Monday, October 4th, 2010 // Paperhouse
Once heard, a sound lives forever within the soul of a man, quietly stirring. Produced by anything, felt through any part of the body, the perception of sound is a bipolar bastard child of the human perception. While lauded greatly when it’s chopped, divided, castrated, and filed in metronomic precision, it goes greatly unperceived in its raw and pure form. This grandeur is not so much one associated with music but with identity. In sound, the intangible and the ephemeral become something physical: a reverberation that physically alters space and time. Vibrations are not respected because they cannot be tamed.
Whether it be the clatter of silverware dancing across the porous walls of an old-age home or the rustling of heather in the empty air of the cold Sierra Nevadas, sound carries an infinite potential whose beauty lies in its unmasterable nature. Yes, while some may become adept at banging out sonatas or strumming tribal breakbeats, the mastery of sculpting something permanent out of that humming quicksilver is not something that the adept few ask for.
Flowers, the material as ephemeral, rejoice in their springtime dances. Sound, which blossoms out from nothing more than the void, is the God of the ephemeral. Enough of that poetic nonsense. Want to get down with the WRCT Sound? Check out the following:
Boards of Canada:
Music Has the Right to Childre
— Experience the beauty of electronic music. Extremely approachable and low-key in its magnificence.
Shoes:
Eccentric Breaks and Beat
— Flawlessly arranged pastiche of esoteric soul and funk.
Flaming Lips, Stardeath & White Dwarfs:
Dark Side of The Moon (ft. Henry Rollins and Peaches
— A sonic blow-out. Dark Side of the Moon for a digital generation.
-Juan Fernandez
Monday, September 27th, 2010 // Paperhouse
Let’s cut to the chase. Dinosaurs rule.
You’re planning a birthday party for your two-year-old and want to have the best dinosaur-related music on hand. What to play? First off, how loud do you want to get? Real loud? Then let’s go deep into the Pleistocene. Let’s get your toddler’s blood a-pumping with percussive assault of Mastodon’s whip-snap thunderhoof drumming. Knock over some chairs. Hell, get wild and throw some Cheetos around the living room.
How about some sunbaked California rhymes that ride the oozing lava flows? Jurassic Five’s the ticket. Bob your head and look out your window to watch the megafauna to the beat of “Concrete Schoolyard.” What better way to teach your kid the lessons of life?
Is your toddler’s imaginary brontosaurus tastelessly urinating all over your Ikea furniture? Well then, it’s obviously time to walk the dinosaur. With the cheesiest moments of 1987’s “Walk the Dinosaur” by Was (Not Was), your baby brontosaurus’ bowels will surely be emptied out of doors in a jiffy. What’s that you say? “Brontosaurus” is an obsolete synonym for “apatosaurus”? Well, I’ll be. Who knew you were a paleontologist? It’s an imaginary dinosaur. My friend, your panties; please unbunch them.
Speaking of panties getting up in a bunch, T-Rex is sure to get your young niece’s panties tangled and twisted into the tightest of knots. Unless of course she’s not into the whole deep jam, glam-infused, blues rock of the late ’70s.
Get your kid a pair of sparkling skin-tight jeans and toss him a guitar. Have him play lead while you sing along to “Children of The Revolution.” Good times are sure to be had.
The cake, you ask? Well, that’s for you to figure out.
-Juan Fernandez
Monday, September 20th, 2010 // Paperhouse
Pittsburgh is one weird city when it comes to live music. In early August, I went to Howlers in Bloomfield for a concert. There were two local openers, and the headliner that night was Dead Rabbits, a group from Georgia.
I was expecting nothing more than a regular bar gig. As per usual, I was blindsided. After getting on stage, the two-man Dead Rabbits ripped the carpet out from beneath us and started assaulting the blues mid-show. There was nothing more than a guitar, an amp, and a set of drums, and I’ll let you know that these whippersnappers’ performance would surely have the Black Keys thinking twice about playing the 12-bar blues again. The guitars, lush and with bass distortion, left no need for a bassist. Needless to say that this was a show that you walked out of buzzing with the high of testosterone and grinning like an over-sexed chimpanzee.
Well, what’s the point of my telling you about a show you missed, right? Check it.
Designer Drugs is coming to the Rex Theater this Thursday. You have no excuse not to be there: Tickets are only $10.50, and it’s a 17+ show, meaning even your kid sister can go.
Like with most DJs, with Designer Drugs it’s all about their live show. They’ve been through Pittsburgh two times in the past year and a half, so they must like something about the city, seeing as how most musicians find Pittsburgh to be one hell of a tough crowd. (More on that in a future Paperhouse.) The music, you ask? Electro. Hard electro.
Something that’s consistent throughout most Designer Drugs songs is a spooky “Dracula’s coming to town” synth such as the one found in “ZOMBIES!” Additionally, you can expect a show replete with fat synth bass blasts. Like most contemporary dance, the tempos are within the 128–132 bpm range, so it’s a blistering electro banger show.
-Juan Fernandez
