5 Things to Check Out

Ty Segall and his new album Manipulator – I know we are sounding like a broken record here, and if we had a mail bag I’m sure many of the letters would question if Dingo has a man crush on this guy (we do) but this guy is a rare talent.  We’ve seen him live six times in the last year – solo twice, with the Ty Segall Band, with his Black Sabbath influenced band

Click to view interactive video

Fuzz twice, and with his surf punk band Traditional Fools.  Each show was unique in both its set list and in musical style and sound.  This is a guy who can sell out 1800 seats auditoriums but prefers to play small venues for less than $20/ticket.  He seems to be doing on the West Coast what Jack White did in Detroit and is doing in Nashville – making the music he wants, playing live constantly and promoting all his favorite bands. Buy this album and see him live – he is currently on tour do what it takes to get a ticket (Dingo will be at the January 30^th show in San Francisco)

Mike Tyson Mysteries – I spent many of my formative years watching the original Scooby Doos, Johnny Quest, Superfriends, Hong Kong Phooey and the Flintstones.  I love that style

Click here to view series trailer

of art work, the static backgrounds, limited animation, corny dialog and ridiculous villains.

This new series on the Cartoon Networks Adult swim has captured all of that perfectly and added Iron Mike actually providing the voice for his character.  Genius.

Foxygen Live – This band was recommended to me with the endorsement “they sound a lot like the Rolling Stones”  they must have meant “Some Girls”era  Stones but
with more disco and less soul.  I saw them live 6 months ago and was blown away.  It was Hedwig&  the Angry Inch glam, androgynous Bowie-ish style (after everclear shots and make-up applied while driving down a gravel road).  The whole show balanced on a razors edge of falling completely apart.  I saw them again a week ago – completely different image, clean cut, sport coat and stage confident.  Tight, not sloppy and with a level of energy and performance that made it one of the best shows we’ve seen this year.  Hate the recordings but won’t miss a chance to see them live.

Read More…

The second most important album of all time.  I choose my words carefully – not greatest, not best, not most original but most important.  One disclaimer before I get to my argument, this argument was developed six beers and a shot of Jack into a Slash show at the Fillmore.

Not the 2^nd most important album

Most important – if this album didn’t exist, its absence would have the most significant impact on music and popular culture (positive or negative).  Let’s get the obvious candidates for “second most important album of all time” out of the way.  If the Beatles had never recorded Sgt. Peppers, would the music or pop culture landscape be much different?  We would still have 13 Beatles albums to shape modern music.  Sgt Peppers is just one of four Beatles albums on the Rolling Stone’s list of the top ten albums of all time for god’s sakes.

With disco being largely a “singles” genre, if the Bee Gees had never recorded the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack there would have been little impact to disco.  If there were no Exile on Main St,  we would still have Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and the first 8 Stones albums (excluding the awful Their Satanic Majesties Request)  to establish the blues based rock-n-roll that was the contrast to the Beatles pop genius.  If the Velvet Underground had never recorded Nico, we would still have four other wildly overrated records to launch the crappy art rock movement.  If Nevermind never was, you would still be listing to Bleach, In Utero plus albums from Sound Garden, Pearl Jam, and Mudhoney all of which did their part to reinvigorate the flannel industry. This same argument dismisses like albums from Dylan, the Dead, Ramones, Elvis, Pixies, Michael Jackson,  Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Metallica, Led Zepplin etc; and yes as I revisit this without the aid of Slash and beers,  I am realizing how pointless this argument is, but at some level not having a point actually becomes the point in itself.  If you lost only one of the albums from these artists would it have much of an impact on music and/or pop culture given their full body of work and other like bands?

The second most important album of all time is Read More…

There seems to be a pattern with people (mostly guys) who in high school and college in the 80’s and 90’s had music as one of the most important things in their lives.  These are people who had huge music collections despite limited disposable income, they picked their bars based on the juke box, they took pride in discovering new bands and would spend countless hours making mixed tapes for every occasion.

MC5
Kick Out The Jams

They debated things that truly mattered: Best Debut Album (MC5’s Kick Out the Jams), Best live album (also MC5’s Kick Out the Jams), best b-side (Led Zepplin’s Hey Hey What Can I Do the b-side to Immigrant Song), Bon Scott or Brian Johnson era AC/DC (Bon Scott even though Brian sold way more albums), How can the Beatles be the best band in the world but the Stones are the better rock band (don’t know how but it’s a fact).  There was passion, energy, commitment.  Then something happened to 90% of these folks when they reached their 30s.  They stopped listening to new music.  They just stopped.  They stopped searching, they stopped seeking it out, they stopped putting themselves in places where they may have a life changing musical experience.

Read More…

The July 2014 7” Selection
LAMC Series No.11 (500 copy limited edition)
A-side Mikal Cronin – Soul in Motion b/w Wand – Screaming Eye
LAMC Series No.11

We picked this one up at the Burger Boogaloo festival in Oakland. Both the artwork and the vinyl look extremely cool.  This split 45 was released by Famous Class as part of the Less Artists More Condos Series.

Mikal Cronin is a California based indie rocker who recently released his second solo album MCII (one of Dingo Vinyl’s favorite albums of 2013). Mikal’s music is a unique mix of melodic pop hooks with in your face guitar rock. In addition to his solo work.  Mikal has teamed up with Ty Segall for “Reverse Shark Attack” and is featured on several albums by Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees.

We saw Mikal’s live show at the Rickshaw Stop’s anniversary gig. While Mikal’s recorded music has a great balance between the pop melodies and the rock guitar sound, his live shows pack a lot more pure energy. Soul in Motion features Mikal’s melody pop to guitar rock structure and is as strong of an offering as any of the tracks off MCII. The song starts quite with a drum/synth intro building to the guitar rock chorus, eventually devolving into more straightforward punk.

Upcoming Mikal Cronin Shows

8/7 The Independent – San Francisco
8/8 Outside Lands – San Francisco

DingoVinyl will most likely be at the Independent show.  Let us know if you’re planning to make it out or if you would like to join us.

Wand is Victoria, BC musician Derek Janzen. Wand’s debut album, Mt. ST Helens, 2012. You can stream the album at wand.bandcamp.com and is currently working on the follow-up. Dingo Vinyl caught Wand live at the Burger Boogaloo festival in Oakland over the July 4th weekend. Early in their set you could hear heavy prog rock influences as the set went on the band built momentum and their sound developed rougher edges becoming more raw than the tighter prog rock start.  Screaming Eye fits well as the B-side to Mikal Cronin. Melodic vocals are contrasted with more noise than pop sounds as the chorus and bridge build to a sloppy climax. This single had a lot more noise and less of the prog influences that we heard when seeing the band live.

Their videos on Vimeo have an absurdist, Trailer Park Boys quality (the TV shows, not the movies), which is obviously high praise.

Upcoming Wand Shows
9/29 Rickshaw Stop – San Francisco
9/30 The Echo – Los Angeles