Magic Mirror

Cuchillo

Luther Russell

The Howling Hex
The Howling Hex are being joined by members of Sic Alps for a two-hour long (!!) jaunt/romp/excursion/Bataan march concert through the Howling Hex catalog.

"Neil Michael Hagerty's third proper release with his new band, in which he plays bass instead of guitar, kicks off with a traditional-enough number, Hagerty-wise. That means "Keychains" has a riff Trux fans will dig. "Fifth Dimensional Johnny B. Goode" has a chorus Trux fans can dig — in fact, everything about the song screams Veterans of Disorder (Drag City, 1999). So anyone who's been scared off by the fact that Hagerty isn't playing guitar anymore can relax. The guy is bored with playing guitar or something. It's OK. Maybe he got tired of all the so-called cool-dude man crushes on him.

Regardless, the change has inspired a creative explosion in the dude, as pretty much all of the Howling Hex's material has shown, and XI is no different. Chugging past with the classic rock moves, country touches, and woozy saxophones that have marked the band's late-night, small-stage sound from the start, the album offers a solid, one-note sort of comfort. The guy playing guitar has listened to a lot of Sonny Sharrock, the saxophonist is decidedly un-SNL-ish, and as it is a collaborative effort, the group even gets away with some spoken word. Hagerty is done with Trux, and he's done being Neil Hagerty, in fact. He's Neil Michael Hagerty now, and he plays bass. Deal with it." - Mike McGuirk Lives in Thailand and You Don't

Enablers
"Enablers. Those cunning, compulsive and malevolent compatriots we eagerly allow to drag us along to our willful destruction. Those little demons that flutter in our ears encouraging us to do what we know best not to do.

Fitting to its name, the San Francisco quartet Enablers writes songs that are equally manipulative and encouraging to our darkest desires. The band made up of journeyman veterans of Swans, Tarnation, Nice Strong Arm and Toiling Midgets merges dramatic and flowing melodic soundscapes -- of which SF Gate calls "possibly the world's best power trio" -- with the visceral spoken narratives of underground literary veteran Pete Simonelli. It's almost as though the band's fluid and often soothing music exists to distract our better instincts while Simonelli whispers above it all, urging and lulling us into the dark, decrepit world of his words. (bio)

Ghost to Falco
"Swooping bass lines, feedback at odd intervals, slo-mo percussive riffs when the drums are playing, and the rare touch of horns--put like that, you might think it sounds like a bunch of gibbons loose in the studio, but Portland-based troubadour Eric Crespo manages to blend it all into a batch of sludge folk that alternately soothes and rattles the ears." - Boise Weekly

Dragging an Ox Through Water
"A one man band who plays intimate freaked-out folk songs on fluent acoustic guitar interspersed with bursts of noise from a rube goldbergian system of pedals and amps, bits of melody played on a recorder, and the occasional pounding tom. Even sweating through the high fever he had today, Brian (Dragging an Ox's secret identity) somehow manages to make it all heartbreakingly intimate and personal and totally unpretentious." - PDX Pop Now

Northern Liberties
from Philadelphia, a comic book punk rock trio obsessed with the Vivian Girls and pigeons

Punk Rock Sideshow w/DJ Tragic & the Duchess of Hazard, every Monday

Mute Socialite
Hi energy post-punk from drummer/percussionist Moe! Staiano and crew.

Time of Orchids
NYC's Time of Orchids wed prog rock with 60's Italian film scores.

"Lots of jagged edges and a very strong punk/hardcore influence, although still within the context of angular and unpredictable avant-rock."

"Haunted cinematography and elliptical poetry." - Time Out New York

Breezy Days Band
Shambolic, ramshackle recovering melodicists.

Cellular Chaos
Another intense assault by this heavy group featuring Weasel Walter on guitar, bassist Damon Smith and dual drummers William Winant and Mark E. miller. Fans of last exit/fushitshusha/blue humans loud/fast/dissonant skronk will rejoice as the hammer smashes upside their skull. (bio)

N. Lannon
"Nyles Lannon's credits include the band Film School and an electronic project, n.In, but as n.Lannon he could fill the shoes vacated by indie-rock's best folk-guitar finger-picker, Elliott Smith. He uses Smith's so-wrong-it's-right sense of melody, phrasing and even recording technique on tender titles like "Hollow Heart" and "Turn Time Around." Throughout the rest of the acoustic/electronic, ambient pop package, he devises ways to showcase his gentle voice and picking prowess, mostly succeeding at hiding its folkier charms with synthesized washes of sound and beat (as on the faded and freaked-out tracks "Demons" and "The Nature of Things")." - Rolling Stone

Pancho Sanza
Patrick Abernethy of Beulah and Rogue Wave and a rotating cast of Known Associates.

The Matinees
A San Francisco boy/girl duo, creating stripped-down guitar-based songs that are alternately fervent, bouncy and pensive.

Pure Country Gold
"The Portland two-piece outfit, Pure County Gold feed from the same hollow echo guitar sound the Oblivians brought to the nineties, as if they were lucky enough to end up with one of Ray Butts' EchoSonic amps themselves. Their building rhythms and booty-shaking breakdowns are as soul quenching as they come." - Victim of Time

The Pleasure Kills
Go chug a six pack, take three shots of whiskey, hit yourself on the head with a frying pan, and listen again. That's what we sound like live. (autobiography)

Davlla 666
Rock and roll garage mania from Puerto Rico.

Brimstone Howl
"Part bluesy roots punk ala Gun Club, part Oblivians/Childish lo-fi raunch, part 60s British Invasion slop; Brimstone Howl is ALL rock'n'roll." - Lowcut

Neil Hamburger
America's Funnyman is back!

"Despite his appalling comic timing, muddled delivery, and cliched material, stand-up Neil Hamburger nevertheless emerged as one of the most acclaimed and name-checked comedians of his generation; like Lenny Bruce before him, he was a hipster icon whose trailblazing riffs defied conventions at every turn, transcending the confines of hilarity with kamikaze recklessness. Prior to his ascendance, comedians were expected not only to be funny, but insightful as well; Hamburger changed all that forever." - All Music Guide

Pleaseeasaur
(already in the name, flashes the unholy nexus between the sheer relentlessness of Godzilla and the pleasures of pleasure)

PLEASEEASAUR: An astonishing two-man entertainment strike-force comprised of performer/musician JP Hasson and projectionist/costume designer/multimedia extraordinaire Thomas Hurley III.

A dynamic duo that specializes in the absurd...and the absurdly funny. From the commercial jingle-esque hits like No Prob Limo or Pizza Brothers & Sons Inc. to the educationally motivated WARNING: These Cobras Are Totally Cool... Pleaseeasaur's ever-expanding field of inspiration is similar to that of a deep space vacuum...where equal parts surreal lunacy, pop orthodoxy, literary syntax, infomercial music and sheer idiocy are culled, cultivated and transformed into classic Pleaseeasaur song form...then dispensed with glee to pleasure seekers of every ilk amongst their rapidly growing world-wide cult following. (bio)