// November 11th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // Music
Another primer on a pivotal left coast noise-pop band: Los Angeles’ No Age.
One response to the simultaneous collapse of both the financial and record industries would be to retreat inward: foster a local scene, maybe even a single venue [The Smell], carve out your niche, make iconic [tshirts], keep a primitive [blog], play all ages shows, depend on dedicated fans. Focus.
In other words, work strategically.
Another avenue might seem the very opposite: do whatever you can. Vote early and vote often. Play a vegan grocery store or a library, do a [video] from the POV of a mouse, design shoes for Emerica [pic], play a Spike Jonze retrospective at the MoMA [video], remix Fucked Up’s ‘No Epiphany’ [mp3], go on a bitchin tour with Dan Deacon and Deerhunter (No Deachunter tour, naturally, with a poster [pic] by CSS’s Lovefoxxx), release a split 7″ with Times New Viking and Los Campesinos. And always give away mp3s. Like the elegiac You’re a Target [mp3], with a guitar drone that whines and bends like a more immediate Kevin Shields. Or Brain Burner [stream], as epic an album closer as there is in this young century.
Hell, if you’re gonna go for it, go for broke: perform a live score of The Bear [videothing]. Fuck, that’s awesome. In this scatter shot approach, throw everything you have at the wall of your garage and see what sticks.
In other words, just WORK.
photo courtesy of the get up kid
Couple months back here in Vancouver, No Age demonstrated just how well they combine these two approaches. Ostensibly the band was here for Emerica’s Wild in the Streets/Go Skateboarding Day after party, but that was on Saturday, and they were playing a minimally publicized show on Friday. A cheap beer and testosterone soaked Biltmore packed with skaters (and ex-faux-skaters, such as myself) greeted the somewhat taken aback LA lads. There was a certain energy in the room. It was almost as if a few thousand punks were planning to storm downtown Vancouver on planks with wheels… go to 1:30 for the insanity [youtube]. Oh, and Andrew Reynolds front side flipped this legen–wait for it–dary double set called Black Ice [youtube]. I digress: No Age countered that simmering energy with their own: fine-tuned but faulty fingering, noise but pop, tight but loose. A shotgun and a laser.
Their moniker might suggest a concern for time over space, No Age’s hazy LA scrawl merely an ephemeral loop of feedback that is as fleeting as it is forceful. But in volatile times such as these, anchors cease to exist, and spatial concerns dominate. The expansive texture of Randy’s pedal loops and a brute sound that travels across basements or fields alike, the constant creative activity taking them from art gallery to flickr photo gallery.
In transcendental space, No Age can hear you scream.
