Touch Tongues Now!
This is about music. This is about sound. This is about rock and roll.
Honestly, I don't know how to even word this post. My words are failing my thoughts as my fingers try and move in a fluid motion across the keyboard.
This is about music.
This is about sound.
This is about rock and roll.
This is about everything I love,
everything that is music.
My headphones have been currently producing the sounds of; Frightened Rabbit, The Twilight Sad, Glasvegas, The Dead Weather, Sun Kil Moon, Smog, M83, TV on the Radio, Boards of Canada, Jonsi and Alex, Say Hi, Discovery and The Passion Pit all merging with my all time favorites Bowie, Lou Reed, The Velvets, The Dolls, The Smiths, T Rex, The Fall, Joy Division, The Smiths, The Clash, Mott the Hoople and a whole entourage of others. I create a playlist every drudging half asleep morning of music from my vast and undiscovered library of music that no longer pushes the closet or shelf space but external HD space (3 of them now to be exact) in order to awaken my soul by 12 O’clock.
Once again, a specific duo has absolutely blown my ears into absolute oblivion, to the point where I have to get up and dance singing and shaking to the music that they continue to create. Not long ago I wrote a post about "The Greatest Band you have never heard of" and they still are! This creative force in the shape of two individuals are no longer named "Street Hassle", but now "Touch Tongues" . Honestly, what the hell is going on in the music world when a force of nature like Touch Tongues isn't in everyone's playlist, headphones, IPod or whatever you use to fill your ears with waves. Last week they uploaded a new songs to their MySpace page that were recorded in a single weekend in a storage shed. "Instead of a garage band we're a mini-storage band" Pierre Krause (The wife) told the Dallas Observer in an article last week.
I know "The Dead Weather" album is brilliant, amazing, I can't stop listening to it myself. But "Touch Tounges" is raw, is real, is rock and roll, is right here in Dallas. This is what Art is all about. Being an Artist myself, to lock yourself in a mini-storage shed and kick out songs, on your own, at the brilliance they have done. This is what creating is all about, this is the life of artists, this is the life of stories, this is the life of a generation of middle fingers and change.
Pierre and I go way back, I consider her family. I have always, for the number of years I have known her, called her the second coming of Patti Smith. Not only as a vocalist, but as a poet, an absolutely brilliant poet. You can here bits of Patti in every breath of her vocals while husband Chris is banging out Johnny Thunders, Mark Bolan, Bernard Sumner and Lou Reed guitar riffs to her haunting, yet powerful vocals that even hint at a female Ian Curtis. The new songs have a Joy Division feel in the sound, which always brings me that excited, yet sorrowful feeling.
Do yourself a damn favor, listen, and go see a show. Bring a crew out, dress up, go to dance, go with the attitude of visiting the Manchester's Rafters Club on April 14th 1978 and witnessing Joy Division, or David Bowie performing Ziggy Stardust in 1972. If you go with an attitude of rock and roll history, "Touch Tongues" will be one of the best shows you have ever seen.
My Playlist as of this minute....
I create every day so I listen every day, this is my current playlist that fills my ears while disappearing into random creation... 1.Pogues-If I should fall from Grace with God [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrAwK9juhhY]
2.John Cale- Vintage Violence
3.Church-The Blurred Crusade
4.Suicide-Suicide
5.XTC-Non-Such
6.X-More Fun in the New World
7.Soft Boys- Underwater Moonlight [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFrbvDh_8Jc]
8.Velvet Underground-White light/White heat
9.Donovan-sunshine Superman
10.John Cale-Paris 1919 [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3ueIweuUvo]
11.Lou Reed-Berlin
12.Howlin Wolf-Howlin WOlf
13.Kinks-The kink controversy [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC8-G30yBLU]
14.Ramblin Jack Ellliott-Hard Travelin
15.Grant Lee Buffalo-Mighty joe moon
16.XTC- Upper Daisy Assortment
17.Soft Boys-Two half's for the price of one
18.Public Image LTD- Metal Box 1 [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56RICywExfw&feature=related]
19.Church-Hindsight
20.Kinks-Kinda Kinks
21.Can-Cannibalism 1
22.Lou Reed- New York
23.DavidBowie- Ziggy Stardust
24.David Bowie-Alladin Sane
25.David Bowie-Diamond Dogs [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW6BSuLPyeg]
26.Slits-Cut
27.Warren Zevon-Best of 76-80
28.Kiss-Destroyer
29.Replacements-Tim
The Best band you have never heard of...
I have been meaning to write this for a long time. We (the music elite, at least we think we are in our own mind) always here, read, mention, watch, or view something that concerns the greatest band that no one knows about. Whether we read it in Under the Radar, Rolling Stone, Filter, Paste, a random blog, article, book, documentary etc etc etc, somewhere along the road of musical excursion we hear the phrase "greatest band no one has ever heard".
Well, I am claiming this phrase right now, and I have been saying this phrase over and over again concerning a small two piece out of Denton, Texas known as "Street Hassle" obviously named after possibly the greatest Lou Reed song ever created (and there are many great Lou creations). Denton, TX is well known for its musical genius, the little town was named by Paste magazine, Signs of Life: Best Music Scene 2008. The NY Times wrote and article as well on the scene as did Popmatters. Acts such as Midlake, Robert Gomez, and The Baptist Generals top the known indi acts leading the way for emerging acts like We are Villains, RTB2, Fishboy and others like Street Hassle.
This two piece is made up of newly married husband and wife creative/musical geniuses. (I don't use this term lightly.) Art, poetry, literature, philosophy, film, music, skate, and bmx make up the daily creative activities of this duo. Thus playing into the raw emotion of their incredible music. If you are a fan of The New York Dolls, Velvet Underground, David Bowie, Patty Smith, Television, T. Rex, Joy Division, Iggy and The Stooges, The Early Stones, Richard Hell, Johnny Thunders and anyone else who played at this time or anyone who was attached to Andy Warhol at some particular time, then you will lose your mind when your ears taste the symphony of Street Hassle's music. I honestly feel like I am watching a reinventing of Patty Smith, if Patty or Fred Sonic Smith could see them she would feel the same way, I guarantee it.
On album you feel the energy and wish you were alive to see a historic performance at The Factory circa 1962-1968. Imagine sitting on the red couch in the Factory, headphones covering your ears, the raw energy pulsing as the evening crowd arrives. This is the raw, gritty, emotion that their music invokes to rock and roll historians, those of us who read, listen and study the evolution of our favorite artists.
On stage you get a rock and roll performance, the way you are supposed to. Street Hassle will bring you a bit of Iggy, a touch of Ian, pieces of Mick and even a taste of Johnny Rotten. Equal parts punk, glam and art rock, Street Hassle is "the best band you have never heard" of-go listen, go jam, you won't be able to resist the urge of doing the Jagger swagger. Who dances to rock and roll anymore, kids just stand and listen, Street Hassle brings the dance back to rock and roll.
Listen to Street Hassle here- www.myspace.com/streethassleisaterriblenameforaband
