Tuesday 31 July 2012

Aching For Missed Codeine


Sad to hear last week that the brilliant Codeine aren't staying together long enough to come to Australia. My friend Cam bought some limited edition thingame of theirs that I'll have to listen to just to stop from falling apart. Nevertheless, it is the music that always lives on. Here is something that they recorded for the John Peel Sessions back in the day.

Codeine - Median (live at John Peel Sessions)

Serving Up A Killer Smile


German record label Who Can You Trust? have recently released this delicious 7" by San Francisco mentalists with 70s rock embedded in their DNA, Hot Lunch. Their influences range from "Grand Funk Railroad, early Hawkwind, Lobby Loyde, Misfits, Crushed Butler, The Who, Blue Cheer, that very first Rush album, early 1980s skate punk, UFO, Ace Frehley, CCR, Chuck Berry, Gedo, Amon Düül II, Black Sabbath and Groundhogs" - phew! PLUS they are a fan of Skyhooks - SKYHOOKS! Jesus wept. They had me at "hello". But their proclivity for hot lunches (hence the name) shows a band that refuses to take themselves seriously, and in many ways this informs the music in a much clearer way than the earnest revivalists that litter the bargain basement bins. Basically, it's gonna set your hair on fire. I really am looking forward to what these ne'er-do-wells have in store for their incumbent LP coming out later in the year.


Killer Smile is out now - get it here.

VIDEO VACUUM - Lower Dens, JEFF The Brotherhood, OFF!, Slug Guts


It's been a while since we had some visual spirituals, but now I have a plethora of tracks that blow the casbah sky high, so let's give work the forks and watch them together like old times, yeah?

First up is another recording from those amazing cats over at They Shoot Music, Don't They? This time the aural offender is Lower Dens, chilling out in Barcelona after some down time from the Primavera Sound Festival back in May, playing some semi-acoustic toons in a square...with a friend in support(I TOLD you there was a Deerhunter connection today!) The two tracks here are 'Candy' and 'Nova Anthem', and it is, as is to be expected, pretty darn amazing.





It's great to hear that garage-trippers Jeff the Brotherhood are winging their way down to Australia in January (even if it is for the Big Day Out - sigh...), and they will be raring to rip into their new material off Hypnotic Nights. I heard someone at Splendour In The Grass on the weekend say that the album sounded like Weezer "or something like that where I'd enjoy it as a teenager but not give a shit when I grew up." Hmmm... Not sure what kind of a comment that is. Anyway, 'Sixpack' is slick and a lot of raucous fun. And yes, this track sounds a LOT like Weezer - even more than usual.



OFF! kicked off a triptych of video clips with the board spinning meltdown of 'Cracked', and now here are the final two-thirds of this "opus". Both starring Dave Foley (Kids In The Hall), the songs are 'Borrow & Bomb' and 'I Got News For You', and the clips encapsulate dodgy community television so well that I cannot believe that Teen Talk isn't the real deal (the look on Foley's face at 2:00 is priceless).



Finally we have the claustrophobic band clip for 'Scum', Brissie degenerates Slug Guts' single from their new Sacred Bones-endorsed LP, Playin' In Time With The Deadbeat. It's a typically Slug Guts song really, which means it is pretty damn fine. They may not reach the heights of the Aussie reprobates that they idolise, namely Venom P Stinger and Feedtime, but they give it a red hot shake, their feverish dirge never sounding more genuine.



NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Hollowing Out The Stars To The Other Side


This EP has been around for donkeys' years (well, March), but seeing as I have a Deerhunter-related post coming up later in the day, I thought I'd air this one out too.

Ex-Deerhunter Colin Mee (possibly still a deer hunter though, I never asked him) formed what would become Hollow Stars four years go as a side-project from his main band. It's since spiralled out into a mutant mass of psychedelia drenched in goth New Wave, surf rock and interstellar travel, most notably in their latest EP Neshama. Seriously, this is some strange stuff, yet strangely alluring. The way it shifts around, Mee's vocals wavering through the mix like an otherworldly Lou Reed or Matt Berninger, you can't help you are listening to music that has slipped through a crack in the fabric of space, that only those from a parallel world were intended to hear. And an aside, Mee is still keeping in with his old buddies, as Hollow Stars just completed a tour with Lotus Plaza, Lockett Pundt's ace side project.


Neshama is out through Coco Art, you can snap it up here.

Hollow Stars - Eastern Sky
Hollow Stars - The Other Side

Monday 30 July 2012

Citizens Discard Vowels, Blow Expectations Off The Hinges


CTZNS is the debut LP from Scottish trio Citizens, and its a fantastic slab of post-hardcore power and precision. The band - made up of Craig McIntyre (guitar/vocals), Owen Batchelor (bass) and Dean Inglis (drums) - have crafted an incredible rock album that ebbs and flows beautifully, McIntyre's strangled vocals in sync with the music and not becoming particularly affronting which tends to piss me off about screaming vocalists. Plus the musical interplay between the three is top notch, evident to the instrumental segue that masterfully informs opening track 'Habitual Smoker Blues.' I always go into post-hardcore releases with some trepidation, which is why CTZNS is such a pleasant surprise. Plus the closing track 'Distance Blues' is over seven minutes long, and is as powerful if not moreso than the 48 second brutalizer 'New Punks'. That says it all about the gold in them thar hills. Absolutely killer - strongly recommended.

CTZNS is out now. Grab it here.

Splendid Spook Houses Of America



This song has saved my life today. After a heady weekend at Splendour In The Grass (working on reviews and publications, seeing some great sets from Explosions In The Sky, Father John Misty, Mudhoney and Dirty Three, but mainly having a hazy blast with friends and "acquaintances"), travelling back to Brisbane from Byron Bay at 6am wasn't conducive to a happy Uncle Masala. Then I stumbled across New Jersey quartet Spook Houses and their track 'American' that is on their upcoming LP Trying. That flat vocal when he drawls "I'm drunk and I feel like shit" says it all, let alone the fat bass line and the explosion of happy noise halfway through the blistering track. It's an anthem towards the inane beauty inherent in being young and dumb, which is usually what going to a festival is fuelled by. I know nothing else about this band AT ALL, but this is enough. They saved my life - now I am indebted to Spook Houses.


Trying is out soon on Philly label Evil Weevil. You can pre-order it here.

Puffy Areolas Exude A Dishonorable Discharge


I am so damned keen to get my sweat, depraved mitts on the sweat, depraved Ohio band Puffy Areolas' sweaty and depraved second album, 1982: Dishonorable Discharge (a companion to last year's 1981: In The Army Now). Put out by the excellent Hozac crew, 1982 promises to be just as discordant, abrasive and electrifying as its predecessor. Don't believe me? Read the following press release then...

Puffy Areolas are a pummeling ensemble of free jazz skronk, laid mercilessly on top of a proto-punk nuclear waste dump, still throbbing with orgone energy. A Hawkwind cum-Lucifer’s Crank-era Dwarves killing machine that doesn’t stop until no one is left breathing, or god forbid, unimpressed. A sophisticated mess of noisy, nihilistic bursts of agony and intangible hate-fuck hysteria, that’s as captivating as it is alienating, pushing the boundaries of sanity, each and every performance. And yes, their second full-length is exactly what everyone has been worried about, a toxic bath of spoiled space juice dripping dangerously over the frayed circuits of their demonic WAH, sizzling with nightmarish night trips. A true Funhouse moment really kicks in on side B, a devastating document of human endurance, devolvement, and desecration, and sometimes it seems like this band is less of a musical combo and more of a flashing portal into an unknown Vietnam-like, mind-bending free punk power that summons the inner spirit of self-destruction like you wouldn't believe.
Once you tune your brain’s lower end into their freaked-out frequency, you’ll immediately FEEL THE NOIZE, and you’ll quickly see how those gut-churning riffs can peel the paint off the walls better than any crew of Ukranian contractors in this neighborhood. When Puffy Areolas tore down the house at the 2011 Hozac Blackout Fest, the corners of the Velvet Perineum were literally crumbling, rocks falling down in pieces, as they rode their wave of scorched-earth noise out into the charbroiled sunset. This band has a stunning power both live and on record, so don't be shy and come right up and jump in the fire with 1982: Dishonorable Discharge, the seediest head-blast of an album as you're gonna hear all year.


STILL aren't excited? Try out the title track and get ready to gnash your teeth in despair in arcane worship...




You can get 1982: Dishonorable Discharge from here - the vinyl comes with a free promo poster while stocks last.

Making Trophy Lovers Out Of Old World Vultures


We have been pretty supportive of Canadian instrumentalists Old World Vulture, and we're pleased to announce the release of their album Trophy Lovers. Still playing with creating synergy between synthetic and analogue instrumentation, the quartet have created some interesting hybrids that successfully allows them to continue to further themselves from the post-rock trappings that they managed to vault on their breakout self-titled EP. Personal favourites include the opener 'Slave Traders, Horse Thieves & Other Villains' which strikes me as the perfect Rock Action cross between Mogwai and Errors (a collaboration I'd sell my new born to see) and the groove-laden bruiser 'Last Kicks Of A Dying Horse'.


You can grab Trophy Lovers from their website for a free download - well worth checking out. Then if you like, you can head here to get yourself a limited edition gold vinyl copy

Old World Vulture - Slave Traders, Horse Thieves & Other Villains
Old World Vulture - J.R. Flood
Old World Vulture - Last Kicks Of A Dying Horse

Pumping Out Babies In Ipswich


No, that title is not poking fun at the south-eastern town in Queensland, only half an hour away from where I write this post (although it easily could be a news headline - claws out!), but a reference to the debut record from New Zealand abrasive noiseniks Ipswich, called Baby Factory. Recently signed to Muzai Records, the trio have thrown a bilious record all over the musical world's favourite white shirt, wiped their face on the nearest shih tzu before necking paint thinner and lighting a match. It opens brutally with 'Oxymoron' and refuses to abate, even as it apes a more conventional sound palate on tracks like 'Haze'. This track alone shows how much Ipswich have grown since even their Living In A Strangers House EP less than a year ago. There is some great acid-drenched darkness going round the Great White Cloud - God Bows To Math's record was also brilliantly breakneck and revelling in its own bilge pump - and Baby Factory is doing its utmost to eviscerate all in its path.


Baby Factory is out now - definitely grab it here.

Sunday 29 July 2012

Dodging Daggers Mid Flight


Just a quick post about Leap of Fangorn, the new release from Melbourne experimental shoegaze sludge dwellers Daggers Mid Flight. It's an interesting cocktail that leaves one hell of a dank, trippy aftertaste - a heavy mess of percussion, bass and guitar drudgery that links arms with Wolf Eyes and Grey Daturas, brothers in dirge. Similar in spirit with Brisbane's Die On Planes (although a little more 'experimental' in some of the structures), Daggers Mid Flight occupy the silence as much as they do the noise, happy to hunker down and let the music coalesce into a dirty, brain-frying mess before it all melts away into nothingness. An album of brutal sonic exploration, it will hurt your head, but you have to be cruel to be kind - well worth the effort.

Leap of Fangorn is out now through Bro Fidelity and Chairfish Recordings.

Daggers Mid Flight - Leap of Fangorn

Saturday 28 July 2012

Hearing A Hum Opens Up The World


So I'm in Byron Bay, a spiritual place home to great festivals and hippies, both real and imagined. I love it here, despite the commercialism riding much of its appeal into the ground, and I cannot think of a better soundtrack than Hear Hums' latest, Opens.

Last year I was enamoured by Psyche Cycles, the 2nd LP from Floridian duo Hear Hums. In February they brought out Opens, another heady slice of tribal percussive psychedelia that revels in chants, moans, clicks, drones, chimes, beats, and swirling repetition. This kind of organic guff is fair play over at the Inner Islands stable, yet Opens sees Hear Hums truly transcend to another celestial realm. There are some organic connections to Icelandic troupe múm's brilliant 2nd album Finally We Are No One - you can picture yourself running naked through a fern-laden forest with them, running through ice cold and crystal clear brooks, and embracing life in its entirety. Not much can make you feel such elemental, core emotions, to want to revert to the basest of Self, but Hear Hums nail it. I apologise wholeheartedly to Mitch and Kenzie - they sent this to me ages ago, and I only got to it last month. This out-early-Animal Collectives early Animal Collective. Amazing stuff. And check out the live shot above - that looks like the best live show EVER. Seriously, I want to go to there.


Opens is out now, this is life-affirming stuff, grab it this instant.

Hear Hums - Shrines
Hear Hums - Growing

Friday 27 July 2012

G.E.T. N.E.C. N.O.W.


As you all well know (well, you should at any rate), Atlanta psych group The N.E.C. are fucking rad, and one of my favourite bands. Great guys too. Would love to bring them over to this side of the pond, show them around, show them how it's DONE. But until that happens, I'll make do with listening to their great releases. Their new one is coming out next week. Last Point of Radiation is what is on the tin. OVE:EVO/Spective Audio are putting the sucker out, and it's going to be a cracker. How do I know? Because their new track is awesome. Listen to it N.O.W. (see what I did there? Bloody genius!) Seriously, this kinda kosmiche psych rock gets me every time, make an album of it and I'm yours.


Pre-order Last Point Of Radiation here - get in early for the clear vinyl!

The NEC - N.O.W.

Thursday 26 July 2012

Dreaming of Chasms


Yeah yeah, it's been quiet etc. Here's something special for you then.

Brand spanking new label Dream Recordings have their first release out, When It Comes by San Francisco duo Chasms. These tracks are brooding, bruising, melancholy excursions into a Gothic afterlife, a miasma of lush beats and sonorous vocals that is interwoven with ominous grooves and the occasional spike of soaring guitar and white noise. The red cover with swirling black membranous shadows is pretty apt - this would score a great Giallo erotic thriller directed by Trent Reznor and Kevin Shields. A cold, cavernous ride that offers moments of warm respite amongst the black frost, When It Comes is a promising debut.


You can grab the When It Comes EP on cassette here. Dream have some very solid guys behind it - expect to hear more stellar releases coming out of their stable soon...

Chasms - Headwound/What's Real

Saturday 14 July 2012

Hey Girl, Buffalo Killers Get It Right


Ohio rockers Buffalo Killers are prepping their fourth full-length effort Dig. Sow. Love. Grow. Last year's 3 was decent, but it didn't hit me like previous effort Let It Ride, nor their performance at the Breeders' ATP in 2009. Yet the two tracks offered thus far, 'Hey Girl' and 'Get It', sounds more meaty, blues, vintage and altogether Buffalo Killers. The band has always espoused virtues from late '60s psychedelia, blues, Americana, garage rock and the folk-rock sounds that rolled out of Laurel Canyon in the early '70s, and especially on 'Get It' it sounds like such a concentrated mojo is bound to work for them.


Dig. Sow. Love. Grow. is out August 7 through Alive Naturalsound Records. There will be 300 Limited Edition Orange Vinyl LPs exclusive to mailorders through Bomp! - well worth investing in.

Buffalo Killers - Get It
Buffalo Killers - 'Hey Girl'

Friday 13 July 2012

Slovenly Records Turns 10 In Slovenly Style


Nevada label Slovenly Records run a pretty tight ship, and the four releases they launched upon the unsuspecting masses in lieu of their tenth birthday recently are killer, somehting like the Wicked Witch of the West's winged monkeys, except these fuckers bite hard and have ebola.


Let's kick off with Hated By The Sun, the debut record from Canadian bumpkin punks Hellshovel (unsurprisingly featuring members of King Khan & the Shrines. I love this warped Down Home style of rockabilly garage - it reminds me of Meth Teeth, except more awake and adept at their instruments. Don't get me wrong, these hillbilly hoedowns are medicated, but with more uppers than you can shake a rock bag at, plus the occasional lacings of LSD psych melts to ensure that there is no solid footing here. Impressive.



This next record is the first one of the batch I heard, and sucked me in entirely. The band: Sultan Bathery, an Italian trio addicted to Indian idolatry and backwoods fetishes marketed for the upper classes. The release: Fireworx, a 7" masterclass on gentrified swamp box swagger and sleaze. This Europhiliacs want to have their way with you, and they'll be damned if you won't enjoy yourself.




Next flavoursome international band to the plate is Gay Anniversary, a Greek outfit whose 10" New In Class record is a short bulb blast to the face. Consisting of screams, chants, rants, guitar squalls and one strapped out drum machine, this is visceral punk that annoys as much as it invigorates, which is precisely the point. The speed and violence on display will eviscerate. I expected to enjoy some of this - not thrashing the shit out of it. Nihilist sex on a sonic stick, yum yum.




Rounding out these heavy hitters is The Psyched and their eponymous debut. This is 9 slabs of seriously dirty psych rock n roll - like resin-caked dirty. This is hair-flicking, lip-licking, disease-riddled rock, and you know it, but you can't resist because you know you'll have the best night of your life. A slow death is worth that, right? This Brooklyn duo don't care either way - just another chiselled notch on their bedpost of rock.



Get these four stellar releases here. If you don't have a great balltearer of a weekend after listening to these, you are dead to me.

Coming At You With Two Dull Knives


I've had a self-imposed week long exile from Planet Masala, but I'm back to grace you with some off-kilter music. Both of these releases come from Texan label Dull Knife, and are not to be missed.


If this label sounds familiar, it is because they released the excellent Snake People LP by Houston degenerates Balaclavas, which Sonic Masala was a very big fan of (thanks to Si for passing that one my way). The trio back that effort up with Second Sight, an EP that continues to blur the lines between dub-based synth and drum machine patter with darker rock terrain. There is a harder edge to these four tracks that licks at the edges of the best of 90s goth industrial electroclash (I'm looking at The Faint there...), which on this day's sonic terrain is a refreshing anomaly. This has some sexy ass vinyl too - check it out above! - which you can purchase here.

Balaclavas - Second Sight


The newer release is Love Everlasting, a gossamer-light fingerpicking affair from Zachary Cale. There is a great temptation to lump Cale next to Dylan due to that voice, but this is more in the realms of shimmering alt-country meandering than an imitation of the forebears of folk. Vastly different in sound and stature to Balaclavas, yet highlights the eclectic nature of Dull Knife, their wide-reaching tastes, yet their impeccable choices. You can grab this 7" here.

Zachary Cale - Love Everlasting

Big Branch Hangs Over God's Town


Small label Texas Is Funny have released In Love, a 7" split between The Grasshopper Lies Heavy (whose two tracks here are pretty much slay everything) and these guys, God Townes, and I have been impressed since my first listen around a month ago. The quartet (now with new drummer Josh Huskin on the skins) eschew their noise-punk origins (coming out of the ashes of Sohns) for a darker, dynamic dirge, akin to Southern brethren Young Widows with a dash of Girls Against Boys. These two tracks are a great calling card for what could very well be an interesting couple of years for both bands.


Buy the 7" split here. It is well worth the vinyl. Or you can grab the digital album here.

God Townes - Big Branch
God Townes - W.H.A.N.S

Miniature In Name Only


Christchurch born, Melbourne based duo Miniatures released their eponymous debut EP recently, and it's a great slice of discordant shoegaze disdain. Originally conceived as a solo project of Christchurch native Ché Walden, the group drifted through various directions and ensembles until a partnership with Dunedinite Annemarie Duff set things properly in motion. Steven Marr (from another great C/Church band, Ipswich) rounded out the bass playing duties on these four tracks, with an extensive bank of effect-laden (though personality-devoid) programmed tracks continue to serve in lieu of a drummer. The band namechecks Slowdive and the Cocteau Twins, and neither are that far off the mark. For a sound that spent so much time fermenting in the bedroom, Miniatures is proof that it is now more than ready for exposure to the masses.


You can grab Miniatures here from Trash Musik.

Miniatures - Midwinter (Air)
Miniatures - Time Is

Pawing The Milk Maid

Here are two linked acts that are prepping amazing releases through Fat Cat Records this year.


First up is another slacker rock album that owes as much to the 90s psych movement of the Dandy Warhols/Brian Jonestown Massacre era as it does to fellow revivalists like Yuck. Milk Maid are from Manchester (chief songwriter Martin Cohen used to be in the pretty rad Nine Black Alps) and Mostly No (their second after releasing Yucca only last year) is an album chock full of jangly guitar ramble and chunky guitar drive. I love me a guitar album. Yet I still think that due to trying to find that balance between the jangle and the crunch, the trio straddles both without embracing either, so things aren't as strong as they could be. It's not that I struggle with isn't that the trio aren't good - Mostly No is a pretty delectable album - it's that their name is too close to Milk Music, the Washington band that are one of the best things going around right now. So when I forget, or get confused, and hit up Milk Maid instead of Milk Music, I'm invariably disappointed. This isn't the band's fault of course, and Mostly No is an album that makes an impression, then falters, before winning you over in the end ('Do Right' and 'Bad Luck' are pretty killer). Let's hope the next one works harder to rock all the way through.




Much more upbeat are PAWS, a Glasgow based trio that dish out scuzzy garage fuzz with little regard for their own safety. They brought out their debut EP Misled Youth (in cassette form) back in May, and are quickly backing that up with their Jellyfish/Bloodline 7" (which rings of early Japanadroids, especially the A-side) in preparation for their upcoming LP Cokefloat! (which has been recorded and produced by Warm Brains' uber-producer Rory Attwell). I have to say that I'm a big fan - these two quickly constructed releases (everything except for 'Bainz' - my favourite - was written and recorded in under a week) allude to a world of promise.

PAWS - Misled Youth



You can grab all of these releases on the FatCat website here.

Deacon's Got Thrush, And That's The Truth


I woke up to the next cut of Baltimore aural alchemist Dan Deacon's upcoming album America. It's called 'True Thrush', and it's not as bombastic, kinetic or choral as first cut 'Lots'(although the clearer vocals and "ah ah"'s are still in prominence). It'll be interesting to see how people react to this record (his first on a major label, here being Domino), seeing as it seems much more polished yet carefully manufactured and manipulated than his last album Bromst. What are your thoughts???

Wednesday 11 July 2012

Uneasy Intelligence


Lars Finberg has been attacking the mundane and successful for nigh on a decade now, either through his excellent and sadly defunct post punk project A-Frames or through his now collective garage quirkfest The Intelligence - and with latest album Everyone Has It Easy But Me. Jumping from Casio twitches to rollicking rumbles, hip-swaying 60s pop covers and acoustic whimsy, the ideas are far-reaching and abundant yet all with that pitch-black sneer and caustic tut-tutting that Finberg delivers so well. Much of this musical legacy is in keeping with Finberg's work band, the John Dwyer dynasty Thee Oh Sees, and some of the schizophrenia inherent with that collective can be gleaned from this record.


I have always loved what Finberg has involved himself with, and on Everyone Has It Easy But Me he is near his best. An eclectic album, sure, but one that electrifies more intensely with each listen, and the lyrics are spot on...something that seems to fall by the wayside in this day and age. You can grab it through In The Red here.

The Intelligence - (They Found Me On The Back Of) The Galaxy
The Intelligence - Sunny Backyard

Sinking Into The Sea At Null Hour


Due to my self-imposed exile there are a few albums that got released in the past couple of weeks that are hurriedly deserved of attention. The first I want to focus on is Null Hour, the debut LP from Wellington, NZ trio Sunken Seas. Leaning heavily on the post-punk roots of its members, yet delving into far colder territory, the ten tracks on display procure a feeling of spiralling despair that is impressive in its all-encompassing nature. Its density and darkness mirrors that of harder-hitting doom dwellers Heirs, yet the compositional flourishes throughout out Null Hour into another realm. Think something in the murkier regions of post-rock, grafted onto HTRK's back and set forth in Snowman's backyard. There is much to be mined here, Ive been living with it for a fortnight, and I feel like I'm only scratching the surface. A great release that needs exposure.


Null Hour is out now through tenzenmen and Muzai Records. You can (and should) grab it here.

Sunken Seas - High Rise
Sunken Seas - Paid Your Price

I Welcome You Back With A Second Groovy Helping of Chelsea Light Moving


Welcome back! I've had a lovely break, but it's time to get back into the brilliance. A week late, but here is the second track from Thurston Moore's new act Chelsea Light Moving, 'Groovy & Linda'. I'll let the man himself introduce the track:

Not to be confused with the 1968 coffee house folk song by Tom Parrott (recorded for Smithsonian Folkways), this chug n’ shred burner is a psycho reflection of late 60s NYC East Village hippie idealism slayed and splayed in an Avenue B tenement boiler room. Groovy was the boy born James Leroy Hutchinson from modest American means and Linda was Linda Fitzpatrick, she from a privileged nuclear household, both runaways to the lysergic pulchritude of peace, love and marijuana. When The Fugs went on tour in 1967 ringleader Ed Sanders enlisted Groovy to care take his Peace Eye bookstore at a “secret location on the lower east side” (E. 10th St., actually). An incredible underground poetry bookstore/art gallery/hip hang out and orgy hook up scene, Groovy turned it into a barefoot mantra crash pad for all the beautiful zonkers and speed freaks of alphabet city. It was hard for even a grouch like Sanders to get too miffed at Groovy who actually believed in the wild animal dreams of hippie. Groovy was in love with Linda, a starry-eyed goddess nymph and they were the power flower couple of Tompkins Square. Tragedy flapped its nightmare wings and the two were found brutally beaten and killed bathed in blood and mystery amidst their tie-dye rags and rolling papers. It signaled the end of the fairytale that the media presented in day-glo color come-hitherness in the pages of Life and Look magazine. The following year Charles Manson and his dune buggy motherfuckers would exact an even farther cry of chaos and killing in the bamboozled hills of Los Angeles. We, Chelsea Light Moving, want to mantra the names of these two angels of beauty, regardless of the cynicism and naïveté of youth, for these are the charms of the soul. “Don’t shoot!!” ----- we are your children……

Chelsea Light Moving - Groovy & Linda