1. The latest atrocity to set off our google alert…. Enjoy at your own risk.

    -HHM

  2. final preparations.  tonight.  are you ready?  The Rock Shop, 10pm.  Park Slope, BK.  http://on.fb.me/RWEparty

  3. Next Thursday!  Be there.

    Next Thursday!  Be there.

  4. Uncle-ing all week in San Joaquin County… Stained-Glass-Cookie-Making…  Happy Christmas/Winter-holiday-of-your-choice…. Love, warmth, joy, and togetherness to all. -HHM

    Uncle-ing all week in San Joaquin County… Stained-Glass-Cookie-Making…  Happy Christmas/Winter-holiday-of-your-choice….

    Love, warmth, joy, and togetherness to all.

    -HHM

  5. The night before we left on the little-jeep-that-could tour back in October, we played at The Paper Swan in Bushwick.  It was intimate and lovely, and they’ve put up one of the tunes we played, called “Is It Gonna Rain.”  Enjoy

  6. holy shit -- we're Deli's "Record of the month" →

    “Resolved dissonance” is one of the very cool things about music - Sonic Youth mastered it to perfection. But honestly I have a hard time thinking about a “clean sounding” band that uses dissonance as purposefully as Brooklyn based super-obscure (but not for long) “The Hot Holy Mess”. These guys only have two songs available online at this stage, but they are both satisfying my originality AND poppiness needs at once, which happens very rarely. Most importantly, they don’t sound anything like Animal Collective, which these days is a major plus for any experimental-ish indie band. The song “Focus Focus,” streaming here, is some kind of zany experimental psych-pop collage that bounces from a beatles-y verse (circa 1967) to an atmospheric bridge reminiscent of French band Air, to a circusy chorus involving harp, violin stabs and almost comical falsetto parts. What’s hard to convey in writing is the band’s flair and overall smoothness of the operation. Bravo! The second song “Long Ride Down” develops in a folkier and more intimate direction, with acoustic guitars and hand claps. Dissonance again pays visits in the vocals and guitar parts, and later on in super-psychedelic distorted violin solos, adding layers of tension and alienation to an otherwise mellow song.

  7. New song coming soon about this guy.... →

    Hiromitsu Shinkawa floating on the roof of his former home

    I encountered the story of Hiromitsu Shinkawa in brief in the NYTimes the day that it ran in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last Spring.  It gave me the seed for the imagery to one verse of a song whose working title has been “Questions and Patience.” 

    The song has languished since then, but yesterday I took it out to chip away a bit at it, so I decided to see what more details I could find.  This GQ in-depth yielded the trove of intimate details I was hoping for, and I’m happy to report that the lyric is finished and the band will be workshopping the song ASAP, so you may hear it in January or soon thereafter.

    I couldn’t help thinking of “Relato de un Naufrago” and “The Open Boat” while reading this article.  I’m sure this crossed the author’s mind as well and while Paterniti may not be in the league of Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Stephen Crane, he does an admirable job of throwing his literary hat in the ring while executing the journalistic imperative.  The narrative arc is elegant, the imagery memorable and fluid. 

    Enjoy!

    -Skye

  8. Live version of Red Raincoat, from the show at Branded last weekend.

  9. preparing the first press-mailing for HT-001, the Red Wild Eye phono-zine. Know anybody who needs one?

    preparing the first press-mailing for HT-001, the Red Wild Eye phono-zine.

    Know anybody who needs one?

  10. [Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

    Tony and rats10 plays

    Our friend Anthony Pugh, aka logikone, agreed to provide cover art for the Red Wild Eye 7”, and we decided to include an interview with him as part of the ‘zine.  I caught up with Tony a few weeks ago at an erotic art event where he was doing live painting in a corner while the hostess lead an orgasm-simulation contest and passed around giant-black-cock birthday cake to all the revelers.  The cake was not half bad, but the atmosphere was not conducive to the heart-to-heart that I had in mind, so we beat it over to Washington Square Park where we could speak freely. 

    Our conversation ranged from the joys of teaching youth, to the frustrations of dealing with art collectors and the perils an artist faces in our materially-obsessed culture and city, to the racial sub-text of the X-men.  Highlights from our chat will appear in the Red Wild Eye ‘zine.

    This anecdote— prompted by the sudden appearance of a pack of Washington Square Rats beneath our bench— will not appear in the ‘zine, but I found it memorable enough to share.  Enjoy!