Casual Victim Pile II Three-Day Release Party at Beerland [Show Preview]

Casual Victim Pile II release
Thursday, March 3 - Saturday, March 5
Beerland (711-1/2 Red River)
$6 each night, 9pm
[info]

Last year, Matador Records co-chief Gerard Cosloy curated the Austin rock and punk compilation Casual Victim Pile, bringing to vinyl and digital formats music that, for the most part, you could only experience on booze-filled nights on Red River (OK, at Beerland). Though he stated at the time that the document was "very arbitrary" and in no way a definitive portrait of any "scene," it did bring heightened local exposure to a strain of blistering, D.I.Y.-style rock. Some of the bands on the first comp (Follow That Bird, Harlem, Woven Bones) now seem like indispensable parts of the Austin music scene writ large; other bands have broken up, and still more are punching holes in the walls of Beerland to replace the patched-over ones they punched in last year. Most of all, the first CVP is just fun to listen to. It's good to know these bands.

And so Cosloy did it again this year, releasing Casual Victim Pile II (this time on his boutique label, 12XU) on February 22. The scope might be a little wider this time, but the same ramshackle rambunctiousness punctuates the record throughout. This time, CVP gives us everything from the thundering, wailing punk of OBN III's to the fuzzy garage pop of Simple Circuit; Literature's erudite, fist-pumping sing-a-longs to A Giant Dog's glam-inflected, melodic rock; the hypnotic graveyard stomp of The Zoltars and the acid rock blasted by Rayon Beach.

To celebrate, Beerland is hosting a trio of shows, beginning tonight. The full lineup is as follows:

Thursday, March 3
Simple Circuit
The Zoltars
Literature
Bottle Service
Sally Crewe & The Sudden Moves
The French Inhales

Friday, March 4
OBN III's
Rayon Beach
Crisis Hotlines
Naw Dude
Serious Tracers
Hatchet Wound

Saturday, March 5
A Giant Dog
Women In Prison
Cruddy
The Dead Space
Coma In Algiers
Expensive Shit

The album is available to stream at the Casual Victim Pile website, where you can also order it on 180-gram white vinyl for a mere $12.

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By Phillip Pantuso in Arts & Entertainment on March 3, 2011 2:52 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Phillip Pantuso

The point re: Woven Bones was that the comp (plus In and Out, but the comp came first) raised their profile locally and then nationally, and had some small part (at least) in them getting signed to Hardly Art. After which, they decided it was time to relocate to Brooklyn. Andy and I actually talked about this after an interview I did with him during FFF. If you're interested: http://austinist.com/2010/11/0...

I think most bands are associated in part by where they first came into a listener's consciousness. Where they came from. For the last year-plus, that's been Austin for Woven Bones.

I'll leave your other criticism alone because just relax, man.

AustinSnark

These type of adjective, adjective band name reviews make me weep for music journalism. Is there a shared thesaurus that you all use that I'm unaware of?

Indispensable parts of the Austin music scene? Woven Bones moved to Brooklyn. Where have you been?