Results tagged “diagonals”

With each passing day it becomes ever more doubtful that Rolling Stone magazine will pay anyone - let alone me - to fly around the country to tag along with and write about a mediocre rock band while they traverse house parties willy-nilly and take acid. But that's okay. It means less paying gigs, but also fewer glossy, in-depth profiles of hacks like Lenny Kravitz or accounts of visiting the needle exchange with Staind. What you'll get here is a more down to earth account of five bands en route to Denton and Dallas. Hopefully the quality of these groups will offset the lack of rock and roll excess contained in the following account.

Steve Garcia has a reputation in town, but not in the skanky sense - he's a familiar face at your local I Luv Video, and he has already made a name for himself rock-wise in the apparently defunct Black Lipstick. Stepping into the spotlight with Diagonals, Garcia has traded up from the catchy but often transparent licks of his past project and into a full-force psychedelic machine.

Used to be the word “garage” was the template and the starting point for most if not all of rock and roll. Whether the garage was literal was irrelevant - the term could apply to a basement, empty room or vacant storage space/warehouse, or really anyplace a band could put their roots down, plug in equipment and then plug away at songs without disturbing the peace. Back then, rough demos were cut onto cassette tape (putting a pillow over the built-in microphone helped stifle cymbal noise), and “in the garage” recordings were the first and easiest way to get the word out about a project.

If garage and psych rock are your thing, you've got a buffet in front of you for a Friday night. In addition to the Monotonix/Strange Boys performance at nearby Red 7, you may also elect to follow your ears to the rumbling of Emo's inside stage, where a quartet of local bands will be giving it their rocked-out all.

We'd be remiss if we didn't point out that there's a show tomorrow kicking off Diagonals upcoming tour with instrumental powerhouse and beloved locals Octopus Project. The aforementioned slanted band will also be releasing a new EP, which paves the way for an album this fall. It's nice to see they're keeping themselves busy.

Whatcha doin’ Saturday night? You could punish your eardrums with bands like Doom Siren and Disempower at the Broken Neck, enjoy the Scoot Inn’s Coney Island Fest (which, with any luck, will serve up those delicious mid-west morsels they call coney dogs), or you could step into a Valium haze with those country-echo pioneers The Cowboy Junkies at The One World Theater. But to experience some raw rock’n’roll, you might be better off treading down to Emo’s Lounge, where the only thing to separate you from the noise is that weird split level moat-thing.

Once again, Beerland is delivering the goods this week with a four bands worth of impressive up and comers. For hyperactive guitar-led jams that feature whip smart drums and a keyboard backbone, look no further than Shapes Have Fangs. Also harnessing the kinetic energy of garage jams are Diagonals, whose frontman Steve Garcia also rocks in Peek-A-Boo records signees Black Lipstick.