Yesterday CMJ gave away a slewww of prizes and awards at their annual College Music Awards. While KZSC is only winning at home (and with you) right now, our neighbors KSSU Sacramento took home a mountain of awards, including Station of the Year! Say congrats to them and give them a listen to see what all the hooplah is about.

Little Teeth!

The real hooplah last night, however, was Little Teeth, one of my favorite high energy freak-folk bands whose album “Child Bearing Man” was played alllll over KZSC last winter. The group recently became a (partly married) trio and the combination is still as fantastic as ever. Front woman Dannie Murrie stomped around with legs wrapped in shells and bells, threw pots and pans, and nearly made my booted heel break the floor boards from the amount of stomping and clapping that was induced. They should be coming to Santa Cruz in the near future, so get into this soon. You’ll want to wear your dancing shoes and your swing along with all your friends. Also, this little lady managed to snag their new EP “Falling Off the Bed By Default of the Bed Falling Off of the Bed” so look forward to hearing that all over the SC radioland.

UUVVWWZ!

Also last night was a current favorite out on Saddle Creek right now: UUVVWWZ. They played at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn which I have to say is a less-than ideal venue for such a great act. Can I just say right now that I really dislike stages? Mainly tall stages, I have a problem with a band as fun and crazy and dance-along wonderful as UUVVWWZ playing while raised 5 feet in the air with obnoxious colorful lights flashing the whole time. What I mean to say is that this band is great. I want to dance along with them in my living room will all my friends and get sweaty and nuts. An oversized venue just didn’t do the trick. Lead singer Teal Gardner kills it with her jumping dancing flying crazy voice over gritty jittery guitars. I am 100% going to try to catch them again before I take off for California tomorrow (booooooooo!) so cross those fingers that I do!

Today I got up early to catch High Life once again. An early show (2pm is pretty damn early) and equipment constraints lead Doug to adapting in the most wonderful way: we started off downstairs at the Cake Shop in a nearly empty, dark basements and followed the guys up the stairs into the cafe for a surprise acoustic set of what I had previously seen: freak electronic Panda Bear-style pop. And this time? Beautiful folk music from a musician who I really cannot get enough of.

Keep checking here for more CMJ updates!

CMJ Day 3: UUVVWWZ, Little Teeth, and college music awards! is a post from: KZSC Santa Cruz

Last night on the outskirts of CMJ land I met an excccelllent all ages venue called Monster Island. What started as a quick stop just to see Best Coast turned into an all-night adventure involving whisky runs, water-front park benches, and, jesus– was it SEVEN bands at this one venue? There was also a pumpkin carving party upstairs. I got some candy.

Music to fall in love with after the jump!

High Life bathed in a heavenly glow

Band to look out for should they (slash he) ever come into your town? HIGH LIFE. Amazing. It’s a project of White Magic guitarist Sleepy Doug Shaw and it sounds like freak pop surf rock perfection. Go to that myspace now and get crazy in love. High Life nearly literally (which is not at all) blew me out of the water last night. The music is strange enough, psychedelic enough to get your mind stretching far and wide while your feet stay here and stomp out the dance party.

Duck Tailsssss

And the reason it was completely impossible to get off Monster Island at an early hour — Duck Tails played. Again an almost one-man effort of surf glitch psychedelia that’s friendly (speaking of– go listen to “Friends” on that myspace) dreamy and wonderful. Needless to say, I didn’t want to go home at the end of this show.

Did anything else destroy me? You bet.

Bethany of Best Coast played seriously wonderful lo-fi pop tunes at Monster Island and across town at the Terrorbird party (hosted by the Cake Shop) we saw War Paint and Darlings, both wonderful.

Best Coast

War Paint is an all-girl threesome who turn out captivating psychedelic rock with their unbelievable good voices and their hypnotic guitars. Wonderful!

Also at the Cake Shop was Darlings whose garage pop is killlerrr. You’ve probably heard them on various indie shows at KZSC (oh because they’re wonderful whaaat) and they were equally wonderful live.

Keep checking here for more CMJ updates! Tonight: UUVVWWZ!

Update deux from CMJ: High Life, Duck Tales, War Paint! is a post from: KZSC Santa Cruz