Hot Shit has moved

After a long period of inactivity, Hot Shit isn’t dead. It’s just moved to here.

A paradox

First off, I’d like to thank the guys from Elevado for making time for my class to interview and film you. We ended up doing it in front of ISP in East Atlanta and got caught in a rain shower, but that didn’t stop us from filming. Except for the rain, the most unexpected part was a guest appearance of Sarsaparilla the Dancing Gorilla, Elevado’s big blue mascot. All I knew was that I was holding the camera when one of my classmates taps me on the shoulder and up comes walking a man in a blue gorilla suit holding a briefcase. All of the Elevado and gorilla highlights and hi-jinx will be featured in the upcoming video that I’ll post on here.

Oh, the paradox of being a music blogger and a full-time student! I haven’t been to see a show in two weeks and have missed at least five good shows. This sucks. I even have to miss the Dollyrots tonight to stay home and work on my final projects. Luckily, a new month is coming up and a whole new array of show is too. For this week, you might want to go check out Luigi at the Earl on Friday, 9PM. Also, if you’re into goth/industrial, don’t miss the Cruxshadows at Dragon*Con.

Open up the airways

Lately, I’ve been getting responses and recognition from my musicians that I’ve posted about. This is something that I and my little ol’ blog didn’t anticipate, but I think it’s really cool. Dialog is another unique aspect of having a music blog instead of a zine, which opens up new possibilities. Thanks for the props and the feedback, troubadors. Much love.

To all of you out in Champagneland, who else would you like to read about? Just so I don’t miss a thing, who else in Atlanta do you think should check out? Feel free to keep me updated on who’s coming up, too. After all, “Hot Shit” is for you and I don’t want things to be one-sided.

Foiled!

Dammit! I didn’t make it to the Suburban Legends show last night. I spent a long night out fighting against the orange sea-creatures of Planet Z (and my classes ran too long), so I missed it. Fortunately, my friend and experienced show-goer Sam did go. She’ll be submitting a guest piece about the show, soon enough. This girl has been going to see live music since she was in the womb (seriously), so she knows what she’s talking about.

Skankin’

This week, I won’t be covering a local band, but they are playing locally at the Masquerade. Tomorrow, Suburban Legends is here in Atlanta. I love some ska, so I’m excited about this show. If you love ska, too, go ahead and skank on out to the show. It’s their Summer Crush Tour for their new album “Infectious.”

In other ska related news, The Voodoo Glow Skulls will be here on the 26th. Unfortuately, they’ll be playing at Swayze’s. If you’re over 17, you might be mistaken for one to the parents of so many teenagers waiting for the show to end. If you’re under 17, then this is the place for you cuz it’s one of the last 18 and under venues in Atlanta. The venue sucks, but the band is skatastic. The Dollyrots are even playing there the next day. Damn you Swayze’s!

Elevado, part 2 is coming up, too. My class has the video interview with them on Wednesday at ISP

This is next month, but get your tickets now cuz the Dropkick Murphys are coming to fuck shit up on September 27th. They’ll be at the Maquerade, but tickets might sell out quick and this is a show that no punk or drunken Irishman wants to miss.

ska

Elevado, part 1

I just got my first live taste of Elevado at the Drunken Unicorn tonight. They’re indie rock with a pseudo-psychedelic edge and a whiny guitar that trails throughout most of their songs. Elevado is definately fun to listen to, but their live show that I just saw was a little down tempo for my taste. Maybe it was just the crowd or maybe it was how Justin Sias’s bass string broke along with several other technical problems. Despite that, Elevado is still worth checking out and I’m looking forward to next week’s interview. The founders of ISP have got to have something up their sleeve.

Getting pre-tectonic with Gondwanaland

Like I promised, here’s a recap of last Friday’s show at Seven Stages:

Seven Stages invited a few bands to play in the front lobby. The first two bands to play were Ship to Shore and Choose Your Battle. I came to see Gondwanaland. Singer, songerwriter, basist, and guitarist Angelica is one of my friends from high school. She was actually one of the people who introduced me to the stranger side of music and has been writing twisted ballads for years. I finally got to see her play with Matt and Ryan in her latest band, Gondwanaland. Matt leads vocals and Ryan is behind them, beating wildly on drums. Their sound is hard to label. It’s definately rock. They’re self identified a “music that neanderthals would listen to”, but that doesn’t quite cover their peculiar subject matter. With titles like “Schroedinger’s Cat” and “Aphids”, Gondwanaland seems to be one of those bands that could write a song about anything. Especially because that’s what the songs are actually about, although “Satanic Giraffe” is really about a drink that Java Lords makes. They may even go from thrashing and screaming to an occasional beautiful accoustic melody. Overall, Gondwanaland isn’t even on the radar of what most current bands are doing. They’re refreshing in a post-modern, but not pretentious way.

Next week, I’ll be going to see Elevado at the Drunken Unicorn and, later, my Anthropology and Communications class is doing a video interview with the band. Prepare to get Elevado’ed!

Caffine rocks

Last Friday, I got to see Gondwanaland, Ship to Shore, and Choose Your Battle at Seven Stages and Java Lords in Little Five Points. I asked Matt Grenia and Angelica of Gondwanaland if I could get an interview with the band sometime. Look forward to getting juicy with Gondwanaland and a recap of the show coming up soon.

In the studio with Chris Unck

“I grew my hair out and never went back.”

I got to spend some time shooting the shit in the studio with underground musician, producer, and wild-man Chris Unck. Chris’s musical cohort, Mike, and couple members from Program the Dead, Nico and Dave, also happened to be there and decided to join in. When I arrived, Chris was at the sound board, mixing a new track for Program the Dead. He was surrounded by beer bottles, bongs, smoke, cigarette butts, and equipment. Later, he revels in how this is the way a real rock n’ roll recording studio should look. This is where it happens.
I met Chris, randomly, over a year ago. I was hanging out with my friend Marc and ended up meeting with Chris in the Varsity parking lot. Chris had an old Wurlitzer in the back of his car that some guy found in a dumpster and sold to him for fifty bucks. We head over to a closed-down, red brick mechanic’s garage that was to become the short lived “585″ venue down on North Avenue to set up the Wurlitzer. On the way there, Marc played some of Chris’s solo work for me in the car. His sound was unlike anything I’ve ever heard, rooted in 1960’s revolutionary rock revival all blended up with the grunge of the nineties.
Back in May, I went to see Chris play at Olde Smith’s Bar with his Black Roses. His first album, Country Roads and Love, had just been released. Marc gave me a copy of it and I’ve been listening to it ever since. I thought it might be good to call him up and see if I could get an interview in.
Just to give you a little background on Chris, I asked him to talk about his musical history up to this point. He says that it all started when he heard Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell” as a kid. From seeing Idol as his first iconic rockstar, he later got a toy guitar and rocked out on his couch. Then, he heard The Beatles’ “White Album” and it’s uniqueness and creativity, he says, was like nothing he’d heard on the radio. Chris played trumpet in the marching band, but it wasn’t until his sister introduced him to revolutionary rock like Nirvana, The Sex Pistols and Led Zeppelin that he felt liberated. After that, he says, “I grew out my hair and I never went back. I picked up a guitar and started playing with no instructions.” From there, Chris and his little brother formed their first band called “Dead Pig Ashtray”, which played in backyards and pool parties for six years, only to break up right when they got signed. Chris then started a psychedelic band called “Stereofiction”, “which”, he says “was a band based off of the feelings you feel when you’re completely insane.” Stereofiction put out a couple albums, then he moved on to a garage rock grunge band called “Sold Out” that eventually broke up in June 2005. Afterwards, he decided to go on a solo career path, though he started learning producing skills as soon as his first band. Chris’s most recent project is producing Program the Dead’s latest album. He feels honored to be trusted with total creative control over PtD’s production.

I asked Chris, “how did you get to where you are today?”

Chris: “By listening. By listening and reading and paying attention and not opening my fucking mouth. A lot of hands on. When you really devote yourself to something, you’ve got to give it your all. We starved and we did everything we could to learn anything we could at a time when we could afford it, which is when you’re young. You should cram your brain full of shit when you’re really, really young cuz that skill, it keeps you from being someone else’s bitch.”

Nico chimed in and asked Chris if he had any producers that inspired him or he envied, for any reason. Chris explained that his inspiration comes from a “melting point” where he can hear greats like Brendan O’Brien, Steve Albini, and George Martin in the arrangements he produces. He say that it sounds egotistical to liken himself to such big names, but it’s what he hears in the bands that they produced that he loves, not what they have done.

I asked Chris if he had any advice for the world and young artists. He says “Whatever you do, do it well… You got to learn it. You got to learn everything about it.”

“Like a wet hotdog slappin’ against a piece of paper”

Watch out, NPR’s Storycorps! I’ve got an interview with Chris Unck tonight. He’s the dude that I wrote about a few posts down. This should be fun. Unck is a crazy, whiskey swillin’, bad-ass, muthafucker and a goof-ball to boot. This kid could kick Butch Walker’s ass. So, I’m bringing Maker’s Mark and my voice recorder over to Chris’s studio to chat as he mixes Butch’s new DVD.

This brings me to today’s situation: If you could any musician’s ass, who would it be and why?

It would have to be Avril LaVigne, straight up. That little poseur bitch has hit the charts too many times with her face still intact. I’d like to get the mosh pit from Norma Jean at Warped Tour to help me take her out.