The Complete On the Corner Sessions boxed set recently came out to much fanfare, including my own hyperventilating blather on the subject here. (By the way, I noticed that Dusty Groove is selling the six-CD set for the reasonable sum of $127—a bargain for one of the greatest albums ever, plus bonus cuts galore and an indispensable, image-rich booklet.)

Below enjoy a teasingly truncated interview with a few of Miles' old band members from that creatively fertile era and then immerse yourself into the maelstrom of a performance from that stellar year of 1973. It's scarier than any Halloween mischief you'll be experiencing tonight.

Interview with Pete Cosey, Dave Liebman and Michael Henderson in Miles' old backyard

Badass electric Miles band footage from 1973

According to some of you out there (or at least one of you who rides a motorcycle) the Club Listings are lacking for those homosexually-inclined.

These are the gay clubs/lounges that regularly run in the paper (when space allows):

-Executive Suite
-Stiff Tuesdays at Proof
-Paradise
-Lucky Sundays at Tia Juana’s
-Mick & Mack’s
-Fun House at Frat House
-Beer Bust at Ripple’s

Being a straight girl, sometimes I miss the underground/little-known rainbow-friendly happenings.

So please, good people of Orange County, if you know a place where the bears are friendly and the go-go boys are fierce... let me know! And yes, the Boom Boom Room is STILL closed, so don't bother.

Thanks,
Erin
Clubs Editor
edewitt@ocweekly.com

*Due to a technical glitch, listings are drastically cut from our online calendar. Not to fear, it will be fixed soon!

Southern California indie label Gold Standard Laboratories announced it will be ceasing operations this month after 14 years of championing uncompromising underground music. Although GSL will stop releasing new music, it will continue to sell its gem-laden back catalog through Redeye Distribution/11spot.

A rationale for folding is offered on GSL's website, presumably by founder Sonny Kay (of the bands Angel Hair, the VSS and Year Future): “In recent years, we've experienced the onset of factors that have seriously limited our ability to maintain what we feel is the essence of the label; the experimental attitude and artistic freewheeling of times past are simply no longer sustainable. Rather than compromise our goals and beliefs, or allow our course to be charted by financial constraint and an industry in flux, we've decided the time has come for GSL to cease releasing new music, and to close this chapter of our story.”

Begun in Colorado in 1993, the LA-based label is best known as the home for the Mars Volta (their vinyl releases anyway) and that stadium-prog group's various satellite projects, including solo works by co-owner Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (he partnered with Kay in 2001). Other notable artists whose records have worn the GSL logo include Crime in Choir, the Rapture, !!!/Outhud, Anavan, the Locust, Gogogo Airheart, An Albatross and many others.

Tip: Pitchfork

Below is a video by one of GSL's better new artists, Crime in Choir.

Oh, sweet, sweet irony. Remember in the mid-'80s when major labels crowed about how the advent of compact discs would hasten the death of vinyl? A quarter century later, it looks like the (turn)tables are reversed: vinyl's popularity is resurgent while the CD's fortunes are looking as bleak as Iraq's, according to this article in Wired by Eliot Van Buskirk.

Vinyl's sonic superiority long has been an axiom among audiophiles and Neil Young; now the format's popularity is rising, along with sales of turntables. Buskirk writes:

Pressing plants are ramping up production, but where is the demand coming from? Why do so many people still love vinyl, even though its bulky, analog nature is anathema to everything music is supposed to be these days? Records, the vinyl evangelists will tell you, provide more of a connection between fans and artists. And many of today's music fans buy 180-gram vinyl LPs for home listening and MP3s for their portable devices.

"For many of us, and certainly for many of our artists, the vinyl is the true version of the release," said Matador's Patrick Amory. "The size and presence of the artwork, the division into sides, the better sound quality, above all the involvement and work the listener has to put in, all make it the format of choice for people who really care about music."

Matador and other labels have been including coupons in their vinyl releases that can be used to download MP3 versions of the songs. Amory says the coupon stratagem is "hugely popular."

Buskirk sounds a familiar refrain with this sentence: “Big labels still aren't buying the vinyl comeback, but it wouldn't be the first time the industry failed to identify a new trend in the music biz.”

And the boom times for fans of major-label schadenfreude continue apace...

While I hope vinyl continues to gain favor among all sorts of demographics, and not just with graying audiophiles and analog-purist DJs, I'm skeptical that it will happen in significant enough numbers to revive the music industry at a time when millions of people think they're "entitled" to get music for free.

Whatever the case, I do have a request: As someone who's moved thousands of records six times over the last five years, I sincerely hope somebody will start manufacturing quality wax that's not so damned heavy.

The Warlocks go deep.

Where will you find the area's most discerning drone/psych-rock aficionados tonight? At Alex's Bar in Long Beach, where Los Angeles' Warlocks and LB denizens Magic Lantern will be setting their FX boxes on STUN, PHASE, FLANGE, etc. The Warlocks come off like Brian Jonestown Massacre's heavier, trippier younger siblings and with more Spacemen 3 records in their collections. They combine dreamy melodies with hypno-mantric jamming, generating a potent, all-over aural buzz.

Magic Lantern blew my mind the first time I saw them at the Prospector September 8. I can't really add much more than what I posted in this live review on Heard Mentality. These gods of throb are one of the most mesmerizing bands working in this region; they're true psychonauts who understand that the power of repetition is best manifested when it's done with transcendental transport as its goal. Listen to their holy blissin'.

Avenged Sevenfold is playing a secret show tonight (Friday 10/26) at the Slidebar in Fullerton.
Sometime around 9ish.
No cover.

122 E. Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton, 92832.

The Detroit Bar in Costa Mesa was rocked to the foundations Wednesday night as the Melvins and their entourage plowed through town. Visual artist Dalek’s animated short, A Purge of Dissidents, kicked things off by injecting a healthy dose of vitamin weird into the mix.

The film ran for about 20 minutes as it followed the exploits of demented, cycloptic mouse-like things (known as “Space Monkeys”) that have a knack for producing knives out of nowhere in order to stab themselves and other characters. Oh, and did I mention they bleed a lot? Because they do (we’re talking lakes of blood); think Itchy and Scratchy on acid. A Purge of Dissidents is essentially a collage of 10 episodes with titles such as “The Antichrist,” “The Emperor Smokes Crack” and “The GOP Will Set Me Free.” It is a walk into the abstract and demented imagination of Dalek, and it served as an appetizer for the main course.

Cruising down to Costa Mesa tonight are Joshua Tree's Gram Rabbit, a slinky electro-pop duo (Jesika Von Rabbit and Todd Rutherford) whose songs are all gleaming surfaces and curvy contours. Jesika imbues the quasi-funky backdrops with seductively creamy vocals and glam-diva hauteur. Attention, Devo fans: “Hot Spit” off Gram Rabbit's new album, Radio Angel & the Robot Beat, is a clever, wide-screen homage to that band's iconic 1980 hit “Whip It.”

You can catch a glimpse of the Gram Rabbit live experience in the video [see below] for “In My Book,” filmed during the band’s September residency at Spaceland.

Also on this strong bill are Pity Party, Repeater, and DJs Velvet Touch and Clamor.

Melvins' Buzz Osborne, redefining "hair metal."

I'll make this brief because intern Alex Vallejo will be posting a more exhaustive report later today, but I just wanted to say that underground-metal masters Melvins came, saw and conked our noggins with their patented planet-shifting sound. No surprise there.

However, what was surprising was Melvins' cover of the Beatles' “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” which they dispensed with poker faces and terseness early in their hour-plus set. Of the billions of songs in the universe, this 1963 smash hit is far down on the list I'd expect this LA quartet to tackle. But it worked through the sheer unexpected absurdity of it all.

Having dual drumming commandos Dale Crover and Coady Willis (also of opening group Big Business) is almost like fielding John Bonham and Bill Ward in your engine room. These studly sticksmen play with astounding power and finesse; they put on a freakin' drumming seminar up there. Guitarist/vocalist Buzz Osbourne and bassist Jared Warren (also of opening group Big Business) generate an incredibly low-slung, girthful sound that substantially ups your testosterone levels, but not assholistically so. It's a sound that makes you wish you could bubble-wrap your internal organs.

It was a fuggin' sausage party in the crowd, which was full of beefy, tattooed white guys in black T-shirts. Their (mostly) unmoronic machismo matched that of the robust dark metal coming from the band.

Friday's VR show at the Verizon Wireless (Irvine Meadows) Amphitheater has been canceled due to ongoing fire-related health concerns. The show, with Alice in Chains and Sparta, was to be band's final U.S. gig before stops in Japan and Australia.

A Live Nation rep said the show has been *tentatively* rescheduled for December 12 at the Gibson Amphitheater, meaning a trek up to Universal City for O.C. fans of Scott Weiland, Slash, and Co.