Picks of the Week

U.S. Air Guitar Championships at the Key Club
June 17, 2004
"Remember, the whole point of technique and training is to be able to give yourself to the moment and trust enough in your technique to let go," espoused 2003's World Air Guitar champion/god David "C-Diddy" Jung. "To let go" is really the point of the U.S. Air Guitar Championships, where the rules are unfussy: Contestants from regional heats get two superintense minutes to fervently channel Steve Vai or any other musical authority to help them cast the caterwaul of their pretend Stratocasters to virtuosic heights, all the while discharging onto the audience such tangible show enhancers as fingerboard acrobatics and feral, armpit-inducing moves. Judges score entrants on technical prowess, stage presence and what's dubbed as "airness"—to what degree the result of the performance surpasses mere imitation and embodies its own majestic art form. The victor of this bout goes on to battle in Finland's World Air Guitar Championships for a fair shake at air-guitar supremacy and, ironically enough, a very real guitar. Rock the fuck out, man. (Phuong-Cac Nguyen)

The Owls at the Silverlake Lounge
July 19, 2004
The Owls' marquee attraction is that they're unashamedly facile. So much, in fact, that the band swings hazardously close to ironic 'n' twee bands like Belle & Sebastian. But the former members of the Hang Ups and the Legendary Ruiz Group — Allison LaBonne, Maria May and Brian Tighe — make headway on the Our Hopes and Dreams EP with their straight spin on familiar, gossamer melodies and by lyrically leapfrogging through lost humdrum love. It's this lack of irony as vehicle that keeps the Owls one of us. By continuously switching duties on instruments and vocals like a game of hot potato, the group dovetail their songs and delivery into a singular aural value. It all comes together live in the winsome "Air," the craftiness and beauty of which is only surpassed by the Harriet Wheeler-like vocals of May. Natural just feels and sounds better. Also at Spaceland on Tues., as part of the International Pop Overthrow festival. (Phuong-Cac Nguyen)

Hint Hint @ the Echo
August 12, 2004
From such a wonderful city — green-conscious, Bush-hatin', home of the Fremont Troll — some Seattle bands still have found their art in making party-pooper music. Maybe the angst is inspired from an unconscious need to balance out the global success of local giants Microsoft and Starbucks; hell, maybe it's just the espresso. Seattle's Hint Hint are a five-member post-punk band laying gloominess (aha! It's really the cold climate, then) against a stark alienation that, if you don't outgrow by your mid-20-something years, is something serious to worry about. The band's emotional stability aside, though, Hint Hint let listeners steep in unrefined emotion that's perfect for etching, with a used needle, of course, on bare-bathroom walls: "Beyond my barricades/lay all smashed-up shrines/This nonstop feeling oh when will it end/It never ends." When vocalist Peter Quirk sings, it sounds as if his voice is shaking, but this quality lends a sort of on-the-verge sincerity that the fuzzy strings emphasize. (Phuong-Cac Nguyen)

Holly Golightly at Spaceland
October 30, 2004
When Holly Golightly left her garage alma mater Thee Headcoatees for a solo career, she veered six feet deep into the blues and meat-and-potatoes rock & roll territories. Golightly went on to record at a frenetic pace, knocking out her own songs as well as covers of Bill Withers, Lee Hazelwood and the Kinks, all done in an inimitable, sexy, swaggering vocal that sounds like Vaseline on sandpaper and is as elastic as a fatso's waistband. More recently, her repartee with Jack White on Elephant's "It's True We Love One Another" and guest spots with Rocket From the Crypt only bonded her more permanently to her versatility. Yeah, L.A. ain't Memphis, but live Ms. Golightly's music can conjure up the atmosphere of a small room filled with the milky haze of dozens of imaginary cigarettes burning like incandescent table candles. (Phuong-Cac Nguyen)

Skinny Puppy, Otto Von Schirach at Avalon
November 27, 2004
There's no denying that Satan has met his doppelganger in the form of sonic madman Otto Von Schirach, a Cuban/German mix who lives among the sunny climes of Miami and is bizarrely popular with many native Peruvians. Trying to describe Von Schirach's latest burn mark on the world, Global Speaker Fisting, is really like trying to explain the throes of a bad case of diarrhea — no matter how many expletives and noises are employed, you truly are alone in your moment. Lyrics sung-spoken in guttural tones about a goat threatening some poor girlie with his cum against a death-metal background, blubbery beats rebounding off minimalist techno runs, a scratchy-accordion monster mash, hip-hop dipped in boiling IDM vats, beats spliced and spiffed and spoofed; this is the aural vomit that makes up the genius. Von Schirach opens up for industrial veterans Skinny Puppy, who recruited him to program their latest album. (Phuong-Cac Nguyen)

My Way My Love at the Knitting Factory
December 26, 2004
Can something organic actually come from tech-obsessed Japan? Yeah, and it's in the form of My Way My Love, on their first stateside tour after jumping the Big in Japan barrier. The trio's power play is in their experimental indie rock that smells of Sonic Youth's halcyon days; in "Sound of Gold," from the band's upcoming Hypnotic Suggestion: 01 on Chicago's File 13 label, singer Yukio Murata sounds like a Thurston Moore clone against the same distorted flanks that put the New York group on the map. And just when the compositions can't get any better, the band lets some of the tracks hang out in all their punk-inflected glory by displaying them without vocals. Isn't there a saying that the Japanese are best at taking American ideas and improving them? But My Way My Love are quintessentially un-Japanese, a novelty in itself that makes them so likable, so good. And, thankfully, they're not cute. Also at the Silverlake Lounge, Mon. (Phuong-Cac Nguyen)

Mobius Band at Cinespace
June 1, 2005
When you put on Mobius Band's City vs. Country EP from obdurately progressive label Ghostly International, it strikes you like a full-on body slap felt when executing a belly flop into murky water: fleecy guitar rhythms interrupted by bleeps and the uncluttered syncopations from electronic drums and the rainbow washes of a synthesizer. Ben Sterling's and Peter Sax's vocals then carry you back up to the surface of reality on an inner tube of electro-pop, leaving you still steeped deeply enough to revel in the clasping melodies of songs such as "Starts Off With a Bang" and "Multiply." It's all very pastoral, which makes sense because of the band's backwoods roots. Take these songs as a preview of their upcoming full-length, and you have shoegazing music for the electronic set. (Phuong-Cac Nguyen)