Featured Story
Pataphysics - Take a Look Out Your Window (Business Deal)
Essentially a one-man album, Take a Look Out Your Window leaves you feeling giddy, giggly, and silly. The band is Pataphysics but it’s Patrick Healy bathing under the heat lamps, dancing, clutching the microphone to his heart, crowned by a fuzzy wolf hat and sacrificing the profane. “I’m a children’s music performer. [K]ids love making fun of everything that is sacred - no exception.” Assuming most of us have the good sense to still be childlike, the 350 copies of Pataphysics’ album will likely be gobbled up like Oreos spirited from grandma’s cookie jar. So do yourself a favor and look for it.
Lest you think that the band name promises an exercise in “the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments” and feel a bit cowed by Pataphysics, fret not. Choosing the name of the project was merely a convenient and cute pun, not a statement of intent. Not to be restrained, however, Healy wrote me saying, “We’re just an eccentric rock group I guess - we might get weirder and work in theories of ‘Pataphysics’ when we mature musically. Who knows.” [Read More]
Features
Interview: Charles Potts Magic Windmill Band»
This month, the Charles Potts Magic Windmill band released their sophomore LP, The Golden Calves. Like most of their work, The Golden Calves carries a biting wit that balances the narratives between irony and sincerity, emphasized by the group’s impressively tight, dead-pan harmonies. With the now-sextet adding drums and more power to their live sound, the Windmill Band expertly pushes boundaries of both genre and taste with their famously self-described “New York City style experimental country.” We spoke with Windmill Band founders Dirk Michener and Travis Catsull for an expectedly tongue-in-cheek explanation of their sound, the band’s origins, the organization of Business Deal Records, and the wonders of sleeping in ditches and cars.
Live Sound
Oh No! Oh My!/ Corto Maltese/ Legs Against Arms/ Gulf of Mexico (Emo’s Lounge - June 27, ‘08)»
Although the buzz was a buzzin’ at Emo’s Lounge about Oh No! Oh My!, who were just back from their European tour, Legs Against Arms and Corto Maltese stole the spotlight with their effervescent energies and incredibly catchy set lists. But, let’s start at the beginning. Before opener Gulf of Mexico had even started, there was a decent amount of people shuffling into a poorly lit Emo’s Lounge. The Lounge isn’t quite the pinnacle of the Emo’s trilogy, if you know what I mean… Even so, if you build it, and call it Emo’s, they will come.
Sound Off
Sound Off: Diagonals»The Diagonals slice an infectious cross between classic garage guitar jangle and Eighties underground dance beats. The quintet unloads more than their fair share of quirky anthems, and over the past year has solidified with a distinct sound that adds some welcome new textures to the familiar guitar and synth combination with their touches of surf licks and deadpan delivery. Diagonals are preparing the release of their debut EP this week and full-length in the fall, but you can catch them live any number of times this holiday weekend, including Saturday night July 5 at the new Monarch Events Center with Pataphysics, Silver Pines, Cari and Jason of Belaire, Hollywood Gossip, and Bear Claw, and again Sunday, July 6 with a free show at Red 7 alongside the Strange Boys and Strange Attractors.
Sound Reviews
Pataphysics - Take a Look Out Your Window (Business Deal)»Essentially a one-man album, Take a Look Out Your Window leaves you feeling giddy, giggly, and silly. The band is Pataphysics but it’s Patrick Healy bathing under the heat lamps, dancing, clutching the microphone to his heart, crowned by a fuzzy wolf hat and sacrificing the profane. “I’m a children’s music performer. [K]ids love making fun of everything that is sacred - no exception.” Assuming most of us have the good sense to still be childlike, the 350 copies of Pataphysics’ album will likely be gobbled up like Oreos spirited from grandma’s cookie jar. So do yourself a favor and look for it. Lest you think that the band name promises an exercise in “the science of imaginary solutions, which symbolically attributes the properties of objects, described by their virtuality, to their lineaments” and feel a bit cowed by Pataphysics, fret not. Choosing the name of the project was merely a convenient and cute pun, not a statement of intent. Not to be restrained, however, Healy wrote me saying, “We’re just an eccentric rock group I guess - we might get weirder and work in theories of ‘Pataphysics’ when we mature musically. Who knows.”
The Bellfuries - Palmyra (SR)»Here in Austin we've had well over a month of temps over 90 degrees. And we just bought a car with no air conditioning. It's a 1966 Mustang and we decided the suffering is worth it...because it's just so damn cool. We also try to do only "cool" things with the car: we drive to free night swims at Barton Springs, get custard from Sandy's drive-thru...get the picture? We're pretty much a band of greasers rumbling down the streets of Austin. It's a car that matches half of our CD collection (Jim's half is Decemberists-ish and Jillian's half is Byrds-y), and in the unbearable heat of the Texas summer, its heavy frame and vinyl interior are our relief from that oppressive feeling that everything is dull or uninteresting.
Silver Pines - Forces (SR)»I distinctly remember the first time I was introduced to Silver Pines - one night in Dallas, I struck up a conversation with a couple guys from The Theater Fire. Once they discovered I had gone to school in San Marcos they were baffled to know I had never heard, according to them, this amazing band. Needless to say, I immediately got on the internet and was swiftly consumed in the whirlwind of musical sorcery that is Silver Pines. This encounter was only the first of many that I would have with multiple musicians who also confessed a deep love and admiration for this group of artists. The seemingly universal respect of their peers aside, the devotion is more than justified and similar to their self-proclaimed influence Kaleidoscope, in that, although their sound isn’t mainstream and popular to the general public, it is obviously born of tremendously unique and talented musicians.
Annabella - Say Goodnight (Las Olas)»Remembering is a mixed-blessing. Even in our happiest memories there is an inherent sense of loss - a longing for a moment buried in time, unable to be relived. In that respect, Annabella’s Say Goodnight is like a stack of faded photographs. Each track has the fragile beauty and melancholy of an old picture: a snapshot of a sunset, a day at the beach, or a lost love. On this, their third album, Georgetown’s Annabella has reached a new peak and delivered an album as smart as it is emotional, as playful as it is haunting, and as beautiful as it is tragic.
