Are you ready to embark on a a deep and dark journey through the depths of the 4th dimension? If you are then don’t miss out on any of these dates way up north where the air is cleaner and the vibes will be cosmic.

Bok Bok, along side partner L-Vis 1990, recently launched their Night Slugs record label which has just dropped it’s second release courtesy of Egyptrixx called “The Only Way Up”.

Night Slugs first release was Mosca’s Square One EP which you can get a taste of from the above video. Get ready for the invasion with Bok Bok’s new Night Sluggin’ mix for URB magazine.

Saturday, April 3rd Killing Spree return with their dark dance floor sensibilities, this time with some friends in-tow. This installment of the Los Angeles minimal synth/cold wave party will take place at the Show Cave in Eagle Rock, and will feature a live performance from San Diego’s Goth Masters Blessure Grave, and a special DJ set by NYC’s Premier Neo-Folk champions Cult of Youth!

San Diego’s Blessure Grave are quite possibly the most exciting band to emerge from Southern California since the post-hardcore bands of the 90s. Citing such influences as The March Violets, Rudimentary Peni & The Cure, they definitely stand out in their own vein of dark cold wave bliss. Their debut album, Judged by 12, Carried by 6 (on Alien8 Recordings) has already become a cult favorite amongst bloggers and goth enthusiasts alike.

And if that weren’t dark enough, Cult of Youth’s Sean Ragon & Glenn Maryansky behind the turntables so it should prove to be a truly proper evening for LA’s dark side at Killing Spree.

Saturday April 3rd, 10pm
Show Cave
3501 Eagle Rock Blvd
Los Angeles, CA
$5 admission
21+ to enter!

oOoOO – S/T CD-R EP (2010) [Disaro] // Grade: B

Because I still can’t get enough of SALEM’s sound, oOoOO’s 6-track CD-R released through Disaro in a painfully tiny quantity of 100, is right up my alley. It would seem “drag” is carving itself out a nice little niche fanbase this year and I’m not complaining. In comparison to SALEM, oOoOO, favor a brighter pop and shoegaze sound. Take the word “bright” loosely though, oOoOO are still dark, mysterious and elusive as hell.

The CD-R, which also serves as an EP, combines several of the tracks that have already been making the internet rounds. “NoSummr4u” samples Nocera’s freestyle track “Summertime, Summertime”, slowly blending the vocals convincingly enough to pass off oOoOO as a female-fronted act. “Pckrfcrmx” is another sample-heavy track and probably the most interesting remix of Lady Gaga’s “Pokerface” you’ll ever hear. A late 90s Timbaland style beat gives turns Gaga’s vocals into chopped-up, dark hip-hop.

But it isn’t just oOoOO’s smooth, effective sampling that stands out. The six tracks on the CD-R are all wildly, stylistically different. “No Shore” references balearic disco while “sedsumting” culls from classic trip-hop artists and “Mumbai” takes on African rhythms with a cinematic overtone. “Egyptynlvr” is the CD-R’s most accessible track, another vocal sample-heavy selection, this time one for fans of electronic pop.

While oOoOO still feel like another of these acts that are cryptic for the sake of it, the music you get with that package is well worth your time to search out. Since I started off this review with a SALEM comparison, I may as well end with another. After a ton of listens to this CD-R, oOoOO’s music has much more going for it in terms of variety, skill and innovation. When SALEM’s candle blows out, oOoOO are still going to be there, so long as you know where to look.

If you are a regular reader of music blog Gorilla vs. Bear then you have probably heard something from the mysterious UK (or are they Swedish?) fuzz pop outfit Summer Camp. Many have been quick to lump Summer Camp into one genre or another, be it lo-fi or chillwave, but I think you’ll all agree after a listen or two that the band’s music is way more complex and interesting than simply lumping them in with whatever buzz worthy genre most blogs are all up on.

To me Summer Camp sounds a lot like the Breakfast Club Soundtrack left to cook in the sun on a turntable… but maybe that’s the Molly Ringwald samples the band is generous in including along with their songs. It’s nostalgic pop centered around catchy girl/boy vocal dynamic that will be a welcomed addition to your Summer playlists.

I also think part of the band’s appeal is their mysterious allure! There are no pictures of the band anywhere and they only release one or two songs here and there to blogs with no real intentions it seems of putting out an album. They do however have a pretty great blog where they post loads of found images ranging from family vacations to drunk punk rockers whipping their dicks out, fun for all!

With no albums, shows, or even a clear answer as to what country they hail from the band seems like a dream or a fuzzy, distant memory which is more then fitting for the music being produced by the group and I love it.

No not Chuck Shuldiner’s (R.I.P.) legendary the death metal Death, but the mid-70s Detroit black proto-punk band featuring the Hackney brothers!  Their record For The Whole World To See…, was kinda lost there for some decades until Drag City resurrected it from obscurity last year.

Everybody whose heard the album now loves Death to death and you gotta go to this show! Not only are Death playing but Bobby Hackney’s three sons started a band inspired by Death called Rough Francis who are opening. This show is going to be the end all, be all!

Friday April 2nd, 7pm
Europa
98 Mesorole Ave.
Brooklyn, NY
$15 (Advance Tix)
18+ to Enter!

I found an old videotape. Something about these two girls made me want to play it back and forth over and over again. Music for this episode is “Tightly” by Blevin Blectum.

With this episode Kill Will With Video will conclude it’s first season so-to-say. We’ll be back in May with new episodes of KWV!

Harlem – Hippies (2010) [Matador] // Grade: B+

Harlem is adorable. Literally: to be adored. They’re also adorable, i.e. totally non-threatening and irreverent, the sort of guys whose major edge is not only knowing where to get the cheapest beer, but also which house party will be the most fun and which park is best for drinking if said party ends up bummer central. Austin epitomized: Harlem is wide-eyed bright colors and heat waves. Such a blast you can hardly stand it.

Because Hippies—and last year’s debut Free Drugs;-), for that matter—isn’t rocket science, and they know it. Probably. The garage (ish) revivalists (sort of) at least seem totally jazzed about making songs sans bullshit. That Matador cottoned to their thing is all the better, but you get the sense that the Austin-by-way-of-Tuscon trio would be cranking out the same simply raucous rock jams regardless. Hippies is, after all, just an extension of what they’ve been doing all along: a few chords, a squeal of harmony, a wink, a nudge. It’s like early Pixies that way; the skeleton of a mega-catchy pop song outfitted with a sense of humor and the weirdo shock of slow-mo solos (“Gay Human Bones”) and out-of-nowhere drum stampedes (“Torture Me”). The hollow dissonance and heart-tugging two-note melodies that set them, bewildered, apart from their contemporaries. Harlem’s all set to be the next Next Big Thing, but do they know? I don’t know.

And that’s the crux of Hippies. The thrill of it, really, because it’s all too rare: the album refuses to take itself seriously. 40+ minutes of mid-century jangle—the stylish kind, the so on-trend—and never once does it bow for a curtain call, all roses and congratulations in its cleverness. And who knows? This could all be some calculated, ego-driven exercise, less good-times than look-at-me, but the album never lets on. Rather, Hippies falls to the side of sustainable substance: distinctly go-lucky songs that, calculated or not, evoke a visceral sort of honesty. Music is fun. Fuck it. Let’s dance.

After two years, it was nice to see Sun and Jin together on-screen again. They were together on the plane and at customs in the beginning of the season, but an entire episode devoted to the Kwons has been a long time coming. Flash Sun and Jin aren’t married (which I was more surprised about than Desmond showing up) and without that added stress of being Paik’s son in law, Jin is much more affectionate towards her. The foreplay scene in the hotel room was pretty awesome. But despite all the well-deserved warmth for the Kwons, their flash didn’t really move anything forward. Like with most of the flashes, I’m sure it’ll be more enjoyable when viewed as a whole – especially if the flashes are indeed the show’s epilogue. This epilogue theory found more support last night in the fact that flash Sun only spoke Korean, and Island Sun hits her head andis unable to speak English. Swish!

Remember when Lost used to surprise its audience on the reg? Putting Desmond back into play was something I think everyone was expecting and was a pretty underwhelming way to end the episode. It’s great to have him back in the game though. The face-off between Widmore and Flocke was my favorite moment of the episode. The war is on. We learned that Widmore’s plan for the Island/defeating Flocke involve the electromagnetic pockets mapped out by Dharma back in the ’70s. Remember Dharma? They were this group of hippie-scientists that used to be wicked important to the Lost universe.

Side note: I love this chubby dude who guns for Widmore. Seriously.

Flocke tells Claire he needs Jacob’s remaining candidates to get off the Island. The names in the lighthouse and in the cave differ, however. Kate’s name is crossed off in the cave and not in the lighthouse (Jacob’s list) so Flocke may have fucked up in telling Claire he only needs her to rally the remaining candidates. He was basically giving Claire the go ahead to kill Kate. We also learn that if Flocke gets off the Island, it’s the end of everything. That was a heavy statement and one that I hope is explored sooner than later.

Other notes: Sayid’s comment to Flocke about how he can’t “feel anything” anymore was my second favorite moment of the night. After his resurrection, Sayid appears to have lost his soul. This could help explain his seemingly unchanged flash world of violence. Jack was awesome last night, especially in his scene with Sun by the fire. Jack’s been great this entire season, IMO.

Special thanks to ABC for putting that fucking obnoxious countdown to V in the bottom corner of the screen for the entire episode. This is the final season of your most popular show, let’s see some class!

Blackest Night #8
Last week I opined like a typical miserable fanboy that I was tired of Blackest Night, and that I didn’t really dig how they wedged in the twist regarding the White Lantern. It wasn’t the fact that Sinestro took the reins for himself, and if I came off that way I certainly didn’t mean to. I suppose it just happened so quickly, at what I felt was the backend of the storyline that it felt forced to me.

But now? Now I’m fucking stoked for the conclusion. I’m bipolar, leave me the fuck alone.

The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve dug Sinestro becoming the White Lantern. He’s the one dude who called out the Guardians of Oa for being a batch of manipulative douchebags. In his gloriously overwrought speech at the end of Blackest Night #7 he rocks the fuck out, and then he takes the power of the cosmos for himself. You have to hand it to the guy. For suffering being in the middle of the Zombie Apocalypse, he’s having a pretty good day.

So word up! This is the epic conclusion to the last couple of years of plot in the DC Universe, and I’m interested to see where they’re going. The tights-and-capes have a shitload of zombies to take care of in this issue, and then they’re totally turning the page and embracing Brightest Day. What the fuck is Brightest Day? Well, it’s a marketing plot, dummy!

But it’s a new direction they’re taking the entire DC hordes. It’s hard to imagine anything not being brighter than eight-months of Zombie Hawkman ripping out hearts and eating them, though. I mean, he could be tweeking out on meth sitting in a corner shitting himself, and I’d be like, man, he’s doing a bit better. But it’s cool, it’s refreshing. It’s time for some less ponderous shit, no? We just meditated on life and death, good and evil in the darkest way possible. And while yeah, isn’t that what all comic books are about? But let’s do it in a happier manner, maybe Plastic Man can get into a fist-fight with Mister Mxyzptlk or some shit.

Shazam!

A-Team War Stories BA #1
You have to fucking adore comic books. It’s only through them that we’re treated to something like this. This is a comic book complete with a painting of Rampage Jackson, who is filling the shoes of Mr. T in the forthcoming A-Team remake. If seeing an oil painting or some shit of Rampage on the cover of a comic book isn’t enough to sell it, I’m not really sure what would be. It’s ridiculously surreal. I mean, I was bummed with Rampage giving up if only momentarily his career in the UFC to film this movie. But now? I don’t know man, now it makes a lot more sense.

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Hey keeds!  It’s your ol’ pal the the Toilet Cobra and I’m still alive.  I’ve just been scrambling to bring money in and I been doing bad and sad things to get that money which slowly kill off the part of me that’s able to make merry on the internet.  This Saturday was pretty good though.

Metropolis was having a big sale and Tim Warren who runs Crypt Records was there DJing.  Tim used to go to my parents’ old nightclub back in the early 1980s when Manhattan was still a fun place to be.  Here’s that “Charly about town”, Charly, secretly dry-humping Tim while he tries to DJ.

This is Drew who used to be in Killed by Rape and goes by the name Dr. Rape.  Now he licks pole and sells clothes. It was his birthday. Happy birthday, Dr. Rape. Next to him is Jesse from Ex Humans and Peace Killers.  Jesse kept sniffing the crotch on this Tina Turner shirt.

Here’s Richard who has run Metropolis for twenty years.  He gave me an awesome shirt with X-Wings on it from the mid-nineties when Star Wars shirts were at their peak.  I also managed to get a bicycle for twenty bucks from my pally, Kim. I hope that I lose my tubby tummy and save some money.

This is my first girlfriend, Elfie, as she appears nowadays.  We had dinner after the clothing store party.  She’s got some sort of neckrat taking a stroll around her shoulders. She went to Hungary for a while and is having trouble adjusting to our American ways.  I tried to French her but she was pushing me away by my forehead and I couldn’t get my tongue close enough.

This is the K Holes.  I’ve seen them a few times but they never sounded this good before.  No one mixes saxophones right and it really sounded good this time.  There’s a good mixture of X-Ray Spex and Chuck Berry sounds.  Jack does his little guitar dances while I ogle his wife who looks like a saloon gal from the Old West.  I wrote a song about looking at people’s wives until they stab me with knives. Jack shoved me after I sang him a song about wife oglery.

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