9.16.2009

HEAVY PRAISE

We're just under a month away from the release of JTB's Heavy Days, and after giving ourselves a good long time to soak in the album, we think we might be kind of ready to review it. The boys dropped us two copies before heading westward so we thought it only fitting to give two reviews: one from Forever Young and one from Deviants Die.

Photo courtesy of Bekah Cope
Deviants Die:
It’s poppy, it’s psychedelic, but most importantly, it’s heavy. There’s a reason that word appears so many times in the album, reminding everyone who’s stuck on the catchy melodies and flange-freakouts what this album is really about: rocking-the-fuck-out. It’s a bit of a departure from their last vinyl release, The Boys R Back In Town; you won’t find any thirteen-minute paeans to the act of ghost riding on this album; it’s too busy making you move to the distortion-drenched rhythms of singer Jake’s three-stringed guitar. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still enough studio trickery to make Michael Rother jealous, but it’s done to only flavor the album, not dominate it like their earlier releases.
Photo courtesy of Bekah Cope
Forever Young:
Insomnia is not a fun problem to have, but I have figured out ways of putting my sleeplessness to better use. Twice now I have found myself watching the sunrise in the mean streets of Nashville playing Heavy Days at the highest possible volume. The first of which being a much more moving experience. Scooped in a car around 4 AM on a Friday morning, a friend and I drove around the streets of Nashville for no real reason, just cruising. And, after a while, we started to talk about how weird Nashville is. How weird it is that we have a to-scale replica of The Parthenon. The conversation led us there, to those giant steps around 5:30 in the morning. We continued then to play JEFF's Heavy Days in it's entirety while dancing in/around The Parthenon, praising the Greek Gods and Goddesses while the morning staffers and the sun started to show up [absolutely true story.] The epitome of Nashville was reached that morning, and every morning should only dream to be so lucky. It should be mandated that Heavy Days be played at The Parthenon at sunrise every morning. In all seriousness though, Heavy Days is JEFF's magnum opus [so far] and it's the kind of record that I'll have to buy 4 or 5 copies of because I'll overplay them again and again. And over the next while, you'll read reviews of the album where people will compare JEFF to bands like Wavves, and they'll say things like "The Brotherhood is the bridge between stoner and pop." And they'll try to peg it as a Be Your Own Pet off-shoot. But JEFF is not Wavves. And "stoner" and "pop" are the bridges from JEFF to every other band. And I don't think anyone could've shot from Be Your Own Pet and landed where they have. I've watched the Brotherhood grow for a long time, and I'm just now realizing that I've been lucky enough to witness some really heavy shit. Thanks guys. That, and I played the record for my mom, who's response was, "This sounds like real rock and roll." She knows her shit, too. Trust.




There you go! Doesn't the JTB font on the album remind you a lot of the Nevermind font? Whatever. The album comes out on October 13 on Infinity Cat. We've heard talk of a release show at Glenn Danzig's House, and the Grooms myspace says something about a show in Nashy with JEFF on the 13th.... we'll be sure to keep you posted. Until then, you can catch them at Little Hamilton with Chain & The Gang on Sept. 26.

8.21.2009

An Hour Before Showtime


So yesterday before the Life Trap/Male Nurses/Spanish Candles/Kintaro show, we were hanging out with the Bostonian punks and figured: You know what bands love to do before playing a show? Get interviewed by some kids! We sat down with them and shared some words, but we didn't have a recorder or anything so this transcription is basically from memory. They probably didn't say any of this at all. Anyways....


Nashville's Dead: Male Nurses, huh?

Male Nurses: You got it.

From Boston, MA?

From Boston, MA.

You know, Nashville's hardcore scene is really not as strong as it used to be. I mean, most of the "hardcore" bands here are just metal. Not really hardcore.

Boston rules.

What's it like there?

Phenomenal. Boston's better than every other city. Boston's the best. Yeah, Boston's doing relatively well these days. [please realize this is an interview with ALL of them]

Cool, well, what other bands do you guys like?

Brainkiller, Social Circkle, Waste Management, Henchmen, Foreign Blow-J's. That band's still around?

Badass.

Actually, Boston has a lot of bands going right now. There's a wave of bands right now that have defunct and started up new bands. Like Scapegoat.

Scapegoat rules. How long have you guys been around?

Year and half. Year abouts.

Were you guys friends before starting the band or did you just meet through the "scene"?

Yeah, pretty much all friends. We met PJ and Ryan (who couldn’t be here because he flew back home yesterday on a plane for some reason) through the “scene”. We’ve been in bands before and stuff

Is this the first tour for Male Nurses?

It is.

What other cities have you guys hit?

We've play cities in Connecticut, Brooklyn, Albany. This tour, we started out in Brooklyn and got there too late. We decided to play darts and played too long and got there to the show too late. We treid to pickup some chicks from France and got pretty close. We went to Philly and stayed at Tonio’s parents and his mom found about his Flipper tattoo and freaked out. We pretty much based the tour around Tonio getting circumcised; as a gift to him that his parents didn’t give him. We played a Philly show with like 3 bands, this band Daily Void who are really big. They served some Schmidt at the bar. It's some obscure beer. Then we went back to Tonio’s abode and his mom made us pancakes and because of that we were late for our show in Roanoke. And we were all busy beating off so, you know. Tonio’s up to 11 now, and PJ is in second.

Real inside scoop here.

Guess so. After Roanoke, we ventured off into the abyss of Asheville. There were some people who promised us acid and didn’t give it to us.

Asheville is hippy central. How many white people with dreds did you see?

A ton. Like 14 or 15.

Yeah. Have you guys got any recordings out?

We've got a demo tape out and we plan to record as soon as we get back form tour on Deranged Records. Name drop.

Yeah, we'll be sure to link to that.

We’re based in America.

Word.

We’ve taken two nude photos. One in front of a waterfall and the other in front of a beautiful landscape in Tennessee. There were a few cars parked there and they all left. Scared of our penises. Cowards. “I’ve never seen a bigger coward in my life.” Put that in there in quotations.

Will do. Yeah, STSCy told us all about you guys.

Cy, good man. Yeah, we're looking forward to playing with Life Trap and the other bands on the roster.


MALE NURSES (L to R): Standing: PJ [drums], Con [lead guitar],
Nick [sings], Dave [bass] Kneeling: Garrett [drive/filling in on guitar],
Tonio [circumcised]

Male Nurses are still on tour and might be coming to your city. Find out here. They're cool dudes and like good movies, so party hard with them.