To Live and Shave in L.A.

To Live and Shave in L.A. (TLASILA) is an experimental music collective founded in 1990 by avant-garde composer/producer Tom Smith (formerly of Washington, DC ensembles Peach of Immortality and Pussy Galore). After moving from his native Georgia to Miami Beach, Florida in 1991, Smith was soon ed by bassist Frank "Rat Bastard" Falestra and oscillator specialist Ben Wolcott; this lineup created the majority of the releases in TLASILA's extensive early discography. Their debut album, 30-minuten männercreme, was released in 1994 on Smith's Love Is Sharing Pharmaceuticals imprint. Bananafish Magazine described the recording as "a wind tunnel of 30-weight vitriol." The "wildly inaccessible" ensemble has featured Don Fleming, Andrew W.K., Weasel Walter, Thurston Moore, Sickboy Milkplus, and at least a dozen other musicians and sound artists.  Their primary aesthetic assertion posits that genre is "obsolete".  Although often categorized as purveyors of noise music, TLASILA have been noted to pursue an unorthodox approach, "construct(ing) songs around an overwhelming plethora of sonic detail, challenging the listener to engage with a surfeit of information," deliberately blurring "the line between harsh metal-on-metal noise and abstract musique concrète." Smith's poetic texts "distance" the group "from any potential peers," "scanning like (they) came from some previously unearthed hermetic treatise."
Via http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Live_and_Shave_in_L.A. (6/26/09)