#names divine

[ericwallgren]

Kendra Calhoun of Names Divine made this video flyer for the show tonight @ The Hideout.  It's 8 dollars, if you're in Chicago just go.  Whatever plans you have can't top this.

[side45x]

Myra X KALX Setlist for 2-9-2013, 9am-11am PST

Myra X DJs at UC Berkeley's student and community run radio station KALX. She'll be posting short recaps, head-shakingly off-center banter, and all-her-fun-band set lists once, twice, or thrice a month (more or less).

Just finished my set at KALX and I am super happy with it. I had an excellent co-DJ, and I made a few warm connections with fellow Krautrock fans. Nods to the Neu!-listener who called in and my less overseas new Einzelganger guru (check out Amazing Grace's show on KALX later today.)

That said, here is my played stuff. Jammy, drone-y, dance-y, noisy tracks at-length today.

Myra X KALX Set List for February 9, 2013, 9a.m.-11a.m. (w/ support from co-DJ) 9:03am     Names Divine - "Travel the Road a Piece" - Something Vague and Maybe Rotting [S/R, 2011] http://namesdivine.com/new-album-something-vague-and-maybe-rotting/ 9:14am     Henry Cow - "Ruins" - Unrest [Virgin (UK), 1974] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2718-shmJY 9:25am     Kate Bush - "The Big Sky [Meteorological Mix]" - Hounds of Love Remaster [EMI, 1997] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2GDWtgd8zA 9:35am     Omar - "Feeling You (Henrik Schwarz Remix)" - The Remixes [Peppermint Jam, 2010] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt1RiNZWnpY 9:42am     Ada - "Les Danseuses" - Blondie [Areal, 2004] [Discogs clip]: http://clip.discogsmp3.com/MP3/SF1424147-02-01-08.mp3 9:50am     Earwig - "Everyday Shines" - Under My Skin I Am Laughing [La-Di-Da 1992] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uastelJUIdk 10:00am Quickspace - "Quasi-Pfaff" - Quickspace [Kitty Kitty Corporation, 1996] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PeVOm4CMeE 10:09am     Matt Pinfield - "Interview with Mary Lou Lord" [MTV, 1997] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZbGsYUiSWk 10:17am     Helium Vola - "Selig" - Helium Vola [Chrom, 2001] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7Ju2gFOHYA 10:26am     New Order - "Subvulture (12-inch Version)" - Subculture (Qwest, 2001) [Youtube incorrectly titled] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaQRltaHnAE 10:34am     Neu! - "Fur Immer" - Neu! 2 (United Artists) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3-86_Xq7fQ 10:46am     Buzzcocks - "I Believe" - A Different Kind of Tension (Liberty, 1979) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LJgcK7zh2I 10:54am     Iggy Pop - "Sister Midnight" - The Idiot (RCA, 1977) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LDbxOFWZyg 10:58am     Lee Ranaldo - "Some Distortion..." - East Jesus (Blast First, 1994) [Spotify link] http://open.spotify.com/track/2LKU8r8awbx7XeUk6MuRmC I'm can't say I'll be supplementing the set lists with links to songs every time. But--besides giving you a taste of my taste--I think it's always great to support the newer musicians and lesser-known veteran bands out there who have cool sounds you might want to hear (but aren't totally familiar to yet) with extra-mile ways to access them.

And finally, a half-funny closing story for all of you: So I'm driving with someone out of the studio and we get stuck behind a double parked postal truck. He: "I wonder if they give tickets to the postal service." Me, still hearing station ling: "Well staff members get a plus one usually and since they're playing soon I'll check, but you'll likely have to buy your own ticket." He, realizing we are both on totally opposite pages: --shakes head, muffled laughter-- "No.. "

Thanks for listening, ladies and men. If you are so interested, keep in touch via my Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Myra-X/465946516799734?ref=hl

Good cheer to you all this bright Saturday.

Xo.

--MX

KALX transmits from 90.7FM in the Bay Area, and can be heard everywhere else via the internets.

[parakeet-blog]

Tonight!

[eyedrum-blog]

Names Divine is playing at the Goat Farm tomorrow. Come check it out.

[portlyadolescence]

Names Divine - "Something Vague and Maybe Rotting"

Rating: A

Names Divine’s new album, “Something Vague and Maybe Rotting,” sounds like a corpse refusing to believe it’s dead, dragging its lifeless body ever forward. Names Divine has really come along way. The group began as the solo project of Chicagoan Kendra Calhoun under the name Call Me on the Allophone, strangling discordant screams out of her guitar and howling like Jandek gone berserk. Then there was the addition of drummer Jillian Musielak, a name change and now the group is up to nine members.

The flow of the album, and oh boy does “Rotting” work as an album, mirrors the process of the expansion from solo project to becoming the Arcade Fire/any other large chamber pop group from hell. The album begins at its most visceral, with “First Time I Saw Your Face” (Older versions of this song and other’s on the album can be found here). There’s a constant, eerie tremolo in the background and clattering drums, but the focus is on Calhoun’s powerful, roaring vocals and blasts of guitar crunch that overtake the other instruments. Calhoun often sounds like she’s yelling at the top of her lungs, but for a voice as terrifying as any black metal vocalist, it does not crack or warble too much; she’s very much in control.

“Bear Costume” follows in a similar vein, a little tamer, but trumpet and a male harmony joins Calhoun. “Satisfied Mind” is where everything changes. The song is a droning, blues-tinged country song; Calhoun is still howling, but now with pain and sadness in her voice. From here, the album even becomes catchy, in its own disturbing way. “Angel from Montgomery” is a bouncy, demented chamber pop song with blaring trumpets. Album centerpiece, the Yoko Ono cover “Goodbye Sadness,” is even beautiful. Male vocals join Calhoun on the chorus; the effect is enough to make you weep.

The rest of the album continues with a similar combination of noisy, droning blues american. There’s a ten minute epic with a silly monologue at the end, which doesn’t do a whole lot until it’s replaced with a sludgy, pseudo post-rock charge that probably works well in concert.

And by the end, Calhoun’s presence is all but diminished. Her most noticeable contribution, her voice, is replaced by a multi-tracked male Bayou croak and the whole thing descends into psychotic Tom Waits. Yet it all makes perfect sense. Names Divine is truly a band to look out for.

“Something Vague and Maybe Rotting” can be downloaded for a donation of your choosing at the group’s bandcamp or some pretty snazzy, handmade physical copies can be purchased for seven dollars here.

Tour Dates Below:

July 30 – Pure Michigan July 31 – Float Fest, Ann Arbor, MI. (acoustic set on a raft in a river)

August 1 – Chicago, IL @ Ball Hall August 2 – St. Louis, MO August 3 – Murfreesboro, TN w/ Trophy Wife August 4 – Nashville, TN @ Open Lot w/ Trophy Wife August 5 – Pensacola, FL w/ Balder August 6 – Apartment Music @ Hal McGee’s, 2pm / Gainesville, FL @ The Laboratory, 9pm August 7 – Jacksonville, FL @ Nullspace Gallery August 8 – Atlanta, GA August 9 – Athens, GA August 10 – Greeensboro, NC @ Glenwood Coffee and Books 1310 Grove St Greensboro, NC w/ Three Brained Robot August 11 – DC w/ Greenland August 12 – Philadelphia, PA w/ Circuits Des Yeux (De Stijl) August 13 – NY, NY August 14 – Brooklyn, NY – Goodbye Blue Monday w/ TBA August 15 – CT or RI August 16 – Boston, MA @ The Cirkus August 17 – Albany, NY August 18 – Ithaca, NY August 19 – Buffalo, NY w/ Jack Topht at The Vault August 20 – Cleveland or Columbus, OH August 21 – Bloomington, IN @ TBA

-James P.