Hello, friends. Did you have a good New Year’s? I hope it involved as much missing underwear, mysterious bruising, and filmy residue as mine. I want to tell you about a funny thing that happened to me January 1. Despite more debauchery than one could tickle one’s pickle at, I woke up feeling awesome the next day (and by “woke up," I of course mean “stumbled home”). By some sort of divine intervention, I felt neither pukey nor zombified, but giddy, even downright sprightly. It was as if someone had slipped vitamins into my drink. What could it all mean? Was God giving me a get-out-of-jail-free card in the hopes that I’d take it as an easy lesson? I think not. Clearly, God wants me to party even more in 2009. In the immortal words of Angelina Jolie, Quod me nutrit me destruit (“what feeds me destroys me”), only flip that shit backwards. I've heard my calling, and now it's on me to deliver. In that spirit, here are some bands to which I plan to go off hard and often for the next twelve months.

Team Robespierre On Tour

According to a recent MySpace bulletin, Brooklyn’s Team Robespierre are going on tour to some places March 14-26. Details thus far are as vague as your memory the morning after, but one thing is for certain: they want to “have a dirty sleepover” with America. Oft described as “punk dance” rather than “dance punk,” they’re much closer to what you might imagine “dance punk” to be had you never heard the Faint. Someone took drunk, yell-y, ham-fisted punk rockers, gave them electronic drums and keyboards to bang on, and prescribed them some serious mood elevators. This band was meant to play the type of party that walks a fine line between joyous exuberance and full on destructive orgy. Invite them to play your house, and be prepared for them to love it to pieces. “My friends did this,” you will marvel, as you survey all your broken things the next morning. “People who like me.” You definitely have to be in the right mood/state of inebriation to enjoy TR, but luckily, 2009 is your time to shine, so that won't be a problem. Here’s a video for “88th Precinct,” which manages to get me temporarily psyched about all the things in my neighborhood that usually make me want to blow my brains out.




Powers of Telepathe

Let’s pretend for a second that when I say “party,” I actually mean “take drugs.” If you’re more into swaying and twirling than punching and kicking, this might be the band for you. Folks bandy about terms like “gorgeously haunted dream pop” and “UFO trunk rattlers” when trying to describe their unique mix of breathy vocals, electronic beats, and outer space sounds, but I think my (and, coincidentally, their) crazy ex-roommate best summed it up as “nightmare karate music.” My friend and I put them on while smoking a marijuana cigarette the other day, and subsequently shared one of those special, mind-melding glances that renders speech obsolete. Telepathe's Dave Sitek-produced debut full length Dance Mother is due out later this month on IAMSOUND, with one flawless track already available for download at Pitchfork and a few older ones at Rcrdlbl. Put this in your pipe and smoke it:




The Black Lips

I know I’ve written about them before, but nobody gets down like these guys. On a recent night in Brooklyn, an under-age friend of mine caught a glimpse of their insanity and was inspired to stop going to class so he might better focus on the only worthy goal in life, that of getting money and fucking bitches. They’re taking their dirty SoCo-soaked flower-punk to new heights this year with a new album out on Vice Records (out February 24), as well as an ambitious, insomniac tour that includes dates in the U.S., U.K., and India, during which they'll play several headlining dates of Campus Rock Idols, the indie, Indian version of American Idol(!). When the dust settles after the apocalypse, I predict only these guys, KISS, and cockroaches will remain to fight it out. My money’s on the lips due to Jared Swilley’s magnificent mustache, Cole Alexander’s bone-crushing grille of steel, and their most dastardly of signature moves, the make-out fake out.

Oh, Katrina



Get the Spirit in Ye

This UK group has no major news to report aside from a tour of Germany, though I guess it’s major if you live in Germany, so apologies if I sounded like an asshole just then. Mainly, though, I just discovered them and want to share them with you. Obvious fans of classic British blues-rock acts like Led Zeppelin and The Who, The Duke Spirit do not so much evolve the genre as perfect it. Singer/tambourine player Leila Moss, who bears a striking resemblance, but no relation, to another, more famous but less fresh-faced lady of the same surname, has more than a little Grace Slick in her, which goes well with the music’s more psychedelic elements. I’m putting up this video because it has good sound quality, but to see her really let loose you should hunt down some live footage. Neptune (2008) was a good, polished follow up to Cuts Across the Land (2005), but I hope they move back to a messier sound with their next album, because I think that’s where Moss really shines. Their bluesy, throbbing numbers make me feel like I’m at a mushroom party in the ‘70’s and things are groovy but have yet to get too weird for me to handle.

The Step and the Walk



Because I'm delirious, I will now leave you with this video of my cat, Theodore Brown, who parties harder than all of us put together.