April showers

April Showers: best of April 2016

Musically, this month started somewhat dry, but later in the month.. well.. when it rains it pours. Here are the highlights. (caution: a lot of heavy selections this month)

Playlist sample of the records below (open in Spotify)
https://open.spotify.com/user/fluid3sally/playlist/67POqBjeaOySv2ujm3Fy4E


Cilver Not the End of the World
The biggest thunder dropped on April 29 with Cilver's debut. Separate review here:
http://joelspunkrock.blogspot.com/2016/04/new-record-cilver.html


PVRIS White Noise
Another very strong record this month was the sophmore release from Boston's PVRIS. They are on tour now and tickets are selling out. Recommended for fans of Metric, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Of Verona. Note that the first two songs start slow, and the pace picks up with track 3. Great throughout. I think it is pronounced like Paris, France.


Mike and the Melvins Three Men and a Baby
The Melvins were one of the definitive Seattle grunge bands.. of the pioneers of that sound in the mid-to-late 1980's. This time joined by Mike Kunka formerly of GodHeadSilo. Unlike most bands from the early grunge era, they have stayed active over the years, playing shows and releasing new material most years. This record has the classic sound, and it is good to hear that fresh and now.


Haken Affinity

A very solid collection of beats and song structures here. The word "prog" comes to mind. Recommended for fans of Rush and Muse


Niki & the Dove Everybody's Heart is Broken Now
Take a walk on the lighter side with this one. Cool, funky beats, and catchy songs. Good for a dance party.


Sixx:A.M. Prayers for the Damned
starts with "Rise" as the opening anthem. Hard not to like this.



SOTO Divak
Jeff Scott Soto and company lay down some solid hard rock. Toward the heavy end of the spunk spectrum, but with good vocals (not sreamed) it is worth it.


Willie Nile World War Willie
For fans of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. That should be praise enough.


Black Mountain IV
some indy, synth-laden, space funk. I can dig it.


Coathangers Nosebleed Weekend
Part of a pattern I am calling Riot Grrl: The Next Generation. Recommended for fans of Bratmobile and the Dollyrots


Ayria Paper Dolls
Electronic beats with lovely vocals.





Singles (Refer to playlist)

• Letlive.Good Mourning America
• Pierce the Veil 
• The Hearts: Lovers Drug 
• Kristen Kontrol
• Claire Maguire
• The Kills
• Contact
• Little Mix
• Bahari

Noteworthy:

PJ Harvey - a well-respected artist among people with musical tastes similar to mine. However, I could never really get into PJ Harvey. This album is no exception. Boring. Next.

Deftones: Another band that has been popular among people with music tastes like mine for many years now. It always sounds monotonous to me. Dido here.

Black Stone Cherry: Some good spunk attempts. Not quite there for me yet.

Babymetal: Interesting because they are little kids. Otherwise too formulaic.

Lacuna Coil: an outstanding metal band. In the past, they have had some good songs with singing vocals. Unfortunately, here they are found screaming too much for my ear.

Black Peaks: This band has spunk appeal, unfortunately the growling turns me off.

Aesop Rock: a wordy rapper. some good stuff, but the lyrics feel forced to me, and don't really "flow" easily. As a result, these songs are hard to listen to more than once.

Rob Zombie: sorry, the vocals  here are too ugly for my taste

New Record: Cilver

New Record: Cilver Not the End of the World.
Release date 29 April 2016

















Cilver dropped their debut record yesterday the way that mother nature drops thunder from way up above. The vocals are passionate, determined, and very strong. Riffs are choice and spunky, big booming bass and thunderous beats -- everything you could ask for in a hard rock band. Every song is a keeper, every song has its own memorable personality. The only thing better than the song playing now is the song coming next.

This is definitely one of the best new bands I've found lately, and one of the hottest on my to-see list. I'm currently looking forward to catching them at a festival in upstate New York with fellow spunk rock legend Halestorm.

I mistakenly counted this record as new in March, I think I was confused about the release date. No worries though, there is enough ass-kicking here for more than 2 months. This is easily the best record of April, likely the best so far this year, and I'd say it is now the record to beat for #1 in 2016.

bonus: score +1 for New York City in the running for Spunk Capital of the world.

see also best of April:
http://joelspunkrock.blogspot.com/2016/04/april-showers.html

One Feminist's thoughts on "chicks in rock"

Why Is This Still A Thing?

From the numbers, it is highly likely that I have a bias towards female vocals. (check out my LastFM library http://www.last.fm/user/FLuidXsaLe)

But here is the thing with that. Suppose I told you I was into Classic Rock. You might ask what sort of Classic Rock? to which I might  respond something like: Stones, Beattles, Hendrix, CCR, Zeplin, Sabbath, Aerosmith, and some more recent classics like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, NIN, Tool, etc.

Now if I gave a list like that, would you count it all up and observe... "All male vocalists? what's up with that?" I doubt many would ask that question.. and even fewer out loud. Most would think, yep, that's some good old-school Rock-'N'Roll. So is it remarkable that my list includes lots of women?

Now here's the more telling question... is it remarkable that so much popular, radio-type hard rock is not skewed female?

Could it be that some of us have an expectation of an archetype Rocker? It seems likely to me that some (bigger) record companies have that bias. I imagine record executives walking around a rock-n-roll festival thinking "what are these girls doing on stage and when does the show start?" Of course, record execs are not really that oblivious, but I think there is a much more subtle bias that, effectively, works the same way. I mean how, in this day and age can a person so versed in rock and pop music as a journalist, ask a question like "What's it like to be a girl in music?" or "Why did you choose to be in an all-girl band?" I mean WTF kind of question is that? Successful female musicians are all around us, and have been for years. But yet, I have heard Carrie Brownstein point out those very questions posed for real. See her book Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl here

http://www.amazon.com/Hunger-Makes-Me-Modern-Girl/dp/1594486638/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1460220391&sr=1-1&keywords=carrie+brownstein

I'm sure the Sleater-Kinney shirt line "Show me your riffs" is inspired by morons shouting "Show me your tits".

Now I hear Ariel point it out. And I've read articles where Siouxie talks about playing festivals, where the majority have not yet heard Dead Sara... chants like "take it off". How by the end of the set, they've made fans of most of the crowd, but still there is a startup cost.. still have to prove oneself. Carrie talks about the feeling that they had to prove themselves, in the culturally progressive Pacific Northwest, no less. Carrie has pointed out in the book, and other interviews, that the question "why did you decide to be in an all-male band?" has probably never been asked.. until now. I'm pretty sure Tobi Vail from Bikini has asked that question, or maybe she was joking, I'm not sure.

So strangely, being a woman in rock somehow is a thing. I'll suggest that to Jon Oliver as a segment, how is this still a thing?


What about the use of sexually provocative videos and stage shows?

Another feminist issue in music. So what to make of musicians like Miley Cyrus twerking? Or Madonna's Sex picture book? What about Revolver magazine, and the "Hottest Chicks in Hard Rock" calendar? 
http://www.revolvermag.com/news/get-your-copy-of-the-2016-hottest-chicks-in-hard-rock-calendar.html

There may be some subtle sexism at work there.

But it is not the woman singing who is in the wrong. The sexist culture is in the wrong.

If she chooses to exploit that bias to get her and her band noticed, I have no objection and I will not slut-shame her for it. How far a musician goes in that direction is one's own choice. That doesn't bother me.

What bothers me is the thought that she might need to. It is a bit like pop culture people are walking around at the music festival saying "what are these girls doing on stage? and when does the show start?" Ok so you probably have not heard that exactly, but what about this similar line: "rock is dead" or "Main stream rock is not what it used to be." Even after adjusting for the obvious bias that comes with old age (nostalgia for one's own youth), even beyond that, why are so many awesome Rockers minor stars while fart-knockers like Coldplay, Bruno Mars, and Nickelback are so damn popular? What's up with that? I think that we, as a general society, have a subtle bias, an expectation of a male archetype. Sure, plenty of men will exploit sexuality to be heard. It would be nice if both men and women didn't feel like they have to - to be heard, or taken seriously.

So, what to do about it?

It is impossible to live without bias. Our minds work that way. But bias can be corrected by simply being aware of it. The first step to that is pointing it out.

REL, Jump, and the Icon crew have pointed it out nicely, check out their video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9fGKx7yzF4

The thing with sexism is that it is subtle by nature. It is not likely you will see an executive job description that says "women need not apply." But yet there are more CEO's named John than there are women CEO's.  You'll never find a payroll spreadsheet where female paychecks are assigned a 0.7 multiplier. But that's only because we've fought through a lot of the obvious ones, like the right to vote. So sexism, when it happens now, is subtle.

When I see tags on lastFM like "female vocals", I do see a subtle bias behind it. Likewise when questions are asked like "What it like to be a girl in the music world?"

From there, what-to-do-about-it   -   Is wise up.    pay attention. And check out some music off the reservation of pop culture. I will be happy to make suggestions.

Why I Use Spotify

Many of my posts include playlists so you can sample the music I'm talking about. These are on the music streaming service Spotify. To get the best use of the Spunk Rock blog, I suggest to follow the playlists.

I've used a lot of streaming services over the years, and there are reasons why I've opted to build this blog around Spotify in particular.

First of all, if you're not sure how to use these playlists.. it is easy. You'll need to download and install the Spotify player. It functions much like others such as Windows Media Player or iTunes. But what is different is that it does not import and play "your" music. (Actually, there is a function to play local music files, but that's not the point.)

Rather than import "your" files, it works with the entire Spotify library, which is almost everything you could want, with a few notable hold-outs.

Once you have it up and running, the hyperlinks in my posts should take you right to the playlist, which you can then follow, or just play. If you follow a playlist, it will appear in your library, and you can take it off line, if you prefer.

Now, there is a free version, and a paid version. For the record, I use the paid version myself, and I do recommend it. However, I realize some people will not go there. No problem. You can still use the free (ad supported) version to play all of the Spunk Rock playlists. You will have advertisements in that case.

One thing I like about Spotify is that it does have a free tier. I started there myself and used it for some time before concluding that it was the right service for me. Had there been no free version, I probably would never have gotten to that conclusion. One of its best functions is sharing playlists - the modern equivalent of a mix tape. That would never work without a free version, because I could never ask people to take on a monthly payment just to hear my silly little playlists. Beyond the ads, there are other reasons to upgrade, for example, the free version does not have full functionality on a smart phone.

Spotify has been criticized by some for its free tier. Some artists choose not to put their music there, or to do so after a delay. Of course, this is their prerogative.  They are the creators. All I do is sit around and enjoy their work, and occasionally write some words about it.

But it is also our prerogative to criticize. When it comes to artists withholding from Spotify, not all are equal. For example, Spunk-Rock poster child Chantal Claret has withheld some of her tracks, because, as I understand it, the payout for artists like that is small, and it provides a legitimate way for people to get the music for free who might otherwise purchase it. In her case, I think that's fine.

But what about pop superstar Taylor Swift? She has famously taken her music off the service because (she claims) she objects to the idea that music should be free, implying this has been done on principle. I take issue with this.

Let's not forget, Taylor Swift is ridiculously over-paid as it is. She is part of the 1% of (mediocre) artists consuming 99% of music industry revenues. Keep in mind that there are serious rock-n-roll'ers out there struggling to pay the bills. I take their objections seriously.

If Taylor Swift cared about fair compensation for artists, she would not be taking a stand against Spotify, it would be against the many sites that allow music sharing with ZERO compensation for artists. Personally, I don't know how those sites work, but I'm told it can be done.

Spotify's payout for struggling artists is small. This is true. It is also true that their payout is directly proportional to the number of paid subscribers. And a good majority of their revenue goes to artists. The more people that buy in, the more dollars they pay out. That simple. So Taylor Swift could have a more positive influence by putting her music up to encourage her minions to use the service.

Purchasing discs is a thing of the past, and pay-per-download will not stand the test of time, I don't think. So you'd better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone. Streaming is the new market, and Spotify is part of the solution, not part of the problem. They provide a way to generate revenue in an era where file sharing is easy (I'm told).

Personally, I take some pride in being part of their paid subscriber base. In being one who contributes to supporting what I love.  By the way, if you are in a band and really kicking ass, I will (or already have) buy tickets and come to your show if you play within driving distance of my home town. While there, I will likely buy an overpriced T-shirt or other merch. In some cases I do this like a tip.. for kicking so much ass. But before I can come to your show, I have to hear the music and love it. And there are hundreds of new records every month. Do you really think I going to buy them all? There has to be a better way. Streaming services are it.

Now, enjoy a mixtape:
https://open.spotify.com/user/fluid3sally/playlist/3WOjwAXMdIqajy46OPuinw