Leveret, formerly Glass Fingers/formerly Jesse Gertz/formerly tiny baby rabbits, are/is playing his/their first show this weekend at the Space Gallery in Portland, Maine. I say 'they' as Leveret could just be Jesse Gertz and his table of musical and visual paraphernalia, or it could be a full band experience. Or, it could be neither!? That's the great Leveret mystery...
Maybe the real performer for Leveret is actually Gertzatron 8000, a robot the government created to produce those wonderfully spiritual bloops and bleeps that you can expect from most any Jesse Gertz project.
But have no fear, good reader: The Gertzatron, while sounding more or less like a government war machine, was not programmed to destroy - that was what the Gertzatron 3013 was for - this Gertzatron was specially designed with the soul intention to party it up with you all night long! And even in the day if you are still up for it, because, well, he will be.
So yeah, robots, electronic music, partying with your clothes (optional) on, and good times for all will be had at this years' Leveret debut show *plus* Infinity CD release party! Oh right, there will be CD's of Infinity on sale. Infinity of them.
Okay, there won't be an infinity number of CD's for sale; Gertz learned his lesson with those last million Glass Fingers CD's he made. But there will be plenty to go around! You can even listen to it on Leveret with three V's bandcamp right now! Check it out and get that body ready:
It's actually a quint little indie rock/pop project by Molly Fischer who mostly plays every instrument except for cello which was provided by Erica Freas of my last post and how I found out about this unfortunately unknown wonder.
I especially enjoy the last track, "Cliffs" myself.
Featuring remixes of Glass Fingers' new sensually seductive single, "Do You?" by local hardbodies Mr. Neet, Computer at Sea, Jared Fairfield (as Jared Fartfield), Afraid, and Glass Fingers himself along with the album cover HE DIDN'T WANT YOU TO SEE!
Along with the remixes and the original version of "Do You?", this snazzy little bundle of naughtiness comes with an acoustic version for all the ladies out there.
Warning: this album may cause boners. Raging female boners.
While I never gave too much thought about anything by the short-lived Wolfgasm project of mid-late 2010 ever seeing the light of day, I had always hoped to at least post something about them since it was made of some of my closest friends and comrades. I guess I should have known better though, since this band was lead by local legend and runner of his own music archive, meaning he has probably kept every song he has ever recorded with every band he has ever been in, Jesse Gertz (known 'round these parts of town as the Total Babe of Babies, Glass Fingers). And while some members of this now super defunct indie rock slam jam are either MIA, not with us anymore, (the late Martin Smith, whose music has also been archived and saved by Gertz and released posthumously after his death with little extra goodies and what-have-you) or mad... There is still the song that featured them all, and that would be the first and only completely 'Wolfgasmic' song, "Courting". It's not for nothing that this one song exists it's just that sometimes somethings just don't work out quite like the way you want it to. For the rest of this four song teaser, it is mostly just the Jesse Gertz indie rock show, not that there is anything wrong with that, it's just not the full band of goof balls and degenerates that sported the good name of Wolfgasm.
Fun fact: I stepped in to the studio (Gertz's basement) and sat done behind the kit for one of the last (to my understanding) Wolfgasm practices. Ever.
The artwork by the way is by the world famous artist, Sean Terrence Best. Check him out and like him on the facebooks!
Similar acts/sounds: Glass Fingers, Jesse Gertz, Martin Smith, Twisted Truth, Saint Monday, Airplane Robert, Pecan Sandies, The Modest Proposal, The Fuse, Airway Robbery, Eyes Like Fire, Wulfgasm, Sugar Ray, Grunt, Captain Hollow, Tony Smokes and the Ladykillers, Sawtopsy, If and It, Dead Man's Clothes, Unexpected92, CJ the Kid, The Hot Dogs, Metal Feathers, Chingy, Sisqo, ODB, and none of the above.
I hope everyone had a nice time on Jesus's b-day yesterday.
As you all may know 2011 will soon be 86ing out of here, leaving 2012 to rear its ugly head onto our new cat calendars. What? You didn't get a cute little cat calendar for Christmas? Hey, guess you weren't good enough this year...
Ramshackle Glory is a new project by Pat the Bunny and friends. Pat the Bunny no longer sings about fucking shit up, pissing on politicians, killing his own baby or robbing banks like he did in his previous projects Wingnut Dishwashers Union and Johnny Hobo and The Freight Trains but still sings about death, friends, drugs and politicians. He just sings about them a little different now a days.
You can surely tell that this new outfit for Pat and gang is very much a recovery album now that he has cleaned himself up. You can really tell that this is a much more grown up album by Pat the Bunny and yet it is still very fun. I think the last song on this record really shows a great deal of Pat and his struggles along with his recovery and rehab.
This album did not really start to get to me until the lose of my friend Martin Smith. I can't listen to this album now without thinking about him and his journey around the country. The songs Bitter Old Man and Your Heart is a Muscle... get me the most.
Zach Hill and Spencer Seim are back and rocking that two piece shenanigans A.K.A. laying down that Hella good instrumental stuff (math rock) we have grown to love. The back to their roots Hella and "Tripper" fits right up there with Hold Your Horse is and The Devil Isn't Red as it is not super bogged down by electronics and vocals or excess members. It is still very much a head turner as anything Zach Hill touches is! Iz all good.
To be very honest, "this" should have its very own post. Unfortunately I am lazy and a little behind on things. It's no biggie. So I will say a good word about this album here and maybe again on a future post of Glass Fingers (because I have tons more of those).
"this" by Glass Fingers is the epitome of all of Jesse Gertz (hands behind Glass Fingers) hard work and years of playing around with electronic music. Gertz and the music he birthed has come along way and 2011 was really good to it. Not only did he produce a super solid album that featured some of my favorite songs he has ever concocted but he also made quite a name for himself (or for Glass Finger's self) in the local scene. Along with many shows with fellow P-town acts, Glass Fingers also had the honor of playing with Thanksgiving, Pterodactyl and even Dan Deacon! That's saying a lot for a kid who used to play little shows in his own home or friends basements just for the hell of it, drawing crowds of 10 people to just him, my friend Higbone and I.
Now I don't think Jesse Gertz could ever let himself bet too famous but man oh man did 2011 look good for this ol' chap of mine. Glass Fingers' "this" was even ranked #1 on The University of Maine's Free Press' Top 5 Albums of the Year as well as making its way on to The Maine Campus's Top 25 Albums of 2011 list. The latter featuring "this" as the album by a local artist!
"this" is very special album to me as it is to most of my friends, including Jesse Gertz himself (whether he likes it or not). I can not listen to this album without thinking about Martin Smith either but in a much more personal way. Like me, most of these songs were Martin's favorites even before they were put on this release. The song Runaway was actually for Martin some time before his death.
Earlier this week I learned that the world was missing a really great character. Martin Smith was not just a close friend but also a major influence in my life. His ability and goal to be completely different than everybody else will always stick in my mind as one of the greatest features he (and anyone) could ever have. There will never be another guy like Martin and it is a shame everyone did not know him. He was something of mythes.
In honor of my lost friend, I would like to post some music that he either showed me, liked, or that we both had in common. I'll also post some extra stuffz and some stuff that reminds me of Martin as time goes by.
I remember one summer riding around with Martin in his beat up silver Volvo be got from is grandmother. He was one of my first friends I ever knew who could drive and that alone blew me away. At this point he loved to drive around to Ratatat's 9 beats; an unofficial release that included 9 instrumental tracks that were used on their remix albums of famous hip hop and rap stars' songs. The tracks are really bumping and totally get you going! Martin's Volvo's speakers never really worked so for a little bit he would use a dinky portable speaker to project his favorite beats. But none of that bothered me.
It made sense that Martin got me in to tons of fun electronic, dancey and beaty music. Martin loved to dance (not like dance but like dance dance) and have a good time with his friends. My friends and I sometimes throw flash "dance parties"in each other's dirty little basements. It's just what we do. A lot of these dance parties have either been put on or featured a whole lotta really cool tracks found by Martin Smith himself. Martin introduced me to many electronic type bands back in the day, like Ratatat, Kraftwerk, Justice, Caribou, and even Pogo.
Pogo is pretty famous for his special crafting of "Alice" a song using only chords, sound effects and vocal samples from the cartoon version of Alice in Wonderland. Pogo has also played around with more Alice in Wonderland in Wonderland, Disney's Up, Dexter, Harry Potter and many other films and bits of pop culture. Under all the glitch and bloops & woops, it actually sounds really chill and almost trip-hop like. I still remember the first time martin played this to me... Afterwards, I think I may have listened to it a hundred times that week.
Martin ripped this album for me a little after its release and I really enjoyed it. I drifted away from this album and Jamie T for a bit but came back to listening to him after hearing his first album, Panic Prevention again. Jamie T definitely appeals to many people and could absolutely have a larger success here in the states some day. Nowadays I just like listening to the sadder songs on this one.
Martin was always a giving person. Cliché, I know but he was! He would gave me a lot of weird things sometimes from a container of teeth to a little pink Jesus ring to a bunch of condoms after pretending to be a college and winning a big box of 500 prophylactics. But most of all, he would try to give himself to everyone of his friends including me! He would always try to entertain me every time we were together. Even when I was having a wonderful time just hanging around in his company, he still felt I was not having enough fun and would try his hardest to change that and thus, make my day.
Matin and Friends (Dx2, Will Horseman and Thee Jesse Gertz) singing the hits with meows. It's music for the kitties in all of us. The hits include: Ring of Meow, Pokemeow Theme, Pur the Magic Dragon, Just a Feline and The National Anthem among many others!
Martin will always be remembered for his cat art, pink CATS hat and all the other cat type creations and placements.
