The Current Music Blog: September 7, 2006 Archive

Glad She's A Girl

Posted at 8:38 AM on September 7, 2006 by Hans Eisenbeis

The reunited Avengers are back on tour, and they stopped through town last weekend. Holly Day, over at Pulse of the Twin Cities, had an interesting conversation with singer/songwriter Penelope Houston, one of our all-time favorite punk-rock heroes. Penelope said,

“It’s so strange how immediate some of these songs feel to me when I play them now. Even more than ever, a lot of the songs I wrote when I was 19 are even more applicable today. It’s really shocking. It feels like I’m going backwards in time or something. But this whole political climate was one of the reasons we felt we should be playing for audiences again, just for the chance to sing ‘The American in Me,’ and know that it means more now than it did when I wrote it.”

Even though the Avengers only played about 100 shows, and released just two EPs while still a band, they made quite a splash. Houston never gave up music, she just parked the punk rock for a couple decades while she fiddled around on the autoharp. (No disrespect: She was a true pioneer of the neo-folk movement that is presently exploding right outside your front door. Check out "Cut You" if you don't believe us.)

Meanwhile, in related ancient-punk-rock news, the Slits have announced a reunion tour this fall. And all we can say is this: Look, Bob Dylan may live forever but punk rock was made to burn out, not fade away. If you get the chance to see punk pioneers like Ari Up and Penelope Houston… well, don't waste it.

Behind the Scenes: What Makes The Rounds When the Mic's Off

Posted at 11:21 AM on September 7, 2006 by Hans Eisenbeis

So you wonder what the Current's DJs, programmers, producers, engineers, and… uh, bloggers talk about at our little compulsory meetings? This week, our man Tony Lopez turned us all on to this fairly amazing archival video of the Jesus Lizard, captured on tape in Dallas in 1994. David Yow gets nailed by a beer bottle Zapruder-style, the band leaves the stage in disgust… and the show eventually goes on!

We worry about health insurance coverage for indie rock stars, of course, but more importantly, we wonder what the heck happened to our copy of that awesome Scratch Acid record, one of the great, unsung rock documents of the 1980s. And we'd be remiss if we didn't say that we're pretty psyched that all the original members of the band are slated to show up and play at this weekend's Touch and Go Records reunion in Chicago.

Also this: If you ever saw Yow perform "Tight and Shiny" live, you'll do like we do--pray it never hits YouTube.

What's Old Is New Again

Posted at 1:03 PM on September 7, 2006 by Hans Eisenbeis (3 Comments)

She Wants Revenge, our favorite Joy Division/New Order reappropriation, aren’t entirely derivative, for sure; they're breaking some ground of their own. The robotic rockers from LA have partnered with "social networking" website Imeem to create yet another version of the rock-star homepage. The upshot? Fans can upload their bootleg video, audio, and camera-phone ephemera--all presumably with the blessings of the band.

Eventually, SWR may become big enough that singer Justin Warfield can go see a dentist for that wicked-bad toothache he seems to be nursing in every photo we've ever seen of him.