Bloody hell!  It’s a limey fest with tang!

Probably no Tang, though.  Do you like Britpop?  Electro?  Dance?  Or has your day simply gone pear shaped?

Whether it be dancing to the finest of the late 90’s dance music or swaying to the swell lyrics of guitar-wielding maestros of yesterdecade?  Disc Jockey Lee the “Legit Brit,” will be ace on the tunes to bonk your wits silly!

You have an answer.  Don’t act too cool to pretend you can’t hang with the era.  So you’ll miss a hip-hop dance club remix or two.  Believe me, you need it!

Hosted by The Treehouse Lounge at 555 E. 4th St (behind Club Underground),  Reno’s premier oddity art bar, you’ll be whisked away to better times and foggier places.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009, it begins.  Cheap drinks on hump day.  Get in for a quid… I mean, buck!

The weekend party starts on Saturday, December 12!    Three pounds… I mean… dollars… at the door.

I also hear this may be a regular event, every second Saturday of the month, chaps.

Parties start at 8pm, be there get the two-finger salute!

Cheers mates,

GR

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In probably one of the coolest flyers they’ve produced, Schizopolitans are having a nice little holiday get-together known as “Hallowmas.”  Part costume party, part insanity, they will be performing their brand of Reno chaosrock with Los Angeles-based musical guest R.S.E.

Bring the masquerade madness and shed off a few stress molecules while you’re there.
Studio on 4th (432 E. 4th St.)

All Ages

December 5, 2009 - 9:30PM

$5

(GR)

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Earlier this year, Reno band The Touques recorded a collection of new songs and released them as The Touques EP.

The Touques have been rocking my world since around 2006 or 7, I reckon.  I discovered them on the internet, just by searching on Myspace while looking for Reno bands.  I was impressed with this group of transplanted Canadians and local Renoites making such interesting music.  At one point they had someone playing a large stringed instrument in their band.  Their album Mustard Pickle Gun is an incredibly fun romp through several styles of music from crazy prog sounds of Self Imposed Paparazzi to the college rock stylings of If I Could, I Would and to the band’s roots with Love/Hate.

Such was my background with the band that I listened to The Touques EP.  The band’s sound has changed and is now much leaner and faster.  They have been reduced to a three-piece, with one of the founding members moving back to Canada leaving the other founder, Julian Chang, who rounded out the lineup with Jordan Morrison and Elliott Olson.  Olson’s drumming is solid, and Morrison and Chang are now creating leaner, more angular, and darker tracks than before.

The songs are well played and well produced and have dynamics you don’t find when a lot of Reno bands take their work into the studio.  So even though the music is sometimes quite jarring, and isn’t at all mellow, it still sounds pretty good.

From the track at the beginning, 4, you have to wonder if this is going to be a really noisy experience, and then handclaps and some good bass appear, and by the time the off-kilter rhythm kicks in, the song is crashing along at a furious pace, with well placed harmonics-style guitar ringing in over the top like church bells.  This is music that is hard to describe.  Devoid of the almost requisite screaming found in most Reno indie rock, this music still features some odd vocalizations as well as straightforward singing.

Roy Stampler continues this approach – odd time signatures, strong bass, syncopated rhythms, and key and time changes punctuate.  By the end of this second song, you may not even remember what the first one sounded like, but you may find yourself whistling an amalgamation of them.  Roy Stampler has a great surprise in it.

In White Elephant (Setting) the band takes a few minutes to just freak you out a little bit, it’s not really music, it is labeled “setting” for a reason.  I usually skip it, which probably makes me a bad man.

HRPM is the clearest possible embodiment of the gothy sound the band is going for with this collection of songs, and is a pretty good goth song, all in all.  But by the time Goodbye Monsieur rolls around, it’s about time for this EP to be an EP and not an album.  It’s a great way to end this crazy ride.

The new Touques is missing an aspect of the old Touques, which is a diversity of song styles.  The band used to slip in and out of whatever esoteric style they were playing pretty easily, and this versatility allowed them to stitch in songs that brought in more classic Acadian and other folk elements and are great songs to sing along to.  This EP collection of songs signals that that aspect of The Touques may be dead, which I hope is not true.

I’ll be on the lookout for a future Reno show to see what their live show sounds like these days.  The band plays in Sacramento and Los Angeles on November 20 and 21, respectively.

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I hate posting two great events in the same night, however, in spite of the Divas On The Run 20th Annual AIDS benefit, of which I usually faithfully attend, something has taken me from being able to do so.

That thing is The Urban Jungle.

What is the Urban Jungle? Well, much like the Electric Circus on January 9th, hosted by a fine band, The Madorians, there’s been a real urge for people to create shows with no boundaries. Art, performances, burlesque-esque, vaudevillian, and random in nature, including musical acts, live art creation, dancers, spanking (yes, I said spanking) and other performances, the Urban Jungle is going to be just that. The only difference is the people putting on the events, and well, the spanking. What gives with the spanking? Nothing, really, it’s just a side show. Don’t let it throw you off.

This isn’t to say there is too much of such a thing going on; there isn’t. My band and I performed at the first Electric Circus, and it was amazing. It was a throwback of attitude, people and drive that existed in this town a few years ago, before a lot of apathy, problems with venues and creative narrowness decided to set in. The Urban Jungle is also of this ilk, providing an outlet maybe not large enough for a single show, musician, theme or practice, all melded together for one night of something truly different. More importantly, something truly real.

This is significant. It’s sewn seeds of what you probably haven’t seen before, or haven’t seen in a while. My band, In Space With Lasers, for example, will be at both events, because there isn’t a place where electronica, noise and experimental music are as welcome in Reno. That does not mean it doesn’t exist. In fact, the Reno Noise Fest 2009 proved quite fun at the Hen Den about a month ago, for example.

So this is for people wanting to review something new. Something they haven’t seen before. It is something participatory, exploratory, and interesting. Free form, in the sense that, yep, it could totally bomb and suck. Or it could be, which I assume is the latter, are prepared, professional artists and musicians, performers and dancers, all taking their flavor of things to the stage.

Who, when, where, and how much?

November 21, 2009
The Tree House Lounge (behind Club Underground)
555 E. 4th Street
$5/canned food donation

(click de links)

Live Performances by:
Formally Known As
Mener
Reno Dance Company
The Madorians
In Space With Lasers
Jenny O
Carissa Warman
Madeline Nelson
The Yogic Lounge

Live Art Produced by:
Matthew Hunt
Mallory Mishler
Joe Guffey
Lacy Sanchez
Tiffany Mayorga

Appearances by:
Ashlee Stone
Reno Bike Project
Junkee Clothing Exchange
Reno’s Biggest Little City Sisters (Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence)

I hope this sounds like something great to do on a random November evening. When I had the opportunity to play for something like this, I jumped at the chance. Reno needs to be given a chance, whether it is for small things like this that are almost totally off-the-wall, or in general, that Reno can be more than whatever box it is typically put within.

Please, join us. If not, go give money to drag queens that evening! Either should be fantastic.

GR

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