According to Mashable, music sharing/social network Swift.fm has relaunched with a more robust toolset for musicians to share unreleased music with fans. The Soundcloud competitor also gives the option for consumers to follow artists like Questlove as well.

According to Mashable again (hey, it’s a cool website) shares of Pandora have settled around $22 a share placing the value of the company at $3.6 billion during its IPO.

The Moment’s drummer/programmer Eliott Porter has resurrected a track from 2005 and reworked it. Check out The Owls below.

Here’s one for my homey Brandon - Morrissey stopped by the Janice Long Show on BBC 2 and performed three new tracks live; Action Is My Middle Name, The Kid’s A Looker, and People Are The Same Everywhere. Check them out BELOW; You have to fast forward through the talking to get to the music but it’s a welcome listen for fans of the former Smiths frontman. {via thenjunderground.com}

Action is My Middle Name

The Kid’s a Looker

People Are The Same Everywhere

More Middlewest Festival announcements: Murder by Death, Future Rock, Flatfoot 56

You can go vote for some of your favorite albums of the year, so far, at NPR’s All Songs Considered blog. A few glaring omissions from this list in my opinion have to be Is A Beast from Cameron McGill and What Army? and Superchunk’s Majesty Shredding. But hey, they did include David Bazan’s Strange Negotiations.

Samuel L. Jackson’s dramatic reading of Go The F#@k To Sleep is available at Audible.com for FREE. This tongue in cheek children’s story has caught on like wildfire  and Jackson’s reading further cements his stature as a Bad Mother F@#ker! Or you can listen below. As a parent to be, I find this hilarious. If you have no sense of humor and have your head up your butt then you should go here.

Sock Monkey Sound

By Andy Whorehall

Forewords by Kevin Schwitters & Dave DeCastris
Epilogue by Jesus Correa
Video by Stephanie Barisa
Download Bootleg by Mark Muraski

“The CJ’s SYTTNN show was one of the best shows I have ever been a part of.

We drew numbers to determine the entrance order, and I drew #2. I remember being excited because I figured my entrance would be the moment when the show transformed from one guy playing music alone into something truly special and weird.

I stood in the back room with the other members listening to Jesus (#1) play the intro, and after 10 seconds, I knew he had already achieved this on his own. We filed out one-by-one and kept piling on the noise.

We had only gotten together to discuss the project one or two times before the show, and most of that time was spent making costumes, taking pictures, and playing with action figures. The music wasn’t so much an after-thought as it was a never-thought. There was a .001% chance the music would be anything but annoying, indulgent, and unlistenable. Magic. And it never happened again.”
-Kevin Schwitters (The Braves / Table & Chairs / Haunted Hayrides/Say Yes to The No-No’s)

“The moment he (Jesus) mentioned costumes & noise makers for instruments, I was sold.  We had simply agreed to be in a Jesus Correa project, which in itself is worthy of any sort of participation.  We did discuss his idea for the show and what to bring;  a cape, masks would be provided, and any noise making device.  He said he’d provide the songs.  There would be no practice which made us ecstatic but curious.  That night we gathered back room at CJ’s downtown in our costumes & pulled #s (me pulling #11) for entrances.  Jesus, #1, proclaimed that we were going to play cover songs & before you knew it, it was over to the tribal chant of “Crocodile Rock” & feedback from a rigged, audio-out space-lego noise maker toy that  Mark Muraski tweaked up for me to abuse with a pedal & practice amp. We were sweaty, thirsty, happy.  Musical therapy.

Someone yelled, “It was a happening!” as Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me” began to play from the bar overhead PA.  It was only then did the irony settle in we just made ridiculous noise like masked banshees on a bender in a Rockford bar. We should have been kicked out, thinking back; but Jesus is cunning, charming and those costumes may have been the decoy in his plan to not get us kicked out.

In the parking lot afterwards, 2 guys approached me ‘loading’ the car. “Dude, were you one of the No-No’s?” Yes. “That was crazy man, space circus music man!”  Yeah it was fun. “We’re from Caledonia man, we drove in to get drunk but man, we didn’t expect that shit.”  Thanks (laughing). “How did you practice for that?” That was practice. “When are you playing again?” I doubt we will.

It’s pretty rare when I can say without irony, ‘thank you, Jesus.’ That was fun.”
-Dave DeCastris (Donkey Boy (USA) / Staasuhnator Rex / Say Yes to The No-No’s)

______________________________________________________________________

On March 1st, 2008, CJ’s on State St. in Rockford, IL played host to an unknown gathering of local musicians performing in costume by the name of “Say Yes To The No-No’s.” Armed with various noisemaking devices, percussion, toy instruments, harmonica, trombone, and slide guitar, the local ‘ironic super-group’ could be considered veteran, Rockford area musicians now who are more often ignored than actually listened to.  They were brought together by midwestern artist, musician & 2009 city mayoral candidate, Jesus Correa IV. He the brain, the No-No’s being his brainchild

Correa’s No-No’s consisted of members he gathered together from The Braves, Midwestern Death, Donkey Boy (USA), The Moment, Popeye Jonesin’, The GoMows & many more; possibly forming the first ever Rockford Area Anti-Arts Indie Super Group. (It’s ok to laugh.)  Together they created a unified sound, void of arrogance & musical discipline, with unadulterated defiance for each other and their environment.

Jesus Correa

12 members filed in  1×1, each 30-40 seconds apart to fulfill a roll call led by its leader, Mr. Correa.  They eventually created a half hour of “cover songs”- as Jesus put it lightly during the intro.  Far from being cover songs & closer to something from space, the 12 members from all walks of life and styles of music created a circus of sound. Each member being the asshole in any other band performed out of tune, out of rhythm, and proudly.  They became elephants that night, marching together to the beat of their leader’s drum machine. Yelling, banging, chanting & laughing like adult-children should do on occasion just to feel alive.

It became the sound of Rockford at night I’d dreamt of for years; elephants stampeding through, marching with the self-defeated while trashing the town into a disgusting layer of party confetti, balloon skin shrapnel & empty beer cans. The drunk women at the bar never saw it coming, leading them to bed & leaving them for a new town to trash come morning. The sound of Rockford had finally arrived & it was gone in 31 minutes. Go figure, it was led by a human being named, Jesus.

Each member performed draped in a cape with masks on made by Correa for the No-No’s to wear, an homage to the good ol’ days of wrestling, performing, entertaining the locals and releasing the demons. Together they formed something larger than the scene they pissed about in tinkering away their youth on. Large &  memorable, it was only going to happen once this way.  12 idiots, all ironic & talented with multiple issues spread out between each one for 1 night, 30 minutes in Rockford creating unrehearsed, city-circus noise.

A soundtrack for a city so sad from waiting on a train to come back that they missed these elephants trampling all over their town for 30 minutes. From the Say Yes To The No-No’s to no one else but themselves.

AW | andy whorehall

{Download a bootleg recording / Say Yes To The No-No’s / Live @ CJ’s Lounge, Rockford, IL 03.01.2008 / Recorded by by Mark Muraski}

_________________________________________________________
SMS Ed. Note, 01-26.2011: We were able to hunt down Jesus Correa for a few comments, thoughts about the 1-off event after this article’s original posting.  Enjoy.

EPILOGUE / Jesus Correa:

“At the time of the show I was performing with an odd band called Lightning Thunder Fox-Chip Copeland was actually very shortly involved with this project-and we had a show booked at Cj’s. Elizabeth Kris McQueeny was in this band, and she was unable to perform-due to a vacation I believe-and I am a sickfuck who is unwilling to cancel a show-I performed last Valentines Day after spending the previous evening/early morning in an emergency room in Chicago after plummeting off the roof of the Congress Theatre-so I started racking my brain.

At this point I had been playing in bands and performing for about ten years, and I always felt like an outsider, a weird-o, and an outcast in the local music scene. I knew a lot of other folks in bands around town, but I was never “IN” with the incrowd, and my musical projects were often spurned and overlooked, and Lightning Thunder Fox was really sort of out there. So I start wracking my brain, because I am not going to cancel a show-I probably love playing shows more than anything else I can think of-and I figure, “Well, they think I’m weird, and out there, I will show them weird and out there.”

So I start getting in touch with folks I respected around the area, mostly musicians, some other random folk that I was sort of curious as to what they would do, some just on the word of other folk I had asked. I had a fuzzy idea of what wanted to happen, and I had a name. Say Yes To The No-No’s was just something I said around the house, and I recorded a few things under the name around that time-an album called Ko-Ko Luv Good available on Greentape.

I got a basic line-up worked out, and so I set to work. We all met at my house a total of two times, maybe three. We met once to do a photoshoot at the 412 mansion-I am not sure where these photos are, I believe we used Elliot Porter of the Moment’s camera-and I think the second time we met up was before the show to finish up some masks and drink beer before the show. There may have been another get together, but I am a little fuzzy on the whole thing. I think we decided on the way out that the ultimate goal was to end up playing “Crocodile Rock” and that was it as far as the musical guideline was concerned.

I believe a couple of people backed out at the last minute from the show, and I remember trying to talk a couple of people in the back room into playing along, but to no avail. I think we ended up with eleven members onstage when all was said and done.

The masks were something I was sort of using at the time in Lightning Thunder Fox. I like to see a show as much as hear a show, I am very much into stage presence, and am all for putting on a Show. I sewed most of them myself, but I remember a few people helping out in my cramped little room just before the show, Phil Goudreu sticks out as one of the sewers.

Before the show we all drew a mask and a number from a bag. I believe I actually drew number nine, every other number was drawn, and I went ahead and drew again and ended up number one. I never told anyone that before, I sort of cheated a little, but it was my baby and I wanted to be the first one to go, sorry.

I remember walking out and being just sort of disoriented, with the mask and just the oddness of it all. We set all the instruments out beforehand, just sort of scattered all about. I just started my drum machine, and it was all just a little fuzzy from there.

I was reprimanded on two counts for the show:

• Eleanor Boersma who was in the band LIghtning Thunder Fox with me, and also underage kept trying to sneak into the place, which was my problem for some reason.
• It was just sort of too out there, it didn’t sit well with the generic rock and roll shows that typically go on around town-where was the bass player and the drums and the guitar riffs and the structure and who was in charge, where was the frontman etc. It made some people uneasy, good, I like that.

All in all it went above and beyond what I expected. It made my weird band that I was with fulltime not seem so weird. I got to play with a lot of folk I respected but who would not normally perform with me or one of my bands under normal circumstances. I got to bring a weird idea that belonged in some uptight boring art gallery into a cozy little dive bar, and weird out the Squares.

Just the experience of being there was one thing. There were some fuzzy videos on the YOUTUBE a few days later. Then I heard someone had recorded the damned thing, and lo and behold it was not as annoying as I thought it would be, it was actually sort of good in its own weird way, it sort of clicked, and it worked, godammit it worked.

This is the final line-up of performers as far as I can remeber, I think some of them kept their masks, which made me mad at first, but I hope they treasure their stolen mask, and the magical evening we shared together, just some masked men wailing and banging in the evening.

Say Yes To The No-No’s, line-up, 03-01-2008
1.Jesus Correa VII
2.Kevin Schwitters
3.Dave Decastris
4.Phil Goudreaux
5.Brandon Lutmer
6.Taylor Marie Moorman
7.Jason Judd
8.Steven Wirth
9.Spencer Scott
10.Zach Ippen
11. Barrett James

Sock Monkey Sound

by Alex Danger Stewart

The Moment – Elliot Porter + PJ Heckinger

So there’s this band called The Moment. Grr, never start a sentence with a preposition. As you may know, there’s a Rockford band called The Moment. They consist of two guys playing screamy dance music. Many people compare them to the Faint, who used to be more famous amongst people with tattoos than they are now. This is common knowledge. They’ve been featured on this very website. Less universally known, but still pretty widely understood, is that The Moment used to sound a whole lot different. During my early high school years, they were mainly a Gods Reflex spin-off group (which was awesome because GR totally rules). Current drummer, Elliott Porter, was joined by guitarist Nate Kirschmann and former Reflex front man/bassist Zach Newman. Not long after the release of their debut EP, “This is the Moment,” The Moment welcomed guitarist PJ (possibly short for Polly Jane) Heckinger into the fold. The Moment’s sound began to incorporate more electronics and a slightly harder edge. This is largely attributed to the fact that PJ is metal as shit. I’ve always considered this time period (circa 2004-2005) to be the golden era of The Moment. Newman is mostly a fantastic lyricist and they rocked balls (as was the style of the times). It is only represented on record by the three song James Dean single, a recording of an acoustic show that only a handful of people (including me) have, and a mostly completed album that has never seen the light of day. In May of 2005, on the eve of their first tour, Zach fucking quit the band. Left scrambling, the other three members hurriedly figured out how to include Newman’s bass parts into the existing programming and Heckinger moved over to vocals. This obviously led to a pretty drastic change in sound and direction. Then something interesting happened. One of the first post Zach songs was the Kirschmann penned, “Are You Out There.”

Sample lyrics include:

Well it might not make you a saint, sir, but it just might save you from Hell.
Well are you out there? Are you out there? Living your life as a liar.
Give it up, son. Give it up, son. I know that you’re celebrating (unintelligible)

Give in, give up, get out, right out
Cause I know that you won’t notice
Give in, give up, get out, right out
Cause I know that you won’t care.

This ending has a proceed
Take the pictures from the rents (possibly rest or parrots)
Well you’ve got me as your victim (or Well you can’t play as the victim)
At least you’ve got your crucifix.

We’re all just waiting for you
They always told you something
There’s no more asking for you
We’ll pick it up and carry on

The three and a half minute screed paints someone close to the protagonist (more on that in the next paragraph) as a lousy self obsessed hypocrite, who has left them when they were most in need. The lyrics went largely unnoticed on the post Newman album, Showdown At The Discoteque, because every song was mostly angry sounding. Until someone cracked the code. This kid named Evan Michel first figured out the big picture idea of the song when he announced to me, “Holy Shit Danger! That song is about Zach!” The theory was confirmed one time when I asked Kirschmann when he was drunk and he admitted that he had written it about Zach quitting the band. Even without that confirmation, the subtext is clear. With direct references to past Newman lyrics (“I’m gonna fake my way into sainthood,” on “Who’s Afraid of Hunter S Thompson,” and the attack on mainstream emo singers, “That Crucifix/goes really well with your cut wrists.”) and more oblique nods to his future near abandonment of music making in favor of teaching and being with his family. Kirschmann’s lyrics essentially accuse Newman of being a liar and a thief. In all fairness, Zach quit the fucking band.

For a while, that seemed like the end of it. The Moment soldiered on and Zach kept promising an acoustic EP that never happened. But then something interesting happened. Zach reemerged in late 2007/early 2008 with a new Gods Reflex album. The title track, “When It’s Down to This,” had a strong rebuke to an unnamed party

Sample Lyrics:

We must move on
But we always wind up the same
in each other’s songs

Assign the blame
but don’t speak in tongues
I know my name
and I’m not ashamed

I guess everybody lies
everybody has two sides
despite the words you sing
I’m doing fine

When it’s down to this
I’ll be stronger than you ever thought that I could be
I’m not waiting for your call
When you think you’re missed
Think as not the one that I thought was in front of me
They’ve been dead for oh so long.

I passed the baton, knowing it would be better off
In someone else’s hands
And hoped you’d understand
If this is my cross
Then I’ll carry on despite the cost
It’s not as grand as you thought

The gloves were fucking off! Newman shot back with a god damned laser. In the space of 4 minutes he lets the Moment know that he is aware that “Are You Out There,” is about him, and that he doesn’t give a fuck. All things being equal, Newman is a much stronger songwriter. To this day, he remains flaky as all get out, but his ability as a lyricist and singer continue to keep me (and others) listening. Despite the fact that the splintering of the original Moment is most definitely his fault, Zach deftly handles the accusations and tells his side of the story. Even in directly references the prior song, “If this is my cross, then I’ll carry on despite the cost. It’s not as grand as you thought,” his lyrics are clever and stinging. I first figured out the meaning of the song last spring while driving home from school. It was such a surprising realization that I shouted it out to my passengerless car, “Holy Shit! This song is about The Moment!” I’ve never talked about it with other people because it seems super lame to study the lyrics of a Rockford band so closely. But there you have it. Feud over.

Victory: Zach Newman
Spoils of War: The Moment

Alex Danger Stewart is an opinionated guy. At first I was worried about pissing someone off by posting this. Then I thought to myself, “Screw It!”. If this does piss anyone off you can email Danger at thedangerzone@sockmonkeysound.com and bitch at him.

Sock Monkey Sound

Elliot Porter + PJ Heckinger

PJ Heckinger and Elliot Porter are The Moment. Chip sits down on a bench in front of CJ’s Lounge in Rockford on the eve of their summer tour. We talk a bit about their history as a band, how fit they are, and their sound.

Music by The Moment: Congratulations Universe You Win, James Dean, The Evening, and Take What You Want When You Want It If You Want It.

The Moment Online

Sock Monkey Sound