EDC 2013: Fear and Glowthings in Las Vegas

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READ IT AT SPIN

It finally happened. After covering the politics of America’s biggest, brightest rave, Electric Daisy Carnival, yours truly actually attended the thing accompanied by one of my favorite photo-takers of all time, Wilson Lee. The long, hot days (spent in a hotel room with blackout blinds) and long, neon lights (spent decidedly among the neon) made for some strange experiences and even stranger writing. But despite the fact that I was not on any of the drugs, I found EDC to be very uplifting and sufficiently trippy. Click through the SPIN gallery to get a taste. And revisit my print piece, Dance Music Industry Fights for Its Rights, and web followup about the arrest of EDC promoter Pasquale Rotella. Needless to say, I’ve chosen a side in the War on Raves.

An Interview With Toro y Moi’s Chaz Bundick

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One of our favorite young music-making weirdos of the past five years is Chaz Bundick — a dude better known as Les Sins and best known as Toro y Moi. Befitting his chosen aliases, he’s a musical polyglot, weaving psych-rock and summery pop into rap beats and dance pulse. Unsurprisingly, Bundick is a sharp guy with a sweet disposition, as we learned first hand upon sitting down with him at a coffee shop across from the SPIN offices in Hollywood. Read here:

Done? Have some B-sides:

Old Stuff Starts Here…

This site was relaunched in November of 2015, but the blog’s been around since April of 2009. It’s been through many changes, so what lies beyond is almost certainly not formatted properly and often (yuck) written in third person. It’s also incomplete. I’m still filling in my two-plus years as a SPIN staffer, and moving even older posts over to this site. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Review: Nude Beach’s ‘II’ – Angry Young Men Navel-Gaze from the American Heartland

The headline kinda says it all, but if you’d like to read an 803-word version of it, may we suggest the full-length SPIN review of the new album II by the new band Nude Beach? You can read that yon, and an excerpt right here:

Brooklyn doesn’t always breed bands like Nude Beach — bands without DJ nights or vintage synth gear or famous friends or food blogs. But though this power trio(!) calls the big borough home, BK didn’t breed them. No, Chuck, Ryan, and Jimmy are Long Island boys, children of a village called Northport, the kind of place that only winds up on the news when enough of its manhole covers are jacked for scrap to make it a national concern. And the kind of place that held onto its Reagan-era heartland rock well into the Clinton age. Which is to say, through the formative years of Misters Betz, Naideau, and Shelto, respectively. The three played Rancid-inspired punk together as teens, but after recording a fun but messy self-titled tape in 2008, they’ve returned with II, an album that excises the oi! in favor of those other influences, of songs with easy-rolling guitar solos and keywords like “baby,” “radio,” and “dreams.”

140 or Less: TNGHT, Shawn Lee, thenewno2, and Ice Choir are Reviewed! (via Twitter, via SPIN)

We’ve joined SPIN’s Twitter reviews team. Watch us completely dismiss or irresponsibly champion an album in 140 characters or less! In all (well, some) seriousness, we’re pretty sure there’s an art to this–like a haiku for assholes who like the sound of their own quickly jotted words ricocheting off of the intensely labored-over musical works of our time. Anyway, check these out:

 

Review: The Hives Kick Us in Our Chilljuevos

This one’s been out for a minute, but we never got around to sharing our SPIN review of Lex Hives. There’s an excerpt (below). And here’s the rest of it.

A fresh album [is just] 12 excuses to get the band back out on the road so they can deliver what live guitar music needs in the Chillwave Era: a hearty kick to the mid-pelvis, to that spot where balls go when they’re not being used.

EDM, Glitter Pasties, Rapping Ogres and Skrillex: The 20 Craziest Things We Saw at HARD Summer

Happy to report that we attended the two-day EDM bacchanal known as HARD Summer, and actually lived to tell the story. Check out the excellent gallery over at SPIN, featuring the photography of our frequent partner in festivalling, Erik Voake. Artists covered include: Skrillex, Boys Noize, Bloc Party, Nero, A-Trak, AraabMuzik, Danny Brown, Action Bronson, 12th Planet, James Murphy, Dillon Francis, Bootsy Collins, and Squarepusher (with a shout-out to Poolside). Dig in!

140 or Less: A Ton of Twitter Reviews for SPIN, pt. 2

We’ve joined SPIN’s Twitter reviews team. Watch us completely dismiss or irresponsibly champion an album in 140 characters or less! In all (well, some) seriousness, we’re pretty sure there’s an art to this–like a haiku for assholes who like the sound of their own quickly jotted words ricocheting off of the intensely labored-over musical works of our time. Anyway, we’re behind on updates, so here’s a boat-load for your brief enjoyment, via the SPIN site. (See part one.)

140 or Less: A Ton of Twitter Reviews for SPIN, pt. 1

We’ve joined SPIN’s Twitter reviews team. Watch us completely dismiss or irresponsibly champion an album in 140 characters or less! In all (well, some) seriousness, we’re pretty sure there’s an art to this–like a haiku for assholes who like the sound of their own quickly jotted words ricocheting off of the intensely labored-over musical works of our time. Anyway, we’re behind on updates, so here’s a fuck-shit stack for your brief enjoyment (via the SPIN site).