Apes of Wrath

Next week Future Sounds gets behind six more RUMBLE parties, starting in Seattle on Monday night at The Crocodile, and ending in Las Vegas at The Aruba on Sunday night and we're honored to get behind a young band from San Diego that we think has huge potential and amazing songs > APES OF WRATH.

Future Sounds Records will be dropping it's first digital single release around the track, "Deathtrain", which just landed in our greedy little hands today and sounds perfect! The Rumble line-ups in each market are now confirmed:


NOVEMBER RUMBLES*
2 SEA @ The Crocodile - Hotels, Alligators, Apes Of Wrath w/DJ Carly of U.S.E
3 PDX @ Holocene - The Ravishers, Apes Of Wrath, Serious Business w/DJ Jared White
4 SF @ Harlot - Apes Of Wrath, Please Do Not Fight w/guest DJ The Frail
5 LA @ 3 Clubs - AWOLNation, Parade of Lights, Apes Of Wrath
7 SD @ The Casbah - Apes Of Wrath, AWOLNation, The Old & Out w/DJ's Red October & C. Wizard
8 LV @ The Aruba - Apes Of Wrath, The Skooners, Minor Suns w/DJ MikeAttack
* The Rumble: Brooklyn @ Southpaw is TBD

Labels: Apes Of Wrath, The Rumble

posted by Future Sounds at 4:51 PM

- http://futuresounds.blogspot.com

PopMatters has unveiled its list of the Top 60 Albums of 2009. And as testament to the diversity of taste here at PM, I found exactly ZERO of my choices on that list. No overlap whatsoever. With apologies to Animal Collective, from where I’m standing, that is one butt-naked emperor. So, be it ever so humble, here is my personal Top Ten for the year.

10 Julian Casablancas, Phrazes for the Young
Those who know me have heard the story a dozen times apiece. When the Strokes still played clubs right after Is This It? came out, I stood in the front row at the Casbah and got biffed in the bean by Julian Casablancas’ microphone stand, producing an impressive golf-ball sized knot. He was deep in his training-wheels-alcoholic phase where he fancied himself quite the Johnny Thunders Jr. Between the head injury and the revelation of hearing “Barely Legal” for the first time, I fell in love on the spot with what became one of my five favorite bands of the decade. Phrazes for the Young is the first time since Room on Fire that I felt a tingle in that phantom spot on my forehead.

9) Them Crooked Vultures, Them Crooked Vultures
Have you been waiting patiently for Queens of the Stone Age to make a worthy successor to the life-changing perfection of Songs for the Deaf? Do you hum along respectfully to late-model Foo Fighters releases, but secretly wish they would kick ass again as hard as they did with The Colour and the Shape? Well, your prayers have been answered, in one tidy little package that has done you the solid of adding one of the Planet’s Greatest Bass Players to the mix for no extra charge! When Josh Homme sticks his chocolate in Dave Grohl’s peanut butter, we all win.

8) Arctic Monkeys, Humbug
Still my pick for Best English Band of the Oughties. Alex Turner continues to boggle the mind with lyrics that are smarter, wittier and more intriguing than they have any right to be, because what is he, 12?! I spent the bulk of my decade with people from the north of England, and anyone looking for a primer on what it’s like there (working class only, no posh folk allowed) need look no further than the words that fall out of this guy’s head like rain out of the Sheffield sky. As for the music, Monkeys keep it fresh and have managed to sound sufficiently different on all three of their outings to date, without alienating the fan base. Not many bands with a debut as iconic as Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not could manage such a feat.

7) Kasabian, West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum
Number seven on this list, number one on the list of Longest, Most Inscrutably Arty Album Titles of ‘09. Tom Meighan and Company have yet to surpass or even equal their self-titled debut in 2004, but they continue to put out quality product. “Fire” is so catchy even my four-year-old knows all the words, and “Fast Fuse” is easily my favorite song of the year—I wish someone at Columbia had had the brains to make it a single.

6) Taking Back Sunday, New Again
Mall-rock FTW! Since My Chemical Romance didn’t release an album this year, TBS get the crown for best emo/screamo skatepark rock of ‘09. Put down your Animal Collective CD for a minute, steal your sullen nephew’s copy of New Again out of his L.E.I skinny jeans, listen to the title track, “Sink Into Me” and “Lonely Lonely”. You’re welcome!

5) M. Ward, Hold Time
While no one was looking, my favorite Monster of Folk put out the most sadly overlooked piece of beautiful since Ed Harcourt’s Strangers. Maybe he sings too much about God for the fashionably agnostic to abide. However, for those of us who have a power greater than ourselves to thank for our lives, but don’t want to listen to anything with the word “Winans” attached to it, Ward is nothing short of a revelation. Music I would love anyway, that also happens to talk about themes that inform my everyday existence? This is not something I stumble upon often. Hopefully his collaborations with more famous consorts (like his fellow Monsters and Zooey Deschanel, the “She” to Ward’s “Him”) will eventually bring people around to the quiet brilliance of Hold Time.

4) The Von Bondies, Love, Hate, and Then There’s You
Don Blum must be the most patient, tolerant guy in rock n’ roll. How else can he be the last man standing next to Jason Stollsteimer after a decade of the band going through bassists and guitarists like Tiger Woods goes through cocktail waitresses? Stollsteimer makes Jeff Tweedy look fun to work with. So I can’t thank Don Blum enough, because apparently as long as he’s around, the Von Bondies live on. A worthy successor to both Pawn Shoppe Heart and Lack of Communication, this album is chock-full of effortless garagey goodness that owes as much to the Shangri-Las as the Stooges.

3) Gallows, Grey Britain
I was going to say something about how my old ass needs to have at least one throwback to my punk rock youth on the list each year. But funnily enough, I didn’t really appreciate punk until I got older. At 14, watching GBH at the Jackie Robinson YMCA, I was too busy dodging beer bottles and drooling over the leather-jacketed boys I had followed there to care about the music, which was frankly too loud and shouty for me. I’d sooner have been home listening to Gene Loves Jezebel. Today, I love nothing more than “being grabbed by the throat, pinned to the wall and shouted at for an hour” (as one of my favorite Gallows reviews goes)—after my kids get out of the car and I can turn off the Backyardigans. Grey Britain is supposed to be a response to our dire social and economic times, and it really works! Need your spleen removed, but don’t have any health insurance? Turn on “Leeches” as loud as you can take it. Dermabrasion too pricey at the spa after you lost your job? Try “Graves” and sit with your face real close to the speaker. See? Polemics with a purpose!

2) Apes of Wrath, Apes of Wrath
At a very fundamental level, if I’m honest with myself, I judge music solely on the basis of one thing: how violently it makes me shake my ass in my chair, bar stool or the seat of my car. Apes of Wrath make me Frug, Pony, and Mashed Potato in my chair. I practically injure myself at their live shows. They concoct the most enjoyable mix of the Modern Lovers, early Talking Heads, Dick Dale and the Jam, with bizarre lyrics about “The yen, the euro and the loon / Hocking loogies in spittoons”. Unfortunately, they seem none too concerned with marketing themselves, so who knows how you can get your hot little hands on this CD aside from buying it at a show like I did. Make do with the songs on their MySpace page for now.

1) Transfer, Future Selves
I already gushed buckets over this one. You cannot pry it out of my stereo with a crowbar.
There were a few contenders that didn’t quite meet my rigorous and complex ass-shaking criteria enough to crack the top ten: Pariah Piranha, People People; The Horrors, Primary Colours; Doves, Kingdom of Rust; Brendan Benson, My Old, Familiar Friend. But they left me with no shortage of great music with which to close out this otherwise dubious decade. Bring on the ‘10s!

—Jennifer Cooke
- http://www.popmatters.com

The Apes of Wrath are the best band in San Diego.

Wait, did I just say that? OK, let me back up a bit.

Rather than a bold opinion, I’d say the above comment is more a product of my surroundings. For more than a year, I’ve resisted jumping on the Apes bandwagon as I watched friends and colleagues totally geek out when talking about the band’s spirited performances and intricate mix of post-punk and indie rock. Hey, sometimes it’s my job to be skeptical.

But, just as I found myself content in waiting for the band to release an album before I profiled them, I was broken down by the masses. In a post on CityBeat’s Lastblogonearth.com commenting on the recent Rolling Stone story that proclaimed San Diego a “hot” music scene, Apes kept coming up in the discussion that followed about which bands were left out of the feature. Indeed, Apes seems to be everyone’s pick for the hottest band not being mentioned in the same sentences as Wavves and Crocodiles.

I could resist no longer. The power of the musical proletariat had overthrown the bourgeoisie, let-them-eat-cake dictatorship of the big, bad music writer.

“Yeah, that was Jake blogging secretly,” jokes drummer Dustin Elliott, referring to Apes’ bassist Jake Bankhead.

But Apes seem far too humble and fun-loving for such shenanigans. Over several hours and many beers at North Park’s Bluefoot Bar & Lounge, my conversation with the foursome covered such topics as corn dogs, penis drawings, eating live crickets, The Goonies, the resemblance between squid mouths and sphincters, and how, according to Bankhead, 90 percent of rock music breaks down thematically into either “she broke my heart” or “I wanna fuck that girl.” Somehow, we managed to talk about what it is that makes their music so damn appealing.

“I think it all boils down to this,” Bankhead says. “We’re all so different musically that if we stay genuine to what we each like individually, then we can come up with something together that’s even more awesome.”

“Right, we all compromise by not compromising at all,” guitarist Andrew Geldmeier adds.

“Yeah, it can’t be three people jizzing and one person crying,” Elliott pipes in. “It needs to be all four of us jizzing on the audience.”

What the fuck? Everyone around the table starts to laugh hysterically at Elliott’s crass and slightly disturbing comment. But amid the guffaws and the sense that maybe another round of beers might not be a good idea, there’s also the acknowledgement that all three, even Elliott, make interesting points.

First, to expand on Bankhead’s explanation, Apes may be popular among their peers in the scene precisely because they are a musician’s kind of band. They load their music with complex rhythms and intricate signatures—but the kind that aren’t so compounded that they forsake catchiness. The “awesome” result is a seemingly effortless blend of varying musical sub-genres from the past 30 years. Simply put, it’s a sound that can appeal to just about anyone with ears.

“Someone said we sound like XTC mixed with Queens of the Stone Age,” says singer / guitarist Rob Kent, recalling a memorable description from a newfound fan from this year’s South by Southwest music festival. That show was coordinated by Transfer’s Matt Molarius, who became a huge supporter of the band when the current lineup solidified in 2006.

Second, as any band will tell you, compromise is key. But when Geldmeier refers to “not compromising,” he may be referring to each of the members’ individual, and strikingly different, musical strengths.

Says Elliott, “There’s a balance and a chemistry that goes on where it comes from each and every one of us. The round bass lines that Jake will bring. The raw, driving punk parts that I bring. That technical syncopation that Rob will bring—.”

“And it camouflages everyone else,” interrupts Geldmeier just before Elliott can say what Geldmeier brings.

And, finally, that whole, you know, “jizzing” analogy—a blunt take on the band’s approach to playing shows. When I mention that I’m starting to see regulars at their shows, they play it humble.

“They’re all deaf,” Kent says, as Elliott does his best Helen Keller impression.

But to have fans, real fans, a posse of people that will bitch on a blog about your omission from Rolling Stone and dance around at your show with abandon, says a lot about a band that doesn’t even have an album out yet.
The recording of that album will begin after July, after the band returns from a West Coast tour. Meantime, even though they’re already popular around town, what truly makes them one of the best in the scene is their willingness to evolve musically, even if it alienates the fans they already have.

“With us, we’re changing all the time,” Elliott says, finishing his beer. “Yeah, I want a certain sound, but it’s a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. The coolest thing is that as long as that progress is going on, I’m totally encouraged.”

And with that, there’s a moment of silence, however brief.

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/monkey_love/8142/ - San Diego City Beat

ONE met up with Apes of Wrath vocalist and guitarist Rob Kent for our Issue #13 Sound Check interview. Hanging out on the patio of the bar where Rob can often be found slinging cocktails, rain falling beyond the awning, the band’s history and quick rise to notoriety came into perspective. But there’s three more things the casual reader should know about the band: Apes is getting more and more attention around San Diego, their rehearsal space is in the Rat Tail warehouse, and the guy pounding the skins is Jon Elliott’s brother. — ONE


I’m here on a dark and stormy night in San Diego with Rob Kent, lead singer and guitarist for Apes of Wrath. And Rob, so, a lot of things have been happening for you guys lately. Can you start off telling us how Apes came to be?

Well, it all started really when Andrew and I met, because I came to San Diego looking for a band. Depending on whose perspective you’re looking from, but you’re asking me the question, so I would say when I moved to San Diego and within a year I met this guy Andrew, who was in the music program at San Diego State, and we played with this kinda whatever band and, um, I definitely noticed a certain level of creativity in him and an ability to play together. I’d played with several different people here and there, but I never really had been able to put a band together. I wanted to be super-choosy about it; this is an important decision I’m making here, you know. It was him, and then it wasn’t until a few years later that we met Jake, the bass player, and that’s when things started to solidify. Like, OK, we can write a song and run it by this guy, and he, what Jake was really good about was saying, “Do it like this. Play it like that every time.” We were still in our infancy as songwriters. We still are; we don’t know what the fuck we’re doing. But Jake had all this jam band experience and was really good at being like, “This is this part, and this is how the song goes, period. Let’s move on to something else.”

So he introduced some structure.

Yes, he introduced structure.

Let’s take a step back. I want to know if you can describe how you knew there was a connection with Andrew. Was it just strictly a comfort thing, or comfort plus creativity? And I’m sure there’s a trust issue when it comes to forming a band.

Oh, absolutely. Especially in the very beginning, when you first meet someone, and you run band names by each other and you’re like, “I like that,” and it’s like dating, it really is. I have three wives; they’ve become my wives, and we can’t fight. We have to be respectful and loving of each other. It was definitely a feeling from just everything about him. He was just this soft, intellectual guy. I felt like I could learn a lot from him and maybe he could learn from me too.

Tell us real quickly, you mentioned Andrew and Jake; what do each of them do?

Andrew is the lead guitarist, and Jake is the bass player.

Rob, what were some of the fundamental phases you guys went through after meeting up with Jake?

Then we cycled through, like, three or four drummers that just weren’t right, and I think we all knew they weren’t right, but it was better than having a drum machine, and we picked up little things from each one…

Drum machines are so hot right now though.

It is, it is, but then so is Dustin Elliott. (Laughing.) Drum machines can’t take their shirts off and flex, so, but when we met Dustin it was so obvious that he was the one. He didn’t even play, he just did a little, like, shakedown, and I was like, “That’s it. This is the guy.” Just from his dexterity and his ability warming up, his ability was just… and then came his tastes that were really up my alley at that time. I didn’t even come around to punk until the last two or three years, I didn’t have that education. I’m from Orange County; I was very sheltered.

What are your influences?

Nirvana and Motown were the two big ones, and just good sensible songs. Not necessarily pop, but songs that stick in your head. Whether it’s Stevie Wonder or Smashing Pumpkins, like, if you’re showering and singing this song and start thinking, “Why am I singing this song?”

They’re anthemic.

Yeah, and I’m still trying to get to the bottom of why songs stick in your head. What is “catchy,” anyway?

Emotional connection. That’s the thing that’s catchy, right?

Yeah… and we met Dustin and by this time Andrew and I already had all this stuff, these ideas — we’d been playing together for four years…

Are you guys playing shows at this point, playing out?

No, no. The first show I ever played in my life was with Dustin and the Apes. I’ve never played with another band; I’m a total rookie.

When did you guys officially become Apes of Wrath? How long have you been a band?

I’d say going on almost two years now. But the first year was more of just us being egged on by some awesome kids like Peter from Roxy Jones, Dave from Vitro. They would hear little bits of what we’d do and be like, “Dude, do a fucking show with us. Get out there!” We’d be like, “No, we’re not ready, we don’t want to start yet,” and they really just shoved us out there and we started playing. And it was probably the best thing for us, because we found out that we sucked on stage. We were afraid, we were intimidated, and we didn’t know what it meant to be a live band. We could practice together, we could nail it, but putting on a show was another thing. So it’s a good thing they got us out there a year before we thought we were ready ’cause now here we are two years later and we’re just now realizing how to put on a good show.

What is someone’s experience at an Apes show?

What I get a lot is, “You guys play really tight.” Which is a compliment. For me at least, when I see a show there are so many other factors that it takes to impress me.

Top three shows you’ve seen?

Deerhunter at the Beauty Bar; The Spits at the Casbah… I dunno, it’s too hard to say.

How about the best place to play in town?

Beauty Bar, since we’ve played there so much, or the Casbah; actually gotta go with the Casbah. I don’t know, we don’t really know what the fuck is going on.

That’s the best quote I ever got in an interview, man.

I wake up in the morning smiling, because I don’t know what the fuck is going on.

Rob, we’ve been at it for a bit, so let’s wrap this up. Where did the name come from?

Dustin. It just popped into his head. He said something like, “It would be funny if we were a metal band and we were called Apes of Wrath.” And we loved it, so it stuck.

Perfect man, that’s 20 minutes. Let’s call it a wrap. Thanks for taking the time, Rob.

http://www.believeinone.com/?p=342 - ONE Rollerblading Magazine

Apes of Wrath’s delivers hammer-hard bass lines (Jake Bankhead), teasingly edgy lyrics (Robert Kent) and riving drum rhythms (Dustin Elliott). This description might raise a red flag of affected predictability for some critics. However it seems to be the consensus that Apes possess an erratic fun factor quality to their music that saves it from blending into background chatter of the club. Not to mention that endearing quality that shines though so you know they aren’t taking themselves so damn seriously.

In the past year the threesome has gained local notoriety, coming heavy into the local scene as staples to the Anti-Monday League at the Casbah, receiving SDMA nominations in 2008 and playing with Louis XIV for Casbah’s 20th Anniversary show. They received excellent public response at April’s SXSW spurring a rapidly multiplying fan base. Apes released Plastic, Fake, and Frozen (self –released) in 2007; they now are preparing to release an EP in fall of this year on indie-label Obscure Magpie Records - NBC San Diego