Where I Live Hurts My Eyes

California X have gotten some weird pub already, pegging them as some sort of pedal-hopping '90s-worshipping nostalgia act, when actually, live, with all the fuzzy edges removed, they sound like fuckin' Tenement. Maybe not EXACTLY like Tenement, but pretty close: beefy, enlongated hard rock guitar riffs, carelessly mined from the first Montrose record as well as the mid-'80s SST back catalog (Würm, The Stains, Saccharine Trust), those kinda riffs. Okay, maybe the 7" does sound like Milk Music -- I guess you got me there, Mr. NME -- but you should see these guys live, it'll definitely bend your mind and give you another perspective. Buy the 7" too, though, it's really good.

The Clippers are kinda funny, like cheesy '70s AM rock, kinda like if you took John Stewart's "Gold" Bob Welch's "Ebony Eyes" (or "Lido Shuffle", or "Hot Child in The City", or "Magnet & Steel" or whatever, any one of those) and compressed it down to one-and-a-half minutes. I bought their CD from PRGNT probably a year or so ago, and it's kinda funny too, since it's a 3" mini-CD so you can't really play it on anything unless you've got one of those older CD boomboxes with the little spindle holder thing in the middle. (Topshelf re-released it on vinyl a while back, so don't worry, they've got you covered). Literally, all their songs are about a minute-and-a-half long, and that's pretty funny if you like to hear pint-sized pop/rock songs, which you should anyway.

I wanted to stop off at Willimantic Records on the way to the show, but I've never been there before so I drove up and down Main Street twice looking for it and never found it. After almost half an hour I gave up. There was a carnival going on right across from the big frog statue, dammit, I could've gone to that for twenty minutes. Since I never found the record store I bought a bunch of stuff at the show instead, including the One Hundred Year Ocean "Poison Smoak" tape, which I like a lot. Don't mind me, I just write these really fast now, once I figured out nobody reads 'em.


California X, "Sucker"



The Clippers, "Boku & Chevre"



The Clippers, "Quiet Confidence"