Facing New York Remix

Facing New York- "Cops on Bikes (WP PMFK Remix)" mp3

San Francisco three-piece Facing New York have but one question for the titular foes in their single, "Cops On Bikes," and it's a pressing one: How you gonna bust me in them little shorts? Hmm. While we're still looking for an answer to that, you can do two things: number one, grab a free remix of the single above, and two, run out to your mom-and-pop store of choice and purchase the band's brand new album Get Hot (Five One Inc.) immediately to hear the original track and ten other groove-punk jams. (By the way, we are ALL OVER the genre tags lately...) The album is a refreshing blend of prog turns and pop sensibilities, drawing comparisons to Cursive and even a little Mars Volta thrown in for good measure. Right on! A live video of "Cops On Bikes" can be found after the jump.

Cops on Bikes LIVE from Angela Poe on Vimeo.

Viva La Volta

THE MARS VOLTA

THE HAMMERSTEIN BALLROOM

New York City, NEW YORK

9.17.08

by TARA McCARTHY

Last night at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York, I got a pretty sweet taste of the psychedelic spacey-prog insanity that is the Mars Volta live. It was my first live Volta experience, and just like everyone said it would, it changed my perspective on the band. I’m never quite sure how I feel about these weirdos. On the one hand, I love that they’re blowing the skinny jeans and plaid right off of the hordes of “indie rock” and “experimental pop folk” bands that are quickly turning the music scene into an utter snooze fest. They’re so aggressively, deliciously polarizing that they take the snobbery right out of musical discourse: technically, it’s totally legit to either love them, or hate them. On the other hand, roughly half of the stuff they put out just flat out sounds bad. Still, the other half is pretty banging…

I don’t know all the names of the songs they played, other than it was mostly new album Bedlam in Goliath, with a smattering of the other three thrown in. I do know the amount of energy they brought to the show last night was obscene. They never stopped playing. I kept wondering, how do they prepare for these shows?

More after the jump...

Do they sleep for a week, and then conceal IVs filled with pure adrenaline under their clothing when they take to the stage? How are they not tired? How is the drummer still drumming? Packed in with hundreds of sweaty, quasi-maniacal fans, and being the height that I am (short), my experience was mostly auditory, but I did catch a few choice glimpses of Cedric Bixler-Zavala, clad in some sort of skin-tight shiny black shirt and rocking the same hairstyle as my 2nd grade teacher Mrs. Triolo, bouncing, salsa-dancing and microphone-tossing around stage. The arrangements were varied, interesting, and so overwhelmingly, refreshingly rock and roll that I couldn’t erase the smile from my face, even when some 6-foot tall douche bag saw nothing wrong with knocking me over and planting himself directly in front of me half way through the show. So what if the band believes in ghosts and Ouija boards and half the lyrics are totally ridiculous and make no sense? Viva la Volta.

Tara McCarthy—Stark contributing writer

Dying To Be A Mars Volta Chick

Let me preface my thoughts on this newest Volta installment by saying that I have an unhealthy relationship with this band. I’ll be honest—I’m sort of dying to be the kind of chick that digs The Mars Volta. I’ve always wanted to be able to say to a rabid fan in a bar: “Yeah, around 4:35 on "Drunkship of Lanterns" is totally the height of rock and roll.” My first foray was a totally blind purchase of Frances the Mute, which I bought on recommendation from a friend. I listened paralyzed by sensory overload until I got to "The Widow", a completely non-sequitorial, suspiciously accessible classic rock jam. “I can dig this,” I thought, until I realized that, were I an actual Volta fan, this song would make me want to drive off a cliff, (after burning the album, of course)... My experiences after Frances have been similarly confusing. I consume Volta albums as quickly as possible, hoping if I get them all down at once, I can somehow trick my gag reflex. Unfortunately, it’s usually just a binge followed by inevitable regurgitation. Needless to say, when I listened to their newest, Bedlam in Goliath, I didn’t have high hopes, especially after hearing Cedric and Omar (I’ll pretend I’m on a first-name basis) interviewed about the concepts behind Bedlam. Inspired by Ouija boards? Yup, there’s the gag reflex, right on cue.

Imagine my surprise when, against all odds, I kind of enjoyed this album. Haters take note: it’s not all that different than the others. Just as volatile, just as indulgent, just as weird. I was still left wondering if they were simply trying to trick us into believing they’re prog. But I felt that some of the bass lines actually followed a more natural progression on this album, the songs were more gritty, less straight-up crazy. More head-nod, less insane psychotic mosh pit. Listen to Aberinkula, Metatron, and Wax Simulacra, for starters. I don’t know…maybe I’m coming around.

- Tara McCarthy, Contributing Writer to Stark