joey chernila, in his infinite wisdom, asked me to write something about music. i, in my infinite laziness, kept putting it off, thinking i would discover something so brilliant and obscure it would catapult me to the top of the critical heap. well, i’ve given up on that aspiration for now, and have decided to call attention to local dudes tweak bird, whose brilliance is unquestionable, but may have been featured throughout the hype machine farm. know what though? i guess i was wrong. a search revealed only one track on hype machine, so perhaps i fulfilled my destiny. anyhow, this two piece takes us to the shores of a river styx that somehow (flap of butterfly wings in hell?) is kicking up some raging tsunamis. that and something about aliens or indians…

oh, and more importantly, they cite ozzie smith instead of ozzy osbourne as an influence. and tony gwynn, pedro guerrero and lee smith.

Tweak Bird – Whorses

perhaps to balance out the heavy rippage of tweak bird, the other LA dude that should be considered for your fantasy jams team is devon williams. tweak bird’s got a blazing fastball but leads the league in wild pitches. devon might have lost his velocity, but he thinks about every pitch and places it precisely where it should be.

devon will hopefully be getting more attention soon due to his touring the west coast with destroyer, but i figure this whole blogging game is about beating people to the punch, so listen to and love this and know that in a world without joey chernila you would have had like two weeks less with devon williams.

so i guess devon plays with lavender diamond, whom i haven’t really dug on yet, although i enjoy the comics that accompany their presence. i’ve listened to the devon stuff a ton, each time thinking i should lay off it so i don’t get sick of it and not want to hear it again for a few years (remember when built to spill’s keep it like a secret came out? i really should have kept that secret from myself). but that never happens. i only want to listen to it again. why? devon seems to be doing something that no one else is, something that i really can’t put my finger on. so perhaps he’s created a need in me to hear things that sound like him, but since there aren’t, i listen again. there’s definitely a pretty significant replacements influence. that’s borne out by devon’s earlier band, osker, which was epitaph punk pop. not really my thing. this solo shit is for sure.

elevator was the first song of devon’s i heard, so i’ll go with that one. the full length is coming out in may on ba da bing and i guarantee it will not disappoint.

Devon Williams – Elevator