“To Live And Shave In La” (Used 2 times)

The task of the blogger is hardly monumental, his works rarely of earth-shattering importance or clarion-call-heeding necessity. There's no reason for you, reading this, to trust that I've got much in the way of a messianic charge underlying my ideas, animating my words, urging me on to write what I do. No sense in the snake-oil-grimed claim that the result of this here pronouncement will, if taken to heart, alter your very perceptions, change your life, that whole bit. No reason, maybe, save my musical subject this week--and so I guess I'm asking a little leap of faith on your part, reader, when I say that you should drop everything, now, and get to checking out all the TO LIVE AND SHAVE IN L.A. that's up here on the FMA. I mean it; eschew your responsibilities, drive out all distraction. Do nothing else until you've listened to it all. As in, folks, if you're still reading once this paragraph ends, you'll have failed.

So I'll assume by now you've done your homework, and see why I had to be a bit pushy about it; I mean, ain't it just the best? I don't bluff: as the work of TLASILA constitutes the firm bedrock of any and all avant-noisey musics what've shook fleetingly across the tectonics of the underground in the last twenty years, nothing but complete surrender to the soil will do the trick. No band has done more to explore, map out, and claim the farthest corners of this thing we do--we diligent and focused listeners of what others might style 'trashy old noise'--and yet no band brings those marginal treasures back to feed the hungry masses with more wit (dig that Ron Jeremy-inspired band name) more elegance, more of that healthy optimistic iconoclasm that constitutes the task of any practitioner of 'degenerate art.' "Genre is obsolete," sez TLASILA; and then they prove it.

And they do it again and again; indeed, Tom Smith (whose always fantastic TLASILA blog is required reading) and his rotating spheres of disparate musical collaborators have set up in the hallowed halls of WFMU more than a little, and their available sets from Brian Turner's show are no less than full album performances, documents of hit after hit after hit--enough to rival any warped Sun Sessions record to share with posterity (and only if it's been in the sun long enough). That these degenerate artists have offered their wares on the FMA is a real cause for celebration; TLASILA, besides being wildly influential, is an immensely positive force for any creator--rigorously grounded in theoretical and experiential knowledge and anticopywritten as it is (dig a handy article here, kids, and rip it off for yer term paper).

True culture heroes one and all, TLASILA's members offer a veritable how-to for navigating the wild and wooly underground. Get to listening, reader, and follow.