Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Sunday, April 25, 2010

SLEEPY SUN



When I first saw Sleepy Sun about four years ago they were calling themselves Mania and playing the kind of generic, white-boy blues that ex-rockers usually start "jamming" on when they hit their midlife crisis. Skip ahead a year or two later; we've all migrated from Santa Cruz to San Francisco and the band has changed their name to Sleepy Sun. I get an email from the band asking if I'll trade some poster work for free admission and some burrito money. I attended the show with low expectations but was completely blown away. This was an entirely new band! I new from the very first time I saw them that they were going to be a very big deal. These guys have it all figured out. Their melodies are pretty and accessible enough for the indie-rockers and heavy enough to keep the heads listening.
Sleepy's debut album, Embrace, is a perfect example of that dynamic. One minute they're soft and spacey and the next they're shredding on a riff that you can easily bang your head to. Their influences are all over the board. You can hear as much Jefferson Airplane in their music as you can Black Sabbath. Combine spaced-out vocal harmonies, pummeling drums, heavy-as-fuck bass grooves, and squalling guitar solos and you've got yourself one hell of a psychedelic album.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

WHIPPED HIPPIE

It's been quite a while since Devendra Banhart did anything I liked but this video kinda blew my mind.

Monday, April 19, 2010

ANIMATED MEAT

I just watched Jan Svankmajer's Lunacy last night. It was brilliant, which is to be expected. Plenty of sacrilege, nudity, and animated carnage. Be warned though; as is usually the case with Svankmajer, Lunacy is about half an hour longer than it should be. Oh well.

For those of you who aren't yet familiar with Svankmajer's work, here's a good introduction:


Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Monday, April 5, 2010