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.

PICS from Wreaths' Record Release Show at Asbury Lanes, 4/26/14

Also Life Eaters, Birthwater

I've been feeling a little exhausted lately. It just seems like it's been taking me longer to recover from travel and a quick spring cold than it used to. To quote something everyone's probably heard from someone in their family before, "Don't ever get old."

Anyway, I sucked it up on Saturday night to head over to Asbury Lanes for Wreaths' record release show. I'm glad I did. Life Eaters opened things and showed that they've really tightened themselves into a hard rock / hardcore force since I saw them a couple of times last year. Asbury's Birthwater and their genre-spanning sound were a nice lead-in to Wreaths. And Wreaths played their swirling, noisy, Krautrock-infused debut full-length live, in its entirety.

My apologies to Crystallines; but as the clock struck 1 AM, I started to fade.

Here are some photo highlights of the evening's first three acts.

The Everymen Announce Final Shows of the Year

Camelfest at Asbury Lanes and "Rock to Stop MS!"

Even one of the hardest working bands in New Jersey -- the USA, even! -- needs to take a break once in a while. The Everymen have announced that they'll be taking some time off at the end of this year so that they "can actually take some weekend trips with our girlfriends and stuff and maybe even enjoy XMas with our families." Before going on a well-deserved hiatus, though, the Tuckerton band will play two final shows, both benefits. 

On October 18th, The Everymen will be coming to Asbury Lanes as part of Camelfest, the 20th anniversary celebration for New Jersey's own Dromedary Records. The show will mark the last for Everymen drummer Jake Fiedler as part of the band, and all proceeds from the show will benefit Roots and Wings of New Jersey, a non-profit that seeks to aid young adults who have aged out of the foster system.

Then, on October 29th, The Everymen and Life Eaters will be helping friend, National MS Society NYC Marathon runner, and all-around booty mover, Emily Newman, exceed her fundraising goal of $4000 to combat multiple sclerosis by playing "Rock to Stop MS!" at New York's Mercury Lounge. Those who can't make the show can still contribute.

The Everymen have been great friends of CoolDad Music throughout the year; and, as the run of benefit shows they did following Superstorm Sandy showed, they are always more than willing to play for a cause. Head out to one of these shows and catch them one, last time in 2013 if you can; and help them help out yet again.

The Last Weeks of Maxwell's, Part 3: The Everymen / Life Eaters / Black Wine / Brooklyn What, 7/12/13

A Concert Ticket's All She Really Tries to Score

In parts 1 & 2 of this series, I wrote about Yo La Tengo and The Feelies. Maybe The Feelies have never truly gotten the recognition they deserve, but both of those acts have a relatively large national following. I called them two of Maxwell's house bands.

Maxwell's has another "house band." That band is every local, tri-state area band that works and works, playing show after show as openers for national acts, in New Brunswick basements, and at Maxwell's. They're your friends, maybe your co-workers. And Maxwell's gave them a place to play where they could say that they played the same room as Sonic Youth, Pavement, Guided by Voices, R.E.M., Hüsker Dü, and The Replacements. On Friday night, four of those house bands came together to perform their last sets ever at the venue.

The Brooklyn What brought the guitar-driven rock and roll onslaught of their most recent LP Hot Wine with songs like "Punk Rock Loneliness," closing things out with a cover of The Replacements' "Left of the Dial." New Jersey punk supergroup Black Wine, which features former members of The Ergs!, Full of Fancy, and Hunchback, had the crowd moving to the no-core sounds of songs like "Chateau of Ghosts." Life Eaters, frontman Mike Sylvia appropriately decked out in a Rip Curl wetsuit in anticipation of the deluge of beverages that would be flying in from the audience, tore through a set of aggressive, high-energy rock.

By the time The Everymen took the stage at around 1AM, I was beginning to question the wisdom of my decision to attend such a late show the night before an early swim meet. Once the band's set got underway, though, I forgot all of my misgivings. The band started things off with a slow number before frontman Mike V said, "OK. Enough of that shit...," and The Everymen tore into a more typical set that had the entire crowd dancing from beginning to end. For the evening, they changed the title of "Coney Island High" to "Maxwell's," adding a Maxwell's reference to the chorus.

Then, in fine, final Maxwell's set tradition, the band did a series of covers: Bruce Springsteen's "Ain't Good Enough for You," Midnight Oil's "Beds are Burning" with saxophonist Scott Zillitto on vocals, Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released," and Neil Young's "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World." The Lost Romance's Gerry Perlinski joined the band on stage; audience members sang entire verses into the mic; the horn section came down and played among the crowd; and show closer "Boss Johnny and the Get Lucky" saw almost the entire audience on stage with the band.

It was a party that went a few minutes past the official Maxwell's 2AM close; and, as CoolMom and I walked out into the street, sheepishly realizing how late my parents would be up babysitting the cooldaughters, we both told each other how happy we were to have been a part of it.

My growing confidence as a point and shoot concert photographer took a bit of a hit under last night's difficult lighting conditions, but I did my best to document the proceedings. I also managed to corner some of The Everymen in Maxwell's basement to get their thoughts on Maxwell's imminent closure. Stay tuned for that.

The Last Weeks of Maxwell's, Parts 3 & 4 on the Way

With a Swim Meet In Between

I'll be hauling myself back up to Hoboken both this Friday (with CoolMom in tow) and next Monday for two more shows at Maxwell's.

Tomorrow night we'll be seeing The Everymen, Life Eaters, Black Wine, and Brooklyn What. As of right this second, tickets are still available for that show; and it promises to be an emotional evening. The bill features four, great, tri-state area bands playing their last scheduled sets at the venue.

On Saturday and Sunday, CoolDaughter #1 has a swim meet at Princeton that starts at 7:05 AM each day. I'll be dragging myself out of bed just a few hours after getting back from Hoboken; so if you can sleep in, you really have no excuse for not coming to the show.

Then on Monday, I'll once again be seeing Titus Andronicus. The Glen Rock band has a worldwide following, of course; but their hearts are here in New Jersey. This won't be their last set at Maxwell's, as they added a third (now sold out) date on the 16th; but it will be my last chance to see a band there that has evolved into one of my true favorites.

The last show I'm scheduled to attend at Maxwell's (Part 5) comes less than a week later, when I head in for, maybe, the final time to catch Ted Leo.

Things are happening at a breakneck pace as we wind our way down to the end of the month, when Maxwell's is scheduled to close its doors for the final time. There's talk of a block party with a DJ as the final event. While it won't be the same experience as a packed, dark, and sweaty show in the back room; I think it's a nice idea that will let more than the 200 people who can usually squeeze inside come and say goodbye.

Come find me at one of these shows. I'll (hopefully) be the guy way up front taking pics with his point and shoot.