Go to this site: http://engrishfunny.com

You will not regret it. Promise.


more the engrish!
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This is gonna be the bomb! --SK


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So this is a bit late coming (as are all of my post-party blogs, actually), but a few Fridays ago bluhammock Music held a swanky party in the Hamptons. It's not often that us, um, let's say "dirty music nerds" get to go to the Hamptons. I mean, let's face it, over here at D+T our idea of chic is a new pair of jeans and some PF Flyers (yeah, you know who you are).

Anyhoot, we left work early to catch a bus that our friends over at Cornerstone Promotion were kind enough to provide. The 4 hour drive made me question why people bother going to the Hamptons in the first place, but it also got us pretty toasty since there was Balvenie Single Malt Scotch for everyone. D+T held it down the entire time in the very back of the bus like the crazy recluses that we are.

We arrived at a lovely estate around 8:00 and immediately challenged each other to see who could get kicked out first (answer: none of us, because we are classy and sophisticated!). The party itself was created by bluhammock in an effort to further showcase its appreciation for live music, and to continue to position music at the foreground of very upscale Hamptons events. Afterall, music should be fancy every once in a while, no?

The Break and Repair Method, a band fronted By Paul Doucette, (guitarist of Matchbox Twenty) performed and they were actually decent. Of course, getting us good and liquored up definitely helped. So, long story short: Thank you, bluhammock, for giving us indie rock shlobs an excuse to party in style! --SK
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WESC are hosting an event at the midtown Bloomingdale's in New York City on Thursday September 18th. The Stockholm-based clothing company will announce their fall/winter line at the show and will be gifting five hundred limited edition headphones as well as other goodies. The invite is below, RSVP to rsvpnyc@wesc.com to attend.



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Sonic Youth, arguably pop music's best-loved art-rock band, have signed to NYC-based label, Matador Records. The band recently completed their recording obligations with the Universal Music Group. Their last album for UMG, Rather Ripped, was awesome, replete with memorable hooks and explosive jams.

Sonic Youth formed in New York City in 1981 when guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo started jamming with bassist and vocalist, Kim Gordon. They became a cult favorite during the nineties, lauded by such acts as Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Mainstream success eluded Sonic Youth, much like their punk rock counterpart The Ramones, but the band accepted their role as influential artists, becoming a bit like elder statesman in the burgeoning alternative scene.

Twenty-seven years after forming, Sonic Youth will begin working on their Matador debut this autumn, which will be something like their 22nd release. Hopefully it'll be particularly inspired. - SB
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Yellowtail, the Australian brand of wine developed in 2000 and brought to American shores three years later, produced a fairly tasty, albeit budget, Shiraz in 2006. I must have had twenty, thirty, maybe even forty bottles of it last year. To the head. It's $7.99 at my local alcohol center, Skyview Liquor, which is run by a quixotic Jewish man who always has wine tasting that no one comes to despite my area being chock full of recidivistic alcoholics and single moms.
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Before he revolutionized indie-film making with Kids, Harmony Korine was just your everyday, drug-addled, mixed-up teen living in New York City. During the period, he produced several zines with no set title or mission. Drag City will release Harmony Korine's Collected Fanzines on November 18th. He may even do some readings here and there to promote the release.

Death+Taxes had the pleasure of interviewing Harmony Korine this past spring when he was promoting his most recent film, Mister Lonely.
You can read the interview HERE. Below is a statement from Korine regarding the release of Collected Fanzines.

"Going back ten year...it's so hard to remember, I was always tripping and falling over myself. These zines were written over the last fifteen years, mostly in dark rooms and the basements of old people.

With names like Adulthood, Foster Home and Gardens, Pocohontas Monthly, Humer, and others, they were sold in limited editions out of the Alleged Gallery and Andrea Rosen Gallery. Some were sold on street corners and given away to the tramp sects that were so prominent during that time period. Scraps of paper and half thoughts in the guise of art objects, you see.

Not many people actually got a chance to have these but the ones who are still amongst the living have greatly benefited. I know one lady in Panama who has the complete set, her family has stopped referring to her as a gimp now, now they call her Sue. They were never meant to be collectible--just low-concept laugh-inducing juxtapositions of words and images, images and images, lists, monologues, cartoons, free verse, jokes, half-thoughts, fake/real interviews, innuendo and Matt Dillon's phone number.

If you sold them on eBay for a bunch of money, I want my cut. Or if you bought them then please spare a percentage to the dyke army and the flame militia, its a good charity and it's ribbon buttons are invisible. Some of them read like letters from prison. I know these were popular in some prisons but I'm not sure why."

- Harmony Korine, 2008
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Vincent Gallo's spontaneous music project, RRIICCEE, will be heading out on a national tour at the end of September. They will not be promoting an album because they don't have one. However, they will probably be selling $260 t-shirts and jeans. If not, you can buy that HERE. This will be RRIICCEE's second national tour. The first took place in December of 2007, and was sold out. The new tour dates are listed below.

RRIICCEE NORTH AMERICA 2008
September 24th New York, NY Hiro Ballroom
September 25th Buffalo, NY Soundlab
September 26th Pittsburgh, PA Garfield Artworks
September 27th Pontiac, MI The Crofoot Ballroom
September 28th Cleveland, OH Beachland Ballroom
September 29th Milwaukee, WI Shank Hall
September 30th St. Paul, MN Turf Club
October 3rd Portland, OR Mission Theater
October 5th Santa Barbara, CA SOHO
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Following a brief flirtation with the Belmont Street Fair and Old Town's Saturday Market, we (okay, I) had a massive lunch at another historic seafood bar/restaurant. This time it was Dan & Louis' Oyster Bar & Museum, which yielded smoked salmon chowder and the "house speciality" cioppino, a tomato-based featuring crabs, mussels, clams, halibut, cod, prawns, and calamari (i.e. the entire ocean). I helped it down with Roots Organic IPA and later had two respectable greyhounds (that's vodka and grapefruit juice) with grade-school pals at Ringlers Annex, one of many McMenamins outposts around Portland.

But on to the music. We hit Crystal Ballroom (the site of my spiritual de-pantsing Thursday night) to catch Mimicking Birds (right), a quiet Portland act signed to Isaac "Modest Mouse" Brock's vanity label Glacial Pace. Drowsily dwelling somewhere between Band of Horses, Iron & Wine, and M. Ward, the trio used brushed drums and longwinded jams to dreamy effect but were somewhat wallpaper-y.

Fellow locals Blitzen Trapper then previewed tunes from their new album Furr, out later this month. The wooly six-piece began with shambling psych, segued into a sort of classic rock gone gonzo, and gradually stepped up their country side for a shaggy-dog, foggy-mountain indie rock all their own. With that said, the new album's title track is a harmonica-soaked folk song very much indebted to Bob Dylan. Meanwhile, the title track of their previous album, the genre-hopping breakthrough Wild Mountain Nation, was sloppy and spare compared to the LP version but still awfully grabby.

Another Sub Pop-signed Pacific Northwest act, Seattle's Fleet Foxes, opened with an a capella tune that hushed the massive crowd completely. Leader Robin Pecknold said he usually doesn't stand to play and sing, explaining his awkward posture. But the band didn't slouch delivering its ringing, choral folk-rock, with highlights including "Sun Giant" and the especially quivering "White Winter Hymnal." And towards the end, the other four guys left Pecknold alone on stage to finish out the set.

By then, though, we were on our way to Voodoo Doughnut, the 24-hour PDX cult classic where I procured the infamous maple donut with bacon on top, which tasted wonderfully like breakfast and not hideous at all. Then we hit Ash Street Saloon for Pierced Arrows, the grizzled Portland garage band that sprang from the unfortunate ashes of the two-decade institution Dead Moon (subject of a documentary film available on Netflix, btw). Knocking out distorted and sweaty punk songs, the trio's long, wild hair spoke of another era of rock.

Nearby Dante's then yielded Supernova, a ridiculous and ridiculously catchy pop-punk trio that cheekily goaded the crowd between brief, propulsive anthems. Between shiny suits and tin foil coating the guitar and drums, the guys were goofy even before delivering "Chewbacca (What A Wookie!)," their standout song used in the background of Clerks.

Then came a reunited Polvo at Berbati's, just a block away from the previous two venues. As expected, many aging white dudes gyrated and bobbed to every weird twist and turn, and honestly, it was hard to resist the genre-defying (or is that -defining?) might of the North Carolina quartet's cooly magical and totally alien music, which is surprisingly melodic.

Back at Dante's and now after midnight, Sub Pop/Merge vets Seaweed (left, also freshly reunited) thrilled a loyal crowd with their solid pop-punk (or post-hardcore?) anthem-making. For the second song, there was an instant sea of dancing, which greatly pleased still-charismatic singer Aaron Stauffer.

To wrap the night -- and the festival -- we wound up back at Ash Street Saloon for a 1am set by Flipper (below right), the insane '80s punk/noise outfit that these days features Nirvana's Krist Novoselic on bass. Their discordant screeching and "singer" Bruce Loose's lizard-like, in-your-face imp-isms were a little wearying after a long night, but it still felt like a rare opportunity to be in the same room with several music legends at once.

And with that, MusicFest NW came to a fulfilling close. As a member of Polvo said earlier in the night to the people of Portland: "You guys have a lovely city." He forgot to mention that they also have a lovely music festival. Or maybe it was just obvious.
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