x-ray eyeballs - new single and an lp on the way

from the village voice:

"Xray Eyeballs is the sunny, garage-pop alter-ego of guitarist O.J. San Felipe (of Golden Triangle), a lazy-Sunday neo-Nuggets shout-along where a chorus can totally be "Let's all get high" if you want. His band's debut album, Not Nothing (out April 19 via Kanine) has the extroverted hooks of your favorite tri-colored Lookout! vinyl seven-inch, but was recorded via inward-gazing, bongwater-soaked lo-fi mushcore production -- as San Felipe says, "Jeremy Scott has some nice microphone tricks to make me sound like a caveman singing in a cave." Not Nothing's opening track, "Crystal," has flickers of Jay Reatard or Modern English, but it's mostly just a venue for San Felipe to belt cracked Valentines while his GT bandmates Carly Rabalais and Jay High churn along. Though Golden Triangle's glam-sleaze steez and multiple songwriters set them apart from Xray's teddy-bear punk, San Felipe's seems extra pumped to point out one difference: "I get to write love songs."

Xray Eyeballs frontman O.J. San Felipe on "Crystal"

What is "Crystal" about?
"Crystal" started off as a song about these girls I knew who did too much crystal meth, but somehow it evolved into kind of a break-up song, unexpectedly. So now it's a crystal meth breakup song!

What inspired it musically?
I was inspired by New York City in the late-night hours. Just ending up at random places with random people and situations and exposure to danger and shady things . . . I like going out dancing, and I wanted to make a song that DJs can throw on and make people dance at the immediate drop of the needle, or right when the bassline kicks in . . . kinda like when the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" comes on at a party and people freak out. Not to say we sound like the Cure or anything, but the way people lose it when that first bouncy drumbeat and bassline comes on, that's a hard thing to capture.

Xray Eyeballs is kind of part of a very poppy wave of New York punk, alongside the Men, the Obits, Pregnant -- can you attribute this wave to something?
Hmmm, I don't know what to attribute, but I like me a wave of poppy NY punk. I don't even write songs. I just make up a bunch of guitar and vocal hooks and put 'em all together, cram as many catchy things as I can in two and a half minutes and then it's a song. Hopefully at least one of those hooks will stay stuck in someone's head. It's percentages!"

watch the sexy video for "crystal" below. pick up the single from hozac records. (or preview/obtain it here) and buy the new X-Ray Eyeballs LP when it comes out. highly recommended......!

Xray Eyeballs "Crystal" from Painless Surgery on Vimeo.

and don't forget to see them live in a town near you......

XRAY EYEBALLS - 2011 TOUR DATES
3/7 - Black Cat - Washington, DC*
3/9 - Pinhook - Durham, NC &
3/10 - Little KIngs - Athens, GA
3/11 - 529 - Atlanta, GA
3/12 - Savannah Stopover Festival - Savannah, GA
3/13 - Siberia - New Orleans, LA
3/14 - Warehouse Live - Houston, TX
3/15 - 3/20 - SXSW - Austin, TX
3/22 - Valley of the Vapors Festival - Hot Springs, AK
3/23 - Hi Tone - Memphis, TN $
3/24 - Schubas Tavern - Chicago, IL %
3/25 - Atlas Bar - Detroit, MI @
3/26 - Beachland Ballroom - Cleveland, OH

* w/JEFF the Brotherhood
& w/Spider Bags
$ w/Surf City, PUJOL, Turbo Fruits
% w/Nones
@ w/Terrible Twos

(thanks to brooklyn vegan, village voice and nodatta for pretty much the entire contents of this post. sometimes i feel like my blog is more like a mash-up or collage than an actual zine, or anything close to writing...... so thanks to those i've borrowed from always....)