over the course of its thirteen minutes. "Ruby," "Piedmont Aire," and "Adult Life" are the closest things to poppy tracks here and really harken back to some 80s proto-shoegaze and early dream pop.

Coming at the end of all of this, "I Love Me, Dark Wizard" initially sounded a little out of place to me; but upon further listening, I can see how it fits. Whether it's the forward momentum of a driving beat, a steady drone, or the blues-y riff of "I Love Me, Dark Wizard," the songs here use repetition to great effect. Wreaths layer sounds, noise, and lyrics over repeated themes; and your brain kind of goes on autopilot as you listen. It's like when a word, repeated over and over, becomes just a sound.

Wreaths are a band producing some of the truly interesting sounds coming out of Asbury Park right now. The album does about as good a job as a record can do of capturing the feeling of seeing the band live amid flashing colored lights and the mist from the fog machine. Keep Wreaths handy for whenever you think you may want a non-chemically induced, fifty or so minute escape from reality.

Wreaths is out now on NJ's Killing Horse Records. Wreaths will be celebrating the album's release with a show at Asbury Lanes on April 26th.

The Everymen, New Jersey Hardcore, 2012

Wednesday Run Album Review

Disappointment again Tuesday as I was unable to find the record I was looking for at my local shop.  I'd gone out to grab some lunch and, hopefully, score the vinyl for A.C. Newman's Shut Down the Streets; but it looks like I'll be ordering that one, too.  My frustration turned to happiness, though, when I got home and discovered that the mail had brought with it New Jersey Hardcore (Killing Horse Records) by Tuckerton's The Everymen.  I spent the evening listening to the record and took it with me for a run this morning right after the rain finally stopped.

I almost think this record could have been called New Jersey. Hardcore. or Hardcore New Jersey, because The Everymen's sound really isn't anything close to hardcore; but, to me anyway, it's unmistakably New Jersey.  It's the New Jersey of the beautifully derelict structure of Asbury Park's Casino right next to the beach, the New Jersey of the tightly-packed, tin-ceilinged bars of Hoboken and Jersey City.  Guitars and sax along with the vocals of Mike V. and Catherine Herrick give The Everymen an early punk sound that generates -- some probably over-romanticized by me -- images of a mid 1970s rock band tearing up bars along the Jersey Shore.

"We could all be doin' a little bit better.  Just a little better," says the subject of "Joey & The Neighborhood."  It's a short, spoken-word recording, but it does a nice job of setting the tone for the rest of the record.  There aren't going to be any intricately programmed synths or carefully selected samples.  Instead, New Jersey Hardcore is simple rock and roll.  "Dance Only, Only Dance" and "With the Boys," with their big guitar chords and "bah, bah, bah" sax, are just that.  Single and album standout "Coney Island High," a reference to the 1990's East Village punk venue, features Catherine Herrick singing about a girl who's "sick and tired of that pleated skirt and polo shirt and book bag" and just wants to score a ticket to a rock show.

There are influences other than proto-punk garage rock here, too.  "Novocaine" could be an homage to Elvis Costello's "The Big Light" from King of America.  Album closer "Yellow Sunday Dress" mirrors some of the new wave Americana from that same record.

New Jersey Hardcore doesn't break any new ground musically, but I don't think that's the point.  The Everymen tap into some of that primal appreciation that we all have for a simple, solid rock and roll song.  Even if you're into some more modern or innovative sounds, turning up New Jersey Hardcore should allow you to forget that you could be doin' just a little better.  For about thirty minutes anyway.  And despite the fact that the music business may take at least a few of The Everymen across the river to Brooklyn or Manhattan if it hasn't already, they do their thing here in fine New Jersey style.

BrooklynVegan Premieres a Track from NJ's The Everymen

"Coney Island High"

Over at BrooklynVegan, they've got a new track from Jersey Shore (Tuckerton, according to the band's Facebook page) band, The Everymen, available to stream and download.

It's the first track off of The Everymen's upcoming New Jersey Hardcore, which is due out in October on Killing Horse Records.

A few days ago, I happened upon The Everymen's Bandcamp page and really liked what I heard.

"Coney Island High" is Jersey Shore punk with a sax.  What more do you need?