-
Jesse Jesster The Subculture Investigator has a go with Gavin of the Bears of Blue River in the decrepit church in his backyard and go on a walk in Chicago, IL.
-
Jesse Jesster returns to LA to meet east LA metal to dance cross-over duo KNIGHT.
-
Sean and Marion of You Are An Airplane take flight on this episode of The Time I Dated Jesse Jaded.
-
The first episode of The Time I Dated Jesse Jaded takes you to Austin, Texas to meet with three members of Austin’s very own modern classical group, Mother Falcon.
-
Cecilia Peruti, doggie, and Jared Stallings.
-
Part VIII: Why Do You Love The Thing That’s Killing You?
Growing up punk in the Los Angeles wastelands, Jared “Jabroni” Stallings, 25, diffused his adolescent agitation to anoint a local super group named after an expression the satirical geniuses behind South Park use to elicit banality, rabble rabble. Writing and producing a Neil Young meets Curtis Mayfield inspired record aptly titled, ‘Laurel Canyon Second Time a Clown’, Stallings embraces a work ethos as ferocious as the horse tattooed on his right bicep. Conjuring such pantheons of rock and soul to describe his vision seems a lofty proposition only a man who leads his life like the captain of a sinking ship is capable of anchoring. Fortunately, Stallings has a sturdy crew around him and being 1/16th Blackfoot (probably closer to 1/32nd) his heritage soils him both a stoic friend and bard. In response to the inspiration behind the album Stallings admitted, “Why do you love the thing that’s killing you?”
He tells me he’s been writing the songs for eight years now and that their first show scheduled for 11/11/10. I can’t make it. I can’t fathom being on another plane right now. It’s all too much, fourteen hours of flying in one day. Airplanes are a sickness. I get in the shower. My mind is a minefield. I haven’t been inebriated…in almost two weeks. I haven’t ejaculated in that time either. He says he wants to discuss the recording process and I should formulate the questions. I can’t think about that right now. “The thoughts I’m having like piss down the drain.” Why am I on facespace? The ghost of my mother’s shrill rings through my ears as these gutter thoughts cross on, “JESSE, DO YOUR HOMEWORK!” Some savior, I have so-called school tomorrow. I’ve gone delinquent in three of my four classes, ignoring pesky assignments. I’m a seventh year-senior and graduation remains an enigma. My left nostril is stuffing up my right ear, the bags under my eyes are so puffy when I blink it sends a pulsating nasty to the back of my head, I clamp my eyes shut yet I can’t fall asleep. Internally, I’ve a British accent. It’s a pleasure living internally. I need stop mixing William Gibson and Leo Tolstoy. Have I eaten? I miss her. I hate unpacking. I’m over-tired. Stop thinking about her, she’s a figment of the past. I’m jet lag. What time is it? I always knew it would be like this between us, eventually…
The above is frivolous rabble rabble, Not to be confused with the Chicago outfit of the same name, rabble/rabble, the LA foursome fronted by Stallings is taking the form of something more significant than mindless whining and lugubrious lyrical guesswork. Permeating through the Los Angeles music scene like the estrogen in the sewer system, Stallings is almost twenty-five and is ready to give up pissing fire in order to inhale it. It’s been over a decade since his first band, Brigands, helped him yell and scream his way out of high school apathy and play privy to the drug-addled youth reviving at the time, a scene now categorized in neatly laminated binders owned by the ‘alt’ corporate piggy’s like ‘Coolhunters’ and ‘Urban Outfitters’ that researchers of can consult for their next fashion line. In this post-recession decade no one gives a fuck about how they’re known, but who knows them. Stallings is amongst the living; living in and out of death in his Eagle Rock abode waiting to be resurrected. One arm fully sleeved, the transformation of Stallings is well underway.
Now, he’s filling in something even closer to his skin, music. There is a distinct change in his outlook and approach to living. Less than hate is love. “Moving beyond my junkie tattoos’ and enjoying the art of living, living is fucking beautiful. Without that beginning point I would never be interested in finishing my own masturbatory eight-year-old album.” The album is more than a meditation in self-indulgence however, “It was forced upon me by Mikey (Michael Anthony Ayala of Strangbyrd) and Cardo (Ricardo Robles of Rumspringa) and I decided with this one thing I wouldn’t fail, and from there it’s been easy because we took it down to bare bones. Four dudes one room. Regardless of the dudes, the process after that emotional spiritual ground has been simple.” Mostly appalled by this comment for I can’t recall ever hearing the word spiritual sprout from Stallings’ sordid lips I ponder what happened to despair, rage, and deceit? “My spiritual ground is founded in letting go of the construct of others, the others who feel me believing in the destruction of this ugly humanity, because honestly this shell, this planet, this waterless foodless ugly fuck party is useless. I know where I’m going when I lose my shell and really you fucks are in my way, so onto the next!”
No longer angst-ridden jest, Stallings is giving this record his authentic all, “as faggy as it sounds.” This is art. “I’m eight fucking years in. This is the biggest failure of my life and I fucking know failure. But if it pans out the way I know it could then it’ll be my biggest success.” Playing in groups together since they were twelve, Robles isn’t joking when he describes the new sound as “Cuntry Grunge.” For Stallings, this is his attempt to bridge punk to Al Green. “To me this is a gutter punk trying to play roots music. The fuck-up kid who hates being stuck in this shell’s blues.”
Traversing through punk and this newfound expression the new Jared confuses even himself. When asked who will love this album he vulnerably answers, “Hopefully everyone that’s ever been heart broken.” But quickly sidesteps, “But that’s gay as fuck, but really it should work for them, but punk kids will lose their shit, this is the organic step for punk, like what Refused did ten years ago.”
Having no qualms with citing his mentors or as he calls them, “the ones who tried to put the words of the disaffected to melody that made sense to cry and dance to,” Stallings assault rifles through acts sprawling from such musical macrocosms as The Clash, Bad Brains, Desmond Dekker, The Pogues, New York Dolls and even Tupac. Stallings has big plans and rightly so, Rabble Rabble’s “Laurel Canyon Second Time A Clown” promises to reveal the gifted frontman as naked and vulnerable as his bare left arm.
rabble/rabble will be playing November 3rd @ the Cat Club and November 11th with Rumspringa @ Mountain Bar in Chinatown.
-
LWT’s first filmed interview with frontman Joey Stevens of Rumspringa.
-

Zach Vouga of Glitter Bones
-
Glow In the Dark (falcor edit) - Glitter Bones
-
Part VII: New Romantix Chilled, Blissed, and Screwed
We’re all well aware new-wave fell off the wagon generations ago but that doesn’t mean the new romantic in all of us isn’t alive and jiving like a sporadic baboon. Since it’s getting hot in here, who crrz if chill-wave is the most prevalent music form of the contemporary era? Who lives or dies if the runoff madness proclaimed genre ceases to exist because bliss-wave takes over its chartered vocation? Not I, Sir. Categories and tags are devastating the perception our ears should actualize through listening to the music itself. Which brings us to musician Zach Vouga, an affable intellectual (rare breed), a charismatic people-pleaser, and one of the most carefree boyo’s I’ve encountered in my 2.4 decades on planet earth. Vouga hides nothing from his interlocutor, and neither does his glitch-drenched ear-enticing music in which he and fellow band mate, Nick Donlin roll Black Dice over Ariel Pink’s fermented lipstick trails for the epic win only Glitter Bones can triumph to. Their stage show is a katamorphic experience; two long haired-freaky people with quaint suitcases break down complex beats into simpler ones leaving the heedless audience member’s as fragmented shreds of the elements they once composed. In other words, they fuck with science as they blow your speckled, spotted and varicolored mind. We google-chatted the Indiana extradite to catch up, discover a new apparition, and commit heinous internet crimes...Zach Vouga:You there?Top Interview Series:What it do! Sorry, I was super distracted by the Xiu Xiu’s ‘Under Pressure’ cover. It’s indeterminable yet better than the My Chemical Romance version.ZV:Not much duder, enjoying the beautiful minimalism that is Indiana. lol @ mcr.TIS:that's cool, I’m pretty laid back in Chicago myself. Digging the pace of the summer term. Teachers are sympathetic so they hardly assign work. It’s how school should be, we learn but don't especially have to do a lot of homework. Homework is what has me imprisoned in the institution. Don’t fret, I'll escape eventually!ZV:Yeah, that sounds great. how was LA?TIS:L.A. was amazing man, I touched down thursday night and was constantly active until I came back the 9 days later.ZV:Floating ten feet off the ground?TIS:There wasn't a dull moment, I saw a Maia Harari Dance Theatre event, went to the MOCA retrospective, reveled in Nick Cave’s ‘Meet Me at the Center of the Earth’ exhibit, hiked and camped in Joshua Tree for two days, saw Teen Inc, family, friends and was 100% sober.ZV:damn! sober!TIS:Love dude...the finest form of inebriation.ZV:very true. maybe keystone light... @_@TIS:haha. So wtf have you been doing in Indiana?ZV:Rehearsing, writing new material, smoking copious amounts of ☮☮☮, and integrating a third member into the Glitter Bones live set.TIS:Wait, woah! Who and what do they play?ZV:His name is Chris, he is playing guitar with us. I used to perform with him in an earlier project, called Dr. Breath. So it's kinda been cool working with him again.TIS:very cool. How does it change the dynamic of your sound?ZV:Well, we've been going through a pretty drastic sound change as it is, but this really fills it out. But the Glitter Bones vibe is certainly maintained. It's a much grittier /raw sound.TIS:grit down on itZV:Think of a plate of grits.With techni-colored crystal sprinkles.TIS:i'm really looking forward to the show man, sounds like home down Midwestern corn and cooking. Anyway, artists always make their best music when they exile themselves from the public, and use alternative sources of inspiration. See The Jesus and Mary Chain who spent almost five years in a cave-like state before Pyschocandy shattered Scotland and beyond. The Horrors are apparently doing that right now somewhere in the world, recording their third LP.ZV:We're all really stoked also. I love the Empty Bottle, so I'm happy to be performing there again.TIS:it's one of the best venues in Chicago i've been to, especially for your sound.ZV:Easily. It's got the entire package. great sound, and a comfortable environment. They hook it up with the drink tickets too.TIS:It sure beats Reggie’s! Is your dad coming again?ZV:I hope so. I was talking to him about it today. He's our biggest fan.TIS:Nice! he's an amazing duder.ichat is a lot better than google chat, isnt it?ZV:FB chat all tha way dooooodTIS:i got snow leopard..purr. Anyway, had any memorable dreams lately?ZV:No, but there is this really sweet band called Dreams who are working on the same label as we are.You should check them out.TIS:Good name. I fell in love with/in dreams.ZV:yeah yeah you and your romantics. See you Saturday man!TIS:Indizzle.In Chicago? Check out Glitter Bones this Saturday 6/5 opening for Toro Y Moi at the Empty Bottle. 21+
