“Big Troubles” (Used 4 times)

Ducktails' Christmas 2008 live WFMU set on Marty McSorely's show is now available on 12'' vinyl courtesy of Inflated Records. It's the label's second release -- the first is a sweet Memoryhouse 7'' with a Teengirl Fantasy remix).

Ducktails Live on WFMU comes in an edition of 500, first half on yellow vinyl, and it's available starting tonight at the Glasslands release party. Joining Ducktails will be fellow Ridgewood NJ up-and-comers (and tour-buddies) Big Troubles and Julian Lynch, plus Chicago's Campfires, Brooklyn's La Big Vic, and the aforementioned DJ Marty McSorely.

Ducktails = Matt Mondanile of Real Estate, joined occasionally by friends and cohorts, and his live WFMU session was a pivotal moment in my appreciation of this underwater beach-jam project.

The session spread like wildfire across the web, posted by Mondanile himself, reposted on lotsa blogs, and referred to as "Best Tails set I ever heard" on twitter. Enjoy a couple cuts from this classic WFMU session, and from the bands playing tonight's release party (the studio version of this live Big Troubles track is available on a new Olde English Spelling Bee 7'')

>> Inflated Records, proprietor of Ducktails 12''

The first time i saw Big Troubles play live, it hit me like My Bloody Valentine at All Tomorrow's Parties, but with Sugar-ier tunes in a smaller space (NYC's Le Poisson Rouge). At that moment, I was intoxicated not just by the music, but by the alcohol. So later on I decided that I should always eat dinner, because those shades of Jesus and Mary Chain jangle-fuzz might've just been my blurred imagination...but my impressions were later affirmed by the far more reliable ears of Doug Gillard. He'd recently shared a bill with Big Troubles, and encouraged them to play live at WFMU.

Sure enough, the session is bursting with 2-minute doses of blissed-out shoegaze-y pop. "Freudian Slips" (a version of which debuted on the wfmu blog back in December) is the most immediately infectious, while the Pollard-y "Drastic & Difficult" might be my favorite from the session, and with so many new tunes in the mix, I am very excited about the future of this band. Olde English Spelling Bee is set to release their debut LP this summer, along with a 7''. Last I heard, Blackburn Recordings still has a few copies of the 4-song "Freudian Slips" 7''. Alex Craig and Ian Drennen made these recordings as a duo with blownout drum machines, fuzz guitar, and a touch of psychedelic effects wizardry. Live, they're joined by Sam Franklin (Fluffy Lumbers) and Luka Usmani (No Demons Here). 

The group's hometown of Ridgewood NJ is a breeding ground for music as of late (Ducktails, Julian Lynch, Real Estate), especially if you include neighboring town of Glen Rock (Titus Andronicus, Vice City Rockers). But Big Troubles don't really sound anything like these other artists. During the Talk's Cheap interview, they cited music as-heard-on the television show Pete and Pete as an influence, and primarily picked out tunes late 80s/mid 90s for their DJ set, which included Cleaners from Venus, Lilys, and Tobin Sprout. Rather than spotlight other music from Ridgewood, they tipped us off to intercontinental contemporaries from Australia (The Twerps) and Germany (Vomit Heat).

a mix of psychedelic sounds ranging from funk to shoegaze to folk to sitar-laced spacerock, by artists hailing from across the USA (Bay Area, Ohio, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Florida) to the UK, Russia, and Turkey.

Big Troubles is the shoe-gazin' duo of Alex Craig and Ian Drennen from Ridgewood NJ. They're bringing the 4-piece live band to my radio show Talk's Cheap on Tuesday May 11th. This comes off a Various Deficiencies Volume 1, free compilation from Blackburn Recordings that also features music from Cursillistas, Metal Rouge, City Center, Cloud Nothings. (Cover art for Big Troubles' debut 7'' at right)

5unday5essions is an online collaborative project (that you are encouraged to take part in!) with all sorts of interesting results this this song about swallowing mustache hair.

The Vocokesh hail from New Berlin, Wisconsin. This sitar-laden jam is one of three tunes available via Strange Attractors Audio House, along with many more instrumental "out" sounds from the likes of Kinski, Cul de Sac/Damo Suzuki, Glenn Jones, Tsurubami, and Steffen Basho-Junghans.

Hayvanlar Alemi are a contemporary psych-rock band from Turkey inspired by the first international wave of psychedelic music. Here's an article I wrote about their dub album Visions of a Psychedelic Ankara.

Tommy Jay (pictured at left) is the not-so-secret weapon of the Harrisburg, Ohio collective revolving around musicians like Mike Rep (he of "lovingly fucked with by-" fame), T.A. Lafferty, The General, Nudge Squidfish, Jim Shepard, Don Howland, and Ron House. This 1974 basement recording can be found on Tommy Jay's Tall Tales Of Trauma, one of many collections just now being put to vinyl courtesy of the good people at Columbus Discount Records.