...we've got the means to make amends. I am lost, I'm no guide, but I'm by your side. (Pearl Jam, Leash)
Monday, June 30, 2008
Monday Music Roundup
I'm still recovering from my weekend, what with all the SoCo-sponsored libations in the hot hot sun that set off other fun and unexpected happenings (like my rookie winning streak at the Klacker dice game, netting me a championship $7 --seven dollars!!-- all in singles). Incidentally the SoCo also improved both my Cornhole game and my Rock Band skills (oh! doubtful!!).
Here are a handful of new songs I've been digging lately, the first two from bands I saw this weekend:
Photograph Eagle Seagull This was the first thing I heard coming into the festival Saturday, and I was impressed with the soaring, rich layers of melody and caught by the singer's voice. Eagle Seagull are from Nebraska, and something has been made of them sharing the same "scene" as fellow Cornhuskers like Bright Eyes or Tilly And The Wall, but I frankly hear more similarity to British bands like The Cure. In fact, I incorrectly thought they were from England, and that I'd caught a hint of accent there. I especially enjoyed watching their cool-as-ice violinist play her minty green instrument with panache. This tune is from their 2004 debut Eagle*Seagull.
LSD (Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds remix) Bassnectar / Insane Bangers I wrote some in the Paste article just how much I enjoyed the set by DJ Lorin Ashton, aka Bassnectar, an SF/Berkeley artist who I'd never had the thrill of seeing live before. He only played for an hour but I doubt there was a single person there who was not enjoying themselves, stretching that 60 minutes out into what seemed like much longer. Amidst all the flailing dancers, even this guy got into it (and he tried to dance with me but I didn't want to break him or anything; he looked brittle!):
Ah, Colorado. Anyways, this song was one of the crowd highlights of the set -- made better when combined with the delight that Ashton took in watching all of us as he recreated it with his laptops and turntables. I recommend an experience with Bassnectar when he comes through your town.
Alphabet The Notwist As previously mentioned on Fuel/Friends, German ambient-indie band The Notwist are finally giving us some new music, and the day is here (er, past). The Devil, You + Me was released June 16 on Domino Records, and I am loving its muted elegance, deceptively urgent percussion, and swirling overall presence. I'd wondered what they had been up to and according to a reader, they've been busy with side projects in between 2002's Neon Golden and the new album. They released an album with spoken-word/rapper Dose One as 13&god in 2005 and some members are also in the Munich band Lali Puna, who released their third album in 2004. But it's good to hear a full new Notwist album, and I think it will sound especially fitting once the summer heat dies and the crispness of autumn hits the wind.
Song For Earlimart There's a delicious thrum and counteractive pause on this song, almost like holding your breath -- an atmospheric sense of foreboding. Named for a small California town halfway between Fresno and Bakersfield (some hot fun to be had out there, let me tell you), Earlimart has been making oft-dreamy tunes for almost a decade. For this new record, the rotating cast of Earlimart whittled down to just Aaron Espinoza (him) and Ariana Murray (her), their graceful harmonies intertwining like a dance. Because of Espinoza's friendship with the late Elliott Smith, many comparisons will never cease, but he has acknowledged the ways that the friendship influenced his music -- here there might be something between the lines, a quality in the timbre and the breath. Hymn and Her is out tomorrow on Shout! Factory.
On My Mind Romantica Irish band Romantica first blipped onto my radar with singer Ben Kyle's gorgeous duet with Ryan Adams when they opened for him on tour last Fall. A chance encounter with that cover on my iPod this weekend (and the consequential singing along in harmony all the rest of my day) sent me trawling to their MySpace to see what they are up to. On this song, I find the combination of his Irish lilt alongside a very American-heartland brand of music to be simply irresistible, as he sings typical lyrics of desperation and heartache like "You're too young to get married, honey, you ought to be sleeping around" (listen for that fantastic pronunciation of the final word). Their MySpace lists shared hometowns of Belfast and Minneapolis, and this song sings about MPLS locales like First Avenue with a charming brogue. I'm just getting into their 2004 album It's Your Weakness That I Want, and you can catch them all this week at Summerfest (4 shows?) if you're a Milwaukee type.
Also folks . . . it's a time of change around these parts -- I start a new job tomorrow, among other major shifts. Wish me luck! Also, go download "Mover," a new b-side from The Verve for free this week on their site. It's a big song.
Under the July sunshine, the SoCo Music Experience took over an open-air lot outside Coors Field in Denver on Saturday. The free festival drew thousands of Denverites for sunshine, interactive games, booths, and of course, the free music...
Recording sessions grew out of a conversation that Phillips had with Jagger during a long weekend of cricket matches in Old Trafford, England in late summer 1976. Back at their hotel, Phillips took out his guitar and showed Jagger some of the material he had been working on. “You really ought to do an album with all these tunes, man,” Jagger said, “They’re great.” Phillips replied, “I’ll make you a deal – if you produce it, I’ll record it.” It was agreed that they would start recording the following week.
Phillips had initially thought Jagger was joking, but 10 days later they were together at Olympic Sound Studios in London with Jagger producing a first track. Among the musicians present were Ron Wood on bass, Mick Taylor and Keith Richards on guitar, and Jagger himself on backing vocals. There was a great synergy present at the sessions, perhaps partly traceable to the fact that Keith Richards had been living with Phillips since earlier that year, and John said that the two would “jam for hours in the upstairs loft, mostly country and blues classics.”
I have this rough recording of a version of Phillips' song, "Oh Virginia," which clearly features Jagger's unmistakable yowl. This is probably from those sessions, although thanks to the mislabeling power of the internet, I can't say for sure. Either way it's a rolling, charming ode to the South that gives us a taste of those ten days in London.
Oh Virginia (studio bootleg) - John Phillips & Mick Jagger
After 30+ years, Varese Vintage Records is re-releasing the recently-located original '70s mix of the album they recorded together, called Pussycat. The release will also include newly-discovered outtakes and material from Phillips' sessions that same year for the soundtrack for the film The Man Who Fell To Earth, featuring David Bowie (but really, could it possibly be better than this?).
(you gotta say that like you are at a monster truck rally):
I'll be covering the Southern Comfort Music Experience: Denver for Paste Magazine. Admission is free, it's at Coors Field starting at 2pm, and SoCo and I concur that you should come on out.
Absolutely jawdropping. This made the back of my scalp feel hot and tingly when I watched it, and the breakdown at the end always stabs me full in the gut.
While we wait for Stay Positive to fully unleash upon the masses, Miller Lite and Going.com are bringing Bostonians a free show with The Hold Steady tomorrow (Thursday) at The Paradise.
You gotta dance with who you came to dance with, and also you gotta RSVP here: going.com/theholdsteady
Opening act is Boston's own Aberdeen City. Show at 8pm, 21+. If past performance is any indication of future results, it just might be a massive night.
Neil Halstead and a new vinyl giveway from Brushfire Records
British musician Neil Halstead has produced some lovely, starry-night music in his years of tunes; with Slowdive, with Mojave 3, and solo. The first time I probably heard him was on a surf movie soundtrack, or something that conjures up a sparkling ocean in my mind. It's gorgeous, melancholy, sleepwalking music with a strong support of melody holding it up from slogging around in the dreamland.
This song is the first listen from his forthcoming Oh! Mighty Engine album (out July 29th on Brushfire). He sings, "I just want to live somewhere where the air is sweet and clear," and this sounds like it will be the perfect accompaniment when he does get there.
This song is also the lead-off track on the newest contest item I have for your winning: Brushfire has supplied me with two 12" vinyl samplers left from the festivities of Record Store Day. It features eight songs from their artist roster --
12" TRACKLISTING Neil Halstead - Paint A Face Mason Jennings - Something About Your Love Jack Johnson - What You Thought You Need Matt Costa - Never Looking Back Money Mark - Summer Blue G. Love and Special Sauce - Crumble (from the new album Superhero Brother, out yesterday) Zach Gill (of ALO) - Beautiful Reason (from unreleased new album Stuff, out July 29) Christians In Black - Rogue Wave
Not a bad selection, there. I've got two to give away, leave me a comment if you would like to be entered for one of 'em. You can also buy the vinyl here if you don't win it. Neil Halstead will be the opening act for labelmate Jack Johnson in August from Toronto to Salt Lake, and then will be announcing a West Coast headlining tour soon.
Ryan Auffenberg and the burnished glimmer of Marigolds
There's a desolate ache to the brand of dusty Americana that Ryan Auffenberg creates from his outpost in the busy heart of San Francisco. As the SF Weekly wrote, "sweet, rough, singer-songwriter kids like Ryan Auffenberg have a powerful animating force — they like to fuck around with folk, and they've got love songs to sing."
I called Ryan an artist to watch a few years ago after first hearing the gorgeously melancholy harmonies of "Under All The Bright Lights" and seeing him perform at Noise Pop 2007. Now signed to independent San Francisco label Evangeline Records(home of Chuck Prophet), Ryan is releasing his newest album Marigoldstoday. It was produced and mixed by former American Music Clubber Tim Mooney, and mastered by Matt Pence of Centro-matic.
There's a bittersweet molasses smoothness to Ryan's voice as it crests and burrows through his songs with a streak of the romantic west gleaming through. Whether plumbing the cold depths of loneliness in songs like "Deep Water" or driving a highway with the windows down amidst the bright Midwest jangle on the closing track "Alright, Okay," he urges us all to have some faith.
Lay off the novocaine 'cause you've been asleep for days it hurts but it'll go away
Almost the first of May the San Francisco Bay's all swollen up from last night's rain
So if you just come down we'll get out of town take a breath and drive all day . . .
Ryan took a few minutes to answer some questions for Fuel/Friends, since this is one artist whom I tend to get a lot of questions about, and who's been flying under the radar lately.
RYAN AUFFENBERG INTERVIEW / UPDATE
Q: You're from the Midwest but live in San Francisco. How does location and the mood of the city affect your songwriting, in contrast with the twang of your roots?
A: Some of the initial press about the album has played up my Midwestern "country" roots, which I think my St. Louis friends and family find amusing. While I never really considered St. Louis to be much of an epicenter for roots or "country" music, I did grow up 20 minutes away from Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar's hometown, so I guess there is a bit of that scene in my lineage. I remember listening to Uncle Tupelo when I was 11 or 12 years old and they were just a local band. They had a poster that said something like "Fourth best country band in St. Louis!"
While St. Louis does have a pretty auspicious musical heritage, especially in regards to blues and early rock 'n' roll, I would say that I identify much more with San Francisco as a place that has shaped my sensibilities as an artist. Cultural influences aside, I think my music is definitely affected by the atmosphere and climate of San Francisco. I live in a particularly foggy neighborhood, which I know has had a big effect on the mood of music I often write.
If you sit down to play some music and it's foggy outside, that's going to have an effect on what type of music you play. "Missouri in the Morning" is actually a song I wrote on a particularly foggy day when I was missing home and the blazing heat of the summer time. There's something really sensual about that kind of weather. I miss that out here.
What can you tell me about your songwriting process on Marigolds?
My songs usually seem to start out with chords and a melody. Once some sort of melody starts to take shape, I'll sing a bit of free-form nonsense along with the melody until an image pops out that I feel like I can run with. Once I've got those images then I'll start trying to weave some sort of narrative through lines into the song, and piece it all together.
What I find really fascinating about this process is that when I'm nearing completion of a song and take a step back, I often find that what I'd thought was simply some sort of free-association exercise has really turned into a means of expressing emotions or ideas that had been percolating for a while, but I hadn't quite figured out how to articulate them. Many of what I feel to be my most emotionally honest songs have come out of this process. Also, the writing always happens at different rates of speed. For instance, I wrote "Deep Water" and "Under All the Bright Lights" in about a half hour each respectively, whereas the song "Marigolds" took me six months to finish.
After your self-released first album Climb, your second album Golden Gate Park was never released and ultimately seems shelved for the time being. That seems to me to be a bit like the second part in a trilogy being missing. Any plans to revisit the songs on that album?
I would eventually like to release Golden Gate Park in its originally-intended album form. After recording it, I was looking for a label to help put some resources behind the release. So in the interim period, I took four of the songs off of the album, released them as The Bright Lights EP and held off on putting out the rest of that material.
When I was eventually approached by Evangeline, their original intention in making an album with me was to go back in a re-record those songs with a slightly different production approach. However, by that point in time I had already written a new album and expressed to them that I'd much rather make a new album than go back and revisit material I'd emotionally and creatively moved on from. I sent them demos for the songs on Marigolds and they signed off on the idea of making an album of all new material.
I am proud of Golden Gate Park though, and I would eventually like all of those songs to see the light of day, but for now it's currently locked in the vault ("the vault" being my bedroom closet).
You've played shows with quite a variety of musicians, from Mark Kozelek to Laura Veirs to the Watson Twins. What other music has been influencing or astounding you lately?
I've been spending a lot of time listening to Neil Young. Tim Mooney (Marigolds producer) and I, aside from being musicians, are also pretty big music fans and would spend a lot of time in the studio just talking about records we loved. After the Goldrush was a recurring topic of conversation. We've actually been tooling around with a cover of "Tell Me Why" and may include that as a bonus track in some form or another sometime.
As far as new stuff, I've been enjoying the Bon Iver album a good bit lately. Flume, Skinny Love and Re: Stacks are all really beautiful tunes. Sun Kil Moon's "Lost Verses" off the new April album is the first song in a long time to give me that "lump in your throat" feeling.
Other newer stuff: Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga is a badass album. Britt Daniel crafts these incredibly lean and mean pop songs, and then they'll do these wild production things like making one tune sound like The Supremes, which seems like a pretty unique choice for a rock band to be making these days. Another thing about Britt that I love is his solo-ing style. Often times during solos, he intentionally plays all these wrong chords or notes and creates this really messy, dissonant, incredible sounding noise.
There's a moment at the end of "Interstate" (on Marigolds) that's sort of a mini-musical nod to Britt. I was overdubbing piano on the song and in the outro I just started banging on the piano, playing wrong notes while Tim messed with that fucked-up signal generator noise. Good fun indeed.
* * * * * *
Auffenberg's record release party is tonight at San Francisco's Cafe Du Nord. Head on out to support this talented artist; Willow Willow and Robert Francis open. Ryan also heads out on the road in July & August.
Porca miseria! (That means pig misery. That's also exemplary of the reasons why Italian profanity is one of my interests). Italy lost to Spain yesterday in the Euro 2008 quarterfinals, despite the loudest cheers of my small viewing contingent. It's always agonizing and ultimately a bit unfulfilling to see big games come to penalty kicks, but Spain played exceptionally well and I can't begrudge them. Much.
And if you care not for soccer, you can walk away from that last paragraph with (at minimum) a great new Italian curse, suitable for work and use around your grandma. Pig misery!
Music this week --
Perfect Games Broken West Last time we heard from addictively delicious Los Angeles foursome The Broken West, they were topping all kinds of best-of lists in 2007 (including mine) with their album I Can't Go On, I'll Go On. The good news this week for fans of intelligent, robust, catchy-as-hell pop is that they are at it again. I absolutely love this song already, from the opening notes about spilling our ice cubes on the lawn, and the underlying sadness that subtly gnaws through the layers of memorable melody that I've been humming all day. Now or Heaven is due in September on Merge Records. [image from their recording sessions]
The Ground That We Stand On Hawksley Workman I got an important-looking courier package from Luxembourg this weekend, with Cartier listed as the sender. Diamonds? An exquisite watch? Nay -- instead of fancy jewelry, Cartier has lavished an eclectic sampler CD of music upon me. Heck, why not. They have a new campaign/website/charity thing called "How Far Would You Go For Love?" (second base?). Other contributing artists with original tunes include folks like Lou Reed, Grand National, Phoenix, Marion Cotillard (who won an Oscar for her role as Edith Piaf), and this Canadian artist Hawksley Workman. I'd never heard of him before but this was surprisingly my immediate favorite track on the comp, with a warm voice like Sea-Change Beck and wistful autumnal lyrics. Listen to this tune, like it, and then go download the other songs (for free!!) at Cartier's site.
Peace Like A River (Paul Simon cover) Spoon The folks over at Daytrotter recently posted a top-notch session with Spoon, and as those Daytrotter guys are so good at doing, they enticed Britt Daniel and Co to play a little gem of a rarity for us -- this time in the form of a sandpapered Paul Simon cover. Spoon often has such a cinematic, evocative quality to everything they lay hands upon. Here they take a tune which originally ebbs with Paul Simon's smoothness wafting in the air tonight, and push it a bit more ragged and on-the-edge, making the song simmer with a touch of pounding mania. As for an album link, how about the new reissue of Spoon's 1998 album A Series of Sneaks on 180-gram vinyl? Yeah.
Divine Hammer (Breeders cover) The Modifiers Kim Deal is the bass player for The Pixies, and co-founder of The Breeders with her twin sister Kelley Deal and Throwing Muses guitarist Tanya Donelly. Deal is a formidable musical force whose creativity and innovative songwriting spirit is celebrated on a new tribute album from the excellent little American Laundromat Records. Songs of Deal's from her time with The Breeders and The Amps are covered by a wide variety of backyard indie bands of all stripes (The Modifiers are from Boston, but the rest of the featured bands are from all over). The liner notes are by Donelly, and the whole thing was mastered by Sean Glonek (who's worked with her ex, Frank Black). Gigantic is available now for your rocking out this summer, and if you order it from the label, they promise to ply you with "buttons, stickers, and other goodies with each order." I can vouch for their largesse.
Play Your Part (Pt. 1) Girl Talk An ambush addition to this week's roundup, Gregg Gillis (aka Girl Talk) popped in out of nowhere last week with a brand new album of schizophrenic, mile-a-minute sampling. Feed The Animals is out on his Illegal Art imprint and is another pay-what-you-want deal (but if you pay $0.00 you have to explai yourself, apparently). So come on - this song samples Temple of the Dog, Sinead O'Connor AND UGK's "International Player's Anthem"?! It's akin to the way my brain plays music snippets all right on top of one another when I flip through a really eclectic jukebox in a bar after drinking a few. It feels like that; disorienting but so nice. Girl Talk hits Colorado July 11th at the Fox Theatre in Boulder (for what is sure to be an insane show), and the album will see a physical release on 9/23.
New bands added to San Francisco's Outside Lands Festival in August
It's looking like the next festival on the Fuel/Friends docket is the inaugural Outside Lands Art & Music Festival at San Francisco's Golden Gate Park in August. As a native from the Bay Area, I am looking forward to returning for a festival of this magnitude, quality, and scenic placement (akin to Treasure Island in terms of taking advantage of the local environment).
Check the full lineup, with some new additions announced today (and relevant links to Fuel/Friends content to entertain you while my server is down and Monday Music Roundups languish):
*SATURDAY AUGUST 23* (starts 1pm) Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals Primus Steve Winwood Lupe Fiasco Café Tacvba (so much fun at Coachella) Regina Spektor Galactic's Crescent City Soul Krewe feat. Dirty Dozen Horns M. Ward Devendra Banhart Matt Nathanson (always a riot) Two Gallants Dredg Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet feat. Bela Fleck The Walkmen Sidestepper Kaki King The Coup (these guys blew me away in 07) Donavon Frankenreiter Nellie McKay Goapele Sean Hayes Rupa & The April Fishes Everest (hot tip!)
*SUNDAY AUGUST 24* (starts 1pm) Jack Johnson Wilco Widespread Panic Rodrigo Y Gabriela Broken Social Scene Andrew Bird Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings Drive-By Truckers Toots & the Maytals Stars Rogue Wave ALO Jackie Greene Mike Gordan The Cool Kids Grace Potter & The Nocturnals Little Brother Bon Iver The Mother Hips Nicole Atkins & The Sea K'naan Back Door Slam Culver City Dub Collective
Tickets are on-sale now (single day or 3-day passes). This one won't have camping, but I'm stoked to festivate again!
Last night in DC, Pearl Jam brought a kid from the front row up on stage to play Ed's guitar on "All Along The Watchtower" (assumedly so Ed could be free to ricochet about the stage with his tambourines). I'd say that could be a fairly memorable moment in a kid's musical shaping -- and much cooler than anything I did at 13. Oh wait, or since.
No audio from last night's set, but this live version of Watchtower from San Francisco in 2006 is still one of my favorites ("And I'm not sure why but this feels like a San Francisco song, and uh, I think we're gonna play the shit out of it."):
The picture above was taken coincidentally by my pal Rob, who got in touch with me after I posted that Counting Crows live show in Boulder from 1993. After all those teenage years of mine listening to that boot on cassette, I find that Rob is the one who taped it. Small world. Thanks for the pic, Rob!
UPDATE: Rob is traveling to these shows with his friend Zack, who's writing a Pearl Jam tour blog for SPIN Magazine. Check out Off He Goes: On The Road With Pearl Jam.
The single is to be released August 4th on Parlophone, and the first new Verve album in 11 years will be out on August 19th (which is, incidentally, my birthday. Thanks R-Ash!).
Port O'Brien is a nautically-named collective of five musicians based out of the California port city of Oakland, the neighbor across the bay from San Francisco. Their songs are mostly written by lady baker Cambria Goodwin and her commercial salmon-fisherman boyfriend Van Pierszalowski. Their self-released 2008 album All We Could Do Was Sing contains one of the most vibrant tunes of this year (and hey, M. Ward agrees):
Part of the reason this song hit me so viscerally is due to the first time I saw it performed live. This February I was out in San Francisco to cover the Noise Pop Festival. Every event all weekend long had about twelve good artists on the bill, including a happy hour at the Diesel Store on Post Street.
So maybe we can call it the four free vodka/fruity concoction dealies that the excellent amateur bartender made for me amidst the overpriced denim, but the spirit in the air when Port O'Brien kicked into their free set was nothing less than jubilant. I would even call it riotous as people sang along, the percussion beat at full-force, and the vocals keeled into an almost war chant.
That mood of spur-of-the-moment explosion served the song better than cutesy sailing videos, in my opinion, because it's a song that feels chaotic and wonderful - akin to this session that my Blogotheque peeps captured a few weeks after I caught the Port O'Brien set in SF:
Black Francis may or may not have seven fingers on his right hand
"I was born with seven fingers and seven toes, in my dark face sadness always shows," claims the thumping, thrumming acousto-punk title track from the new Black Francis EP/mini-album, Svn Fngrs. This little collection of seven songs was recorded in seven days, and is a tasty, tasty return to classic form for the former frontman for The Pixies.
The title track is only one minute and forty seven seconds long, but it is addictively refreshing. Black Francis sings, "But tonight I'll be with you, and in the morning when we're through, please know that you have helped me with my pain." Tunes like this'll numb it for me too -- it makes me feel as happy as I did that summer when I was 14 and listened to the Violent Femmes on cassette all through June and July. Each of the songs in the mini-LP forays into different musical ground, from Pixies-worthy fuzz-rock with those strong melodies ("Garbage Heap") to the chugging-at-the-gate serration of "I Sent Away" with its near-apocalyptic overtones.
Svn Fngrs (take out the vowels -- like Pig Latin, only harder to type) is out now from Cooking Vinyl; Black Francis is touring to show it off in your town.
Using all the colors :: Frightened Rabbit interview
In the short time I've been listening to Scotland's Frightened Rabbit, something in their music has hit me hard. Their latest album Midnight Organ Fight has been more or less on constant repeat and haven't even come close to getting tired of it. You can read all about it here.
Scott Hutchison formed the band with his brother Grant (who is an insanely ferocious and passionate drummer) in 2004. I was curious to learn more about the person largely behind these gorgeous songs, so Scott and I sat in a Denver parking lot in the deepening twilight this past weekend and talked a bit more about the emotional core of the record, the songwriting, and the production that Peter Katis (The National) brought to it.
They are Frightened Rabbit, they are on tour in the US, and yes, they are happy to meet you.
SCOTT HUTCHISON (FRIGHTENED RABBIT) INTERVIEW
On Midnight Organ Fight you sing about working on erasing someone but lacking the proper tools. It seems that many of your songs on the record are a sort of catharsis, or a tool for working through a difficult situation, but at the same time, a constant reminder of some pretty rough times. Is that ever a difficult dichotomy?
Well, during that part of my life, that relationship and that situation was a really major part that wasn’t going to go away anyways, so I didn’t really see the songwriting as therapy or anything like that. It was just the most important thing that was going on at that point in time, and the only thing I really cared enough about to write about.
And now, each time I sing the songs I definitely think about that time just naturally, like imagery pops into my head, but the whole thing’s not hard anymore. Performing them every night definitely takes some of the edges off of it, but you still have to transpose whatever energy or emotion you’re feeling that day into those songs when you perform them. When the record was recorded it was still pretty fresh. It’s not really anymore. I’m really concentrating on different things when I’m doing it live, like playing it well, and getting energy into it.
I know as a writer that there is some sense of fulfillment when you can string together words that perfectly pierce the gut of what you are trying to express. All of the lyrics on the new album are extremely rich, but do you have any personal, small favorites?
Yeah, I really like the whole of the song “Poke.” I feel like something definitely happened with that one whereby I was able to exactly compartmentalize one particular time in my life – something about it, I don’t really know exactly what. I summed something up perfectly in that song, I really like the line about tying a navy knot, just how two people can be interlaced like rope:
"You should look through some old photos I adored you in every one of those If someone took a picture of us now they'd need to be told That we had ever clung and tied a navy knot with arms at night . . . I'd say she was his sister but she doesn't have his nose"
And then I also like the line about “I might never catch a mouse and present it in my mouth / To make you feel you're with someone who deserves to be with you.” There is a sense of compressing three years of worry on my part into that one line. Those words kind of appeared from nowhere.
But I don’t usually write in the moment or at the time of feeling, I usually write after the fact so that I can them almost fictionalize events and distance myself from them slightly. I’ve always thought that there’s one thing to be personal in a song, but then you’re really a fine line away from being selfish if you’re not externalizing it so other people be invited into your songs. I hopefully try and write so that there’s enough vagueness so that the emotion is specific, but the personal is not specifically mine anymore. People can attach their own emotions onto my songs, and I can let the songs go.
That must be kinda difficult to balance, because the emotion all by itself means less without any details or context.
Yeah. Of course, people close to me are well aware of lines meaning really specific things, which is fine, but I think the metaphors used are still idiosyncratic enough that not everyone feels those things as intensely as I personally would. I mean, I think anyone can even take most of the songs on that record and just enjoy them as rock songs, it depends what frame of mind they’re in.
But I definitely do try and get as much out of each line of lyric as I possibly can. I don’t like throwaway lines in other people’s music. I tried to make the whole record and each line matter. That helps with what we were talking about before, to make the live delivery of each line as if it really matters.
My first introduction to your music was actually a YouTube video where you covered a bit of Fake Empire before My Backwards Walk. The National are a bit formidable to cover, not many bands have attempted that that I’m aware. What is your relationship with their music other than sharing a producer?
I came to that song before we worked with Peter and got to know the record and loved it. I’d heard The National in a bar in Glasgow, and that song definitely came at the same time as when I was writing and finalizing some of our songs on the record. When I first heard “Fake Empire” --on MySpace cheesily enough-- I don’t know, there’s something about it where I just visualized myself inside of that song during that time in my life.
The National have a way with lyrics; there’s a line with them so often that really hits you so directly, and there’s wit which I really appreciate as well. I’ve never met the band, although I’d love to, so I cover that song 100% from a fan perspective.
I love Peter Katis’ work with The National, and you’ve said that with Peter you knew there was a certain way the record was always going to sound. Can you tell me more about that? How did that working relationship come about?
I got mostly what I’d expected from working with Peter, I just really appreciate the atmospheric quality he brings to all his records. Up to that point our demos and our first EP had sounded very closed, not really big. I really wanted to achieve a grander scale with this record. There was a completeness to the whole album and to the writing process, and I didn’t want the power of that completeness to be brought down by the music not being sonically powerful enough.
So Peter brought a muscle, I would say, to the record. He approaches things in production from a more scientific perspective than I do, which is good. He has his tricks that he uses on all his records, but he was really clear about the fact that he wanted to make our record unlike most of the other records he’s produced, which are quite dark. We got to the point at the end of mixing where he felt that this should really not be a dark record, actually. Hopefully we kept the power and the muscle without turning into Interpol. I mean, I think there’s black imagery, but also a hopeful aspect to the songs.
I can definitely appreciate the grandness on this record – I mean, there’s a place for the intimacy of bedroom demos, but the atmosphere and the beautiful sonic feel of the album kinda lends itself to expanding into new emotional areas through that as well.
Yeah, see the beautiful thing about Boxer is that there is so much breathing space for people to jump into the record. You can visualize yourself in the record and in the room . . . they definitely have a great way of describing rooms as well. The whole record has so much space, you can absorb yourself in it.
One of the nicest things that Peter brought to our record, actually, was that pulling back sometimes and taking things out. In my demos I tend to be all about filling the whole thing in. When I was younger, my mom tells me that I would always want to color in the whole piece of paper, rather than just drawing a person and a house and leaving it at that. I would want to color in all the white space to the very edges. I think that’s something that’s still there in me, I like to use all my colors. But Peter was very good at trying to make space so that there wasn’t that overload.
Is there a certain song you can point to on the record where you feel he did that really well?
There’s one called “I Feel Better” that I think I could have really taken over the top, going for more of a Phil Spector feel. But with what Peter did with that song, I feel like he made a difference in it. It’s completely different from the demo.
How has the response been in this leg of the tour?
It’s been consistently good. I mean we knew people were enjoying the record and it was doing quite well, but you’re never really sure what to expect until you get in each city and meet people and get their reactions about the songs. It’s been really nice. People are excited to talk to us as well, which is kind of weird for us, they want to meet us and talk to us about how they came to the record and why they like it. People are really forthcoming and very honest, and so many people apologize for being weird about it and taking it to heart but hey, they’re in good company with us. Really a big part of coming over here has been meeting the people that have connected with the record.
Do you feel like it’s been a long journey for the band to get to this point?
It’s been a really nice, steady growth. There’s not been a point with this band since its inception where I’ve felt that we’re moving backwards at any point. That’s the whole motto of the band, as soon as we feel that we’re traveling backwards perhaps it’ll be time to shake things up. But as for now, we’re moving forward and I don’t have any other ambitions aside from that.
In terms of our records, I really don’t feel you should be producing your best work on your first record either, or even on your second for that matter. I would say that I am in fact prouder of our second record, as a fan of albums -- that’s definitely an album and not just a collection of songs. That first album was really written over a period of time when songwriting and playing music was more of a hobby to me so it’s more disparate. But this one is more a representation of me as a person, so I enjoy giving that to people more.
*********************
And giving to people from the depths of their gut is definitely what this band does superbly well. Later that night they blazed brilliantly through almost every song from Midnight Organ Fight, as well as several older ones from Sings The Greys (the chanting fraternal harmonies of "music now!" felt like a rebel yell). I think I felt walls shake at the Hi-Dive from the emotion reverberating through the near-capacity crowd. I doubt that I will see a better show this year.
Here's the video I shot of the Fake Empire/My Backwards Walk. Their agitated intensity seeps out of every part, and watch Grant on the drums. The way he can barely contain himself as the song winds to the place where he comes in mirrors the way I felt in watching this song come to life:
Frightened Rabbit is playing tonight at Holocenein Portland, and on Saturday all you San Franciscans should absolutely head out to see them at The Independent. More tour dates follow in the coming weeks; I strongly recommend going home with the albums, a handmade t-shirt (like I did -- thanks Steve!), and a renewed faith in the power of good songs and live music.
[My other pics from the show are here, and my creative friend Kate took some artsy shots which can be found on her Flickr]
R.E.M. had a little help tonight at their encore in Philly; Eddie Vedder joined them (and Johnny Marr) onstage to sing the excellent "Begin the Begin." So many great shows happening from both artists lately, to see them together would be astounding. Until video surfaces (edit: here), I'm gonna have to imagine it went something like this:
On Monday night, the eve of the North American release date for their new album, Coldplayperformed a free concert at Brixton Academy in London which was broadcast on Radio 1. They performed seven of their new songs off Viva La Vida (whilst getting good art into the collective public consciousness). Many of the new songs seem to possess a sweet air to them, unvarnished but still epic in this setting. Have a listen:
The June 12 issue of Rolling Stone carries a bit of welcome news from news from Fuel/Friends favorite sons Kings of Leon: they've been drinking, and they just wrapped their fourth album. Only By The Night will be released September 23rd on RCA Records. It was recorded at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, TN, and was produced by Angelo Petraglia, Jacquire King and Kings of Leon.
If you don't have supersonic vision (I do) the article reads:
"'I know I sound like a fucking cock right now,' says Kings of Leon frontman Caleb Followill, 'But this is the first time I've really been proud of myself track for track.' After a grueling 2007 tour, and Caleb's recent surgery to repair his arm after a fistfight with brother Nathan ('Nathan won'), the Kings planned to take a well-deserved break. But when we called them, they were at Nashville's Blackbird Studio, wrapping their fourth disc, out in September.
Three days after his surgery, Caleb says he removed his arm from a sling and began writing. 'I don't know if it was the pills or what, but the melodies were so much stronger than anything I've ever done - it's just really beautiful songs.' In addition to the pills, the band members say they drank all day to fuel songs like 'Cold Desert' and 'Crawl.' (In the latter, Caleb touches on politics: 'Let's just say that Sean Penn is gonna like us more,' he says).
'We had to get drunk because we all have girlfriends to go home and deal with,' he says, before passing the phone to drummer Nathan, who adds, 'Caleb just blew a 1.2 on the Breathalyzer we have here.'"
Well, the mercury finally crested the mid-80s mark this weekend, just in time for Father's Day BBQs. I was laughing out loud on a hot Saturday as I discovered the fabulous Tremble.com blog and read his post about the first bare-chested male subway rider signifying that summer is truly here, like a red-breasted robin announcing the spring. Tell me, where else on the web can you read a recounting of a story that includes the sentence: "Say how would you like to get your dance card punched by [fists] Savion Glover and Alfonso Ribeiro? Let's bring in the noise as well as the funk, except with punches and kicks to the face and kidneys." It's terrifically funny reading.
Heck, no bare-chested, bleeding males 'round these parts lately, but some excellent new tunes can be considered almost as good...
The Old Days Dr. Dog This song feels eminently summery to me, a shiny new one from Philly's excellent Dr. Dog (still not the children's book). We've got banjos and sparkling vocals here, all swelling into a Nilsson-worthy symphony. The folks at FADER have seen Dr Dog perform much of their new material live, and wrote that "every new song they played was wilder, thicker, more willing to chop up the jam into smaller jam particles that smash into each other to create a wormhole directly to the best summer of your life." Can't complain. Fate is out July 22 on Park The Van -- and make sure to catch Dr. Dog on a crazy amount of tour dates in the coming months, including a roll through Denver's Hi-Dive September 27th.
A Change Is Gonna Come Ben Sollee I recently had an intensely-defended (and possibly liquor fueled) argument while in Washington DC about which version of this song was the best, Sam Cooke's silky original or Otis Redding's howling soul-filled cover. Now this goes and adds a new facet to the discussion. Ben Solleeis a white guy from Kentucky who takes a wholly good-natured, spirited stab at this formidable song -- and unfortunately leaves me cold. I've written before that Otis' version (the side I argued) "fairly drips with aching as [he] sings about the thick swelter of racial oppression in the South. You can almost feel and see the tension, like heat rising up off the August sidewalks." On the other hand, this sounds like a pleasant skip through the daisies. Sollee is a talented guy though, and I really do like the sweetly dusty acoustic soul in the other tracks I've heard off his Learning to Bend (out last week on SonaBLAST! Records).
My Drive Thru Casablancas/Santogold/Pharrell In this golden age of media tie-ins, a shoe company commissions an original song bringing together three artists we like: Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, Brooklyn glitter girlSantogold, and Pharrell project N.E.R.D. Whew. Quite the mouthful of folks involved, but I think this works surprisingly well from the opening bell peals, largely because of Pharrell's funky production and golden touch. I enjoy hearing Casablancas' drawl over the top of such a dance-ready beat. Santogold says that "working across musical genres was like creating a patchwork where I got to weave together various influences and allow them to co-exist in a fresh and original way." Now what to do about the Kurt Cobain Chucks?
Bargain of the Century (song removed, stream it here) Albert Hammond Jr And while we're on the topic of "projects that take away from precious time the Strokes could be spending making new music for us," let's also broach the new songs from Albert Hammond Jr that have made their way onto the interwebs in recent weeks. This cut starts with a bit more aggressive drumming than the lackadaisical start of "GfC," but really, we keep ending up in the same hammock with Al, wine glass on our chest, unable to move with any real gusto in the summer heat. Sounds like we may be in for another collection of laid-back retro-pop melodies with this one. Incidentally I wore my AHJr shirt out to breakfast on Saturday morning (okay, so maybe I'd also slept in it) and I actually got a nod from the IHOP waitress about Al's new album. I was mostly just excited to find out that I am not the only person in Colorado Springs who would know what that three-bunny silhouette meant. Hammond's second solo album Como Te Llama is out July 7 on Scratchie.
Soul and Fire (acoustic demo) Sebadoh Not to be confused with that anthemic "Soul on Fire" from Spiritualized that I posted last week (and cannot stop singing out loud), this demo is the closing track on Sebadoh's 15-year reissue of their seminal Bubble and Scrape. The double-disc opens with the original, and closes with this small and humble demo, which sounds like it was recorded at the kitchen table of a mountain cabin, while waiting for water to boil or for snow to quietly stop falling. Barely two minutes, this demo is much less heartless than the album version, as it wanders through thoughts like, "If you walk away we may never meet again," and aches to a close with a phrase that sits on my chest: "Call me if you ever want to start again." The reissue is out July 8th on Domino/Sub Pop, and Sebadoh will be performing the album in full at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago this July.
Normally if you called someone a bedroom knob-tweaker they might punch you (in the neck) but for Georgia-based mixmaster Kellen Crosby --aka Black Dominoes-- it would probably garner you a hug. Mr. Crosby has a knack for pushing the constraints and possibilities in songs, and does mysterious things to them. Last time we heard a Black Dominoes cut it was that Vampire Weekend remix, which eventually went from here in blogland all the way up to the BBC. Cool.
Here's the description of his newest remix, of a song originally by those shimmery SubPop signees Fleet Foxes:
Black Dominoes lets the soft echoes of the fivesome outside to play; the throttling back of some of the original drums only creates more space for soft whirrs and 909 whispers. The added hand drums in the beginning and end of the track interweave with the electronic elements of the song; the juxtaposition is not unlike eating a piece of foreign-grown organic produce on a busy street corner. Give it a shot if you would relish the idea of Feist or Animal Collective having a campout underneath the Brooklyn Bridge with the members of ESG or Cybotron.
Duchess of York provide the first addictive smash hit of my summer
Take four kids from Richmond, VA who average an individual age half that of Jack White, and all collectively have lived fewer years than one Mr. James Brown, but who exude heavy doses of both vibes in perfect collaboration.
My new favorite on-repeat listen is "21st Century Slave" from their Era In Static EP. No, seriously -- like, listen over and over in my car until it's ridiculous, trying to suppress the urge to dance in the driver's seat, and restrain myself at stoplights so I don't get weird looks. I find the raw and pugilistic garage scowl of the White Stripes mixed with the outrageous I-feel-good funk of the Godfather of Soul/Jackson 5 to be an absolutely irresistible sound combination. Listen! Try to sit still.
Duchess Of York swagger and strut with the cockiness that only comes from not having lived long enough to know better yet. But let them for a while - this is a terrific album from a talent that is relatively unknown outside of Richmond, but who have the stuff to hit it huge.
They are 16, 17, 18 and 21 and the band is made up of two brothers and a pair of cousins. This is somehow their third proper album, all dirty growly blues with super-seductive funk and melody.
I recently got a chance to sit down and watch Bella, an independent film from Mexican director Alejandro Gomez Monteverde. I loved so many elements of it -- from the believable way it traces a chance connection between two people over the course of just one day, to the gentle yet realistically untidy way it deals with the mistakes we look back on throughout our lives.
Monteverde is a tenacious Austin-based filmmaker, and Bella (his first feature-length film) was the winner of the Peoples Choice Award at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. It is a visually dazzling movie with gorgeous use of light in the cinematography, which stood in contrast to the darkness that both main characters are slogging through. With the dialogue weaving in and out of Spanish and English, the film traces two realistically flawed characters struggling to make some beauty out of a pile of overwhelming life circumstances.
My ears perked up immediately when I heard a sweetly rough-voiced tenor sing a few acoustic folk songs at pivotal moments on the film's soundtrack. For a split second, I considered that just maybe it was Ray LaMontagne (or Brett Dennen?) but it was actually fledgling Los Angeles songwriter Joey Ryan. There is no official soundtrack released yet for Bella, so Joey was kind enough to send me some alternate versions of his music for the movie, and to respond to questions about his unique involvement with the film and his inspiration behind writing these songs.
The spirit of his compositions reflects the genuineness of this film, and there's a heartening story of how it has been a bit of a saving grace in his own musical career as well. Joey writes:
The story of Bella, well . . . I graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Psychology, and a couple weeks before graduation decided to abandon my plans for neuroscience graduate school to try to be a musician. I pictured myself at 30, just hating myself for never having given my dreams a chance. So, I made an album and spent almost a year in Los Angeles (where I'm from) playing shows and whatnot. It was difficult to discover that the process was hard for me and that I wasn't able to play the venues I had hoped for. I was admitted and enrolled in a Masters program in psychology, at that point and was quitting music. I didn't understand how anyone could build a music career from nothing in the environment of Los Angeles.
Then, literally a week before the first day of class I got a call from a company called Mophonics in Venice Beach. I had given them my album almost a year earlier, and they said they were going to put one of my songs on a TV show. When I came in to sign the paperwork for that, they asked me to send them anything else I had been working on, so I went home and sent them my GarageBand demo of this song I had just written.
Coincidentally, Stephan Altman at Mophonics was in the middle of composing the score for Bella and immediately had a scene in mind where my song would fit. The song was "Like You" (from the bathtub scene) and they asked me to add some lyrics in Spanish for it. So in the film the lyrics are "Yo se que no puede salvarme, I know I'm on my own, Yo se que no puede salvarme, I know I'm alone". The Spanish means "I know you can't save me". This is Nina's low point. She has yet to fully accept the help and friendship Jose is offering and feels completely alone and desperate there in the bathtub.
By the end of the day the director was in love with the song and it was in the film. That was the first time I ever paid rent with money I made from music.
The second song in Bella happened a couple weeks later. Stephan called me at 8am (woke me up) from a soundstage where they were mixing the music for the film, and said that a song they had been planning on using was no longer available. He asked if I could watch the scene and write something. So I did, and by 10:30am I had written and recorded (on GarageBand again) something for the scene and by 11am it was in the film too!
"Light On" (played when Jose and Nina walk down to the beach) was written for the film, for this particular scene. I thought the main theme musically should be a sense of resolution. Each character had just gone through their most heart-wrenching depths and they were starting to climb out together. I wanted the music to sound like the first deep breath of air after a long hard cry. Lyrically, it's about pure, platonic, and altruistic friendship between two people who need each other's help. That was the second time I ever paid rent with money I made from music. A string of opportunities through Mophonics over the next few weeks meant that I never went to the first day of classes for my masters program, and it's now two years later and things are going amazingly well. Mophonics is putting out my new full length record ...with its roots above and its branches below this summer. I've toured both coasts and am going across the country this month, from Los Angeles to New York and everywhere in between. And my songs seem to find their way into different opportunities that have kept me (very happily) paying rent through music.
That version of the "Like You" is featured on Joey's upcoming release ...with its roots above and its branches below. You can preorder it on Joey Ryan's website and/or enter your email address to be on his mailing list so you can also download two other songs for free: "Let You Go," which was on television in the UK, and "As It Must Be," heard on One Tree Hill. Joey Ryan has tour dates coming up, including one in Denver next Sunday at the Walnut Room (I can almost taste the pizza already).
Also, anyone else from California --especially the Bay Area-- will likely love his California EP from last year, and the eponymous title track with lyrics like, "San Francisco, you're always busy, you're always pretty . . . on a clear day there's no place I'd rather be." This is effortlessly charming music with a warm streak of melody, honesty and humility.
When the Texas foursome the Old 97s took the stage last night in Denver, I thought it fitting that two members were rockin the Converse (the guitarist and the drummer, natch) while the other two strut their leather boot stuff. Footwear usually ranks low on my list of important topics, but the way it characterized their dual-personality of rock and country seemed too fitting an analogy not to mention. It was my first time seeing the Old 97s and they put on a rock & roll show layered with good ole country dust. They simply vibrated with heart and soul.
The setlist rollicked through songs from all of their last 15 years of existence, from the raw bar-band twang of their earlier material to the richly varied textures of their recent release Blame It On Gravity (2008, New West Records). As Rolling Stone wrote a few weeks ago, these are "four Texans raised on the Beatles and Johnny Cash in equal measures, whose shiny melodies, and fatalistic character studies, do their forefathers proud."
BARRIER REEF - Old 97s, Live in Denver 6/10/08
The hardworking, never-fail attitude of this live band and the refreshing (and drunk) enthusiasm which emanates in waves from their fans reminded me of my experiences seeing Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. As I left the venue, I was glad Rhett Miller and Co all made it to the stage this time through the Rockies.
A final note: Since I am not 15, I don't usually comment on the dreamyness of the lead singer, but in Rhett Miller's case, it's kinda hard not to say something. Down in the front with my photo pass, I tried to get some good shots, but was nearly sucked in to the hormone frenzy of the cougar pit formed directly beneath Rhett's feet. That is one charming and good-looking frontman, with hair so perfectly tousled and Bon Jovi windblown that you almost didn't believe it. Julio and I couldn't help but be dazzled by its radiance; like the sun, it's best not to look directly at it, Julio says.
A few weeks ago I was hurredly walking down a crowded DC street at lunchhour when I got a ravingly excited phone call from my friend Bodie. Bodie had just seen new Rounder Records signees Delta Spirit the night before, opening for Matt Costa in Boulder, and was calling to yell at me with delight about how much he enjoyed their set.
The good-natured abuse reminded me of how Delta Spirit had turned in an enjoyable set on KCRW's Morning Become Eclectic last month. Read my previous mention to get to know this band with a growing buzz, then stream their excellent golden indie-country set here:
On Saturday night I decided quite by chance to see a Hebrew/Arabic language foreign film called The Band's Visit, after finding myself downtown with no other plans. This is a humble and unassuming film about the Alexandria (Egyptian) Police Orchestra who end up in the wrong Israeli town on a concert trip. It's quietly and subtly funny, although not a comedy. It touches on the human facets of Arab/Jewish tensions, although not a political film. The themes hover around the kindness of strangers, the depths of loneliness and desire, but most of all the power of music and its strange necessity to the soul. As the final credits rolled, I thought it deeply lovely. Go see it.
Plus, bonus points will be awarded if you also notice the scene where the big dude from the band looks exactly like an Egyptian Cee-Lo sitting on the couch.
Tunes!
It Could've Been Worse Matthew Ryan According to the liner notes, the new album from Matthew Ryan (Vs. The Silver State) was "rehearsed in [his] garage on Idaho Avenue during the summer of 2006. There was no air conditioning and more mosquitoes than musicians." I can almost here the crickets and feel the humidity of a summer's night on this gorgeous song. With lines that slyly borrow from the master of all repressed & padlocked teenage fury in smalltown America ("her mascara was born to run"), this album is rife with allusions to stymied desire and unfulfilled dreams. This song ruefully notes, "You promised her every thing, not knowing what every thing really was. She's the first girl you kissed, she's the first girl you miss when you feel like this, broken in the dark." Be sure to also check out Aquarium Drunkard's new Off The Record feature with Matthew Ryan.
Breakfast Score The M's Chicago quintet The M's have been keeping my ears happy for a couple years now. Each time our paths cross, I find something new to appreciate in their eclectic hybrid songwriting which melds terrific retro influences from disparate ends of the spectrum (think T. Rex meets Kinks?). Enjoy the sloppy, handclappy feel with a little rainy day women drunken singalong feel on this cut from their new record Real Close Ones. It came out last week on Polyvinyl Records, and plays up that spacey-glam edge around traditionally structured pop songs. They currently are touring with Centro-matic.
California Soul (Diplo remix) Marlena Shaw I have been consistently impressed with the visionarypairings of cratedigging deep cuts from decades past with modern mixmasters featured on the Verve Remixed series. They've just come out with Volume 4, and this preview mp3 resurrects the swanky sounds of Marlena Shaw (the first female vocalist signed to Blue Note Records) through the lens of hot-stuff Philly DJ/producer Diplo. The album boasts some ragingly fun remixes, from the R&B swing of Nina Simone-meets-Mike Mangini wailing "Gimme Some," to the tinny Latin shimmy of the Astrud Gilberto/Psapp track, or the Afrobeat joy of "Dilo Como Yo." It's a conceptual series that just keeps getting better and pushing the boundaries, delightfully.
Revolution In The Heart Ed Harcourt Let's just put this simply: I am a sucker for a man and a piano. There's something so bold and yet nuanced, even heartbreaking about the way a good player can accompany his songs with that instrument. So it's no surprise that I take a sheen to Sussex songwriter songwriter Ed Harcourt and his musical weapon of choice. I've heard Harcourt's name bantied about from past tours with folks like Wilco, Feist and Magnet, but this swirling cut from his recent release Beautiful Lie is my first personal listening experience. There seems to be a lot to appreciate in this artist, over the cascades of ivories. The "new" album is really the belated U.S. release of his 2006 album, and it features Graham Coxon (Blur) as well as the Magic Numbers. Ed is currently on tour with the Gutter Twins.
Soul On Fire Spiritualized This back-with-a-vengeance song from seminal British space rock/shoegaze '90s band Spiritualized starts gently, with lyrics about being born on a black day shot through with starlight, over an intimate acoustic strum. But before the first minute passes, all the strings swell and rise together and there's a hurricane in your veins. It's terrifically stirring yet somehow comforting, as if I've heard it a thousand times before and want to be a part of it. It's a tourbus singalong, it's a gospel choir, it's a ballad just for me. Songs In A&E is out now (Spaceman/Fontana International).
Frightened Rabbit are four guys from Selkirk, Scotland who have created an evisceratingly gorgeous album primarily tracing the death of a relationship -- the back and forth, the moments of confident strength followed by the ravaging weakness. Released in April, their sophomore album Midnight Organ Fightwas recorded last year at the Connecticut home studios of Peter Katis (longtime producer of The National).
This is an album full of incredibly visceral lyrics, some of the most excoriating for me since, well, The National. The album opens with "The Modern Leper," wherein a damaged person laments how "vital parts fall from his system and dissolve in Scottish rain / vitally he doesn't miss them he's too fucked up to care."
As our protagonist, songwriter and frontman Scott Hutchison, fights his way through the final death-rattle gasps of a love affair, the themes are of unflinching self-flagellation (“Well is that you in front of me coming back for even more of exactly the same? You must be a masochist to love a modern leper on his last leg”) and fragile introspection ("I crippled your heart a hundred times and still can't work out why / You see I've got this disease I can't shake and I'm just rattling through life").
It's not an album for the fainthearted, but an excellent one for the honest. "Good Arms vs. Bad Arms" is a simple examination of how she won't need his (bad arms) now that she's found another pair -- although he tosses off a line to the new happy couple that he's armed with the past, and the will, and a brick, and says "I might not want you back, but I want to kill him."
The somewhat clunky album title analogy about a 'midnight organ fight' makes perfect sense once you hear those words repeated in the raw desire of "Fast Blood," which goes on to remember: "I tremble, because this stumble has become biblical. I feel like I just died twice and was reborn again for all our dirty sins / And the fast blood, fast blood, fast blood hurricanes through me, and rips my roof away."
But the primary song which I can't shake from scrolling through my head on repeat is "My Backwards Walk" -- one that grapples with failure, in full. Decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. It is very highly recommended.
I’m working on my backwards walk walking with no shoes or socks and the time rewinds to the end of May I wish we’d never met, then met today
I’m working on my faults and cracks filling in the blanks and gaps when I write them out they don’t make sense I need you to pencil in the rest
I’m working on drawing a straight line and I will draw until I get one right it's bold and dark, girl, can’t you see I’ve done drawn a line between you and me
I’m working on erasing you but I just don’t have the proper tools I will get hammered, forget that you exist but there’s no way I’m forgetting this
I’m working hard on walking out but my shoes keep sticking to the ground my clothes won’t let me close the door ‘cause my trousers seem to love your floor
I’ve been working on my backwards walk ‘cause there’s nowhere else for me to go except back to you just one last time say yes before I change my mind
say yes before i…
you're the shit and I’m knee deep in it you're the shit and I'm knee-deep in it
WATCH: My first introduction to these guys was from Kevin on the So Much Silence blog, when he posted this live video of them covering a bit of The National's "Fake Empire" at the beginning of "My Backwards Walk."
TOUR: Frightened Rabbit is currently out with the French Kicks, and you can bet I'll be seeing them in Denver next weekend with Oxford Collapse.
Sometimes you get so lonely / Sometimes you get nowhere I've lived all over the world / I've left every place
Please be mine / Share my life Stay with me / Be my wife
You may have heard David Bowie cooly exhort those plaintive words over a stylish soundscape on 1977's Low, but today a cover from the upcoming compilation Life Beyond Marsgives us this haunting new version that melds the aching falsetto of Oxford musician Richard Walters with Faultline (aka North London DJ David Kosten, who's worked with Wayne Coyne, Michael Stipe, Chris Martin of Coldplay, and Keane).
LIFE BEYOND MARS TRACKLIST Au Revoir Simone – Oh! You Pretty Things Heartbreak – Loving The Alien Kelley Polar – Magic Dance (Harold and Baby O in Italy version) Leo Minor – Ashes To Ashes Carl Craig presents Zoos Of Berlin – Looking For Water Drew Brown – Sweet Thing Matthew Dear – Sound & Vision Susumu Yokota – Golden Years The Emperor Machine – Repetition Joakim & The Disco – A New Career In A New Town Richard Walters & Faultline – Be My Wife The Thing – Life On Mars
Worth noting that Rapster Records are also the folks who put together the 2006 Radiohead covers album Exit Music, which spawned that sexed-up Mark Ronson version of "Just" that swaggers with dance beats and brassy horns.
BOWIE COVER ART: a specially commissioned illustration by Berlin artist Maria Tackmann
"Glaswegians who think they should have grown up in the American South"
"Heartache and Jack Daniels. Good sex, bad sex, guitars. Sweet love songs and dirty, chugging country tunes. The occasional bubble of self-pity blitzed by a nasty riff, and the odd spot of (justified) lechery..."
Those are a few of the visceral associations that Glasgow-born / London-based band The New York Fund use in connection with their melodic music. In their previous band incarnation of Cherryfalls from 2003-05, they played shows alongside Feeder and for a short (and ultimately unfruitful) time were signed to Island Records. In 2005 they changed personnel slightly, and inspired by the country/rock balancing act walked by artists like Ryan Adams, they formed The New York Fund.
BBC Radio 2 DJ Dermot O'Leary was an early champion of their music, and he included their ace alt-country romp "Nobody Home" on his Saturday Sessions comp CD. In February 2007 they released their six-song Guns EP which is a top-notch collection from front to back. Recently they have played with folks like the Hold Steady and Ash, which gives you a good idea of the range their music sweeps across -- from the rollicking shuffle-your-feet bar rock ("Guns of Camden Town") to the soaringly sweet melancholy of tunes like "Man Overboard," and everything in between.
I hear a very impressive buzz about their live shows -- this post is the result of a strong recommendation from a Brighton reader Caz who just saw them open for the Hold Steady, and was amazed that they are not currently signed. Also for my London readers, NYF is going to be playing along with Ash at the Ben & Jerry's Sundae event on July 27th. I love ice cream and would count Ben and Jerry amongst my good friends. So really, you cannot fail here from any angle. Check this stuff out.
Buy their excellent Guns EP - strongly recommended for fans of folks like The Felice Brothers, Ryan Adams, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and Jake Troth. Currently unsigned, they also have some new 2008 tracks up on their MySpace.
Bob Odenkirk's Director's Cut of the new Rogue Wave video: "Chicago x12"
In a strongly-worded missive over on his MySpace, comedic writer/filmmaker Bob Odenkirk gets all feisty and legally threatening about his new video for Rogue Wave's "Chicago x12." After first assuming "Wow, this guy's a serious jerk, " now after watching the video I kinda think, "Wow, this is a brilliant bit of marketing." You be the judge:
With the cutout cardboard figures parading around Reseda, the surreal nature of the Director's Cut version actually suits the imaginative feeling of the song pretty well. And then there's the karate dude that we're not sure what to do with. A catchy song off a rather majestic album nonetheless.
Got forty-fives to play at night :: M Ward / Jim James / Conor Oberst live in 2004
This earthy, warm, rich bootleg is from a shared evening of music that included sets from M. Ward, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, and Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes.
Billed as the "Monsters of Folk" tour, after individual sets it closes with a six-song jam session where they all play together and sometimes (like for the closing Dylan cover) take turns with the verses. The sound quality here is sparkling and pristine with some choice song selections in the mix. Any of their single sets would be a treat in its own right; together they blow my mind a little bit.
Notable track: that Willie Nelson cover! "Always on My Mind" is one of my favorite sad songs as is, but with Jim James taking the lead vocals it aches and ebbs in a new way. There are so many wonderfully melancholy songs in this bunch - in addition to the lonesome starter of "Fuel for Fire," the way M. Ward's voice cracks on Undertaker ("Ah, but if you're gonna leeeeeeaaaaave, you better call the undertaker, take me under undertaker, take me home") is practically the sound of a heart breaking.
New song from Ray LaMontagne: "Let It Be Me" (plus album news and a song about Meg White!)
I just received unexpected confirmation today that Ray LaMontagne is set to release his third full-length studio album on September 9th. Gossip In The Grain will be his follow-up to 2006's Till The Sun Turns Black, and like his previous albums will again be produced again by Ethan Johns.
The raw and soulful starkness of Trouble struck me the very first time I heard it, and after I saw Ray live in San Francisco in April of 2005, I was breathlessly converted. This new release is said to be more of a full-band effort than previous albums, with touring band bassist Jennifer Condos and guitarist Eric Heywood playing, and Ethan Johns largely handling drum duties. Also (!!!) Fuel/Friends favorite Leona Naess will join him on two tracks, "A Falling Through" and "I Still Care For You." These two artists toured together in 2007.
Ray says of the album: "It was time to open up a little bit more, not be quite so reserved in my choice of songs that I wanted to record. I'm really very critical of myself and it's sort of a process of opening up. I felt like I was in the right space to show that side of myself." I sincerely look forward to hearing that, and also finding out how he opens up about Meg White (track #6).
I had so many intriguing options to choose from in my contest to give away two Monolith weekend passes. To differentiate the contest entries from the rest of my emails I get in a day, I asked folks to consider using the title, "Hey Heather, I Want To Buy You A Beer At Monolith." I got those, and more.
There were the offers to buy me a beer, buy me several beers, buy me an unspecified mind-altering substance, buy me an overpriced hot dog, and do a kegstand. The latter two may be better suited for other venues, but we can try. The randomly-selected winners of the Monolith passes are Cass (from Wyoming!) and Jill (from Austin, TX!). Thanks to all who played, and I sincerely hope all the entrants will still come to the fest -- and make good on their promises to me. It should be a fantastic weekend.
ALSO, the Indiana Jones soundtrack contest winner is Pete, with his citation of the excellent quote, "It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage." Sigh.
Musical archaeology in Washington D.C. :: The Library of Congress yields buried treasure
Archaeology is so hot right now. If you saw the new Indiana Jones movie (or maybe in spite of seeing the new Indiana Jones movie) perhaps you got a little hot under the collar as I often do when I think about trawling through the dust and under the veil of time, looking for things that have been all but forgotten.
Larry Appelbaum is a senior music reference specialist (yes! That’s a real job!) in the Music Division of the Library of Congress, and worked for decades preserving and cataloging their vast stores of audio recorded material. He is also a jazz journalist and radio host -- we met when he presented the excellent and random workshop at the conference I was attending.
During Appelbaum's presentation, I became intrigued by a reference he made to a much-fabled lost live recording of Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane that he rediscovered during the course of his work, and ultimately how that resulted in that concert being released on Blue Note in 2005.
The Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall album captures a rare live collaboration between two of the most influential and distinctive musicians in jazz history, in excellent sound quality. It languished for 47 years before Appelbaum and his team came across it in their daily archival work. His heart quickened when he realized what he held in his hands -- a recording that had been sought after for years had finally been uncovered in the most unexpected of places.
It’s a great story that seizes the imagination. Appelbaum took some time last Friday afternoon from his offices on Capitol Hill to recount the discovery and the significance for Fuel/Friends.
LARRY APPELBAUM, SENIOR MUSIC REFERENCE SPECIALIST/“JAZZ ARCHAEOLOGIST”
There are a couple of different ways that you discover treasure when it comes to sound recordings. One of them is if you’re looking for it. You search the discographies, you look at all the indices, you look and you read everything you can find, and you take from the very general down to the narrow until you find what you’re looking for. The other way you discover these treasures is -- I don’t want to say by accident, but more by chance. This discovery of the Thelonious Monk/John Coltrane tapes was an example of really both of those approaches.
First of all I should say that these recordings represented a sort of musical Holy Grail for jazz scholars. Because despite the fact that Monk and Coltrane are two of the most important and influential and innovative artists, not just in jazz, but in American music, they only worked together for about nine months, and they only made three songs together in the studio, for Riverside (Records).
One of the problems was that Monk was signed to Riverside Records and Coltrane was signed to Prestige -- you know how that goes. So they only worked together for those nine months, mostly at a club on the Bowery called The Five Spot. We only had those few songs that everybody clung to and listened to and memorized.
Cut to the end of 2004. I was the supervisor of the Magnetic Recording Laboratory where we do a lot of preservation of recorded sound here at the Library of Congress. We work with lots of different sound collections, one of them is the Voice of America collection. These are about 50,000 open-reel tapes of things recorded primarily in the 1950s and 60s, and sometimes into the 1970s. But when you’ve got 50,000 reels, and you have a number of other important collections, you can’t just devote all your time to one.
So we’d been working through the Voice of America collection for years, and I used to enjoy looking through the queue and seeing what we would be working on for the rest of the week. So one day in late 2004 I saw eight reels titled simply, “Carnegie Hall Jazz: 1957.” That definitely caught my attention -- I love jazz, and that’s a good year for jazz, it’s one of my favorite eras. I looked on the back of one of the tape boxes and it’s written in pencil, “T. Monk” with some song titles. That’s it.
I got a little excited because it occurred to me that maybe this was some unpublished Monk.But it was only when I went to actually play the tape that I realized the unmistakable sound of John Coltrane -- it’s a sound that’s very near and dear to me. I was really startled by it because I started thinking, “Well, now these are not the studio recordings that we all know from Riverside, this is live. What is this? Carnegie Hall? 1957?”
It turns out it is part of a benefit concert from November 29, 1957. Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane was just one of five acts on a bill that also included Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie’s orchestra, Sonny Rollins Trio, Ray Charles, and Zoot Sims with Chet Baker.
So we had eight reels and it included everything from the 8pm show as well as the midnight show, and all the acts except for Billie Holiday, which still has not been found. I’ve met two people now who were at that concert who both tell me that Billie Holiday was in very bad shape that night. So that leads me to believe that perhaps her show was not recorded, or just that her manager wouldn’t allow it to be released.
We were so lucky, because I don’t think these reels had EVER been played before. They were recorded, wound onto a reel, and just put away in a box for 47 years.
I almost couldn’t believe it. When I heard it, my heart started to race. At that point, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the fact that this had never been bootlegged, never been circulated. I wondered, is this truly as unique as I think it is? I contacted Lewis Porter, who is the great Coltrane scholar who teaches at Rutgers University. He told me that these had never been circulated, and that scholars had been looking for these tapes for years. No one had ever found them.
In fact, Porter himself had contacted the reference specialists at the Library of Congress, looking for these Monk/Coltrane tapes, and at the time they couldn’t find them because they weren’t properly preserved or cataloged. If he had called and asked, “Do you have Carnegie Hall Jazz 1957?” we could have said yes, but no one had had any idea of what the content was on any of the reels at that point. It’s not enough just to have all of these sound recordings just sitting on a shelf. They were SAFE on a shelf, but we had no idea what they were until we went to transfer them [into digital format to preserve them].
So then I got really excited once I confirmed that yes, this was really unique material, the sound is great -- for 1957 it’s a really high quality location recording.We issued a press release announcing the discovery, and [after an initial and unexpected lull] Ben Ratliff, the jazz critic for the New York Times came down and spent the day listening to that recording twice and taking some detailed notes. He wrote a piece that ran on the front page of the New York Times Features section, and that morning the phones started ringing off the hook. It was just unbelievable -- every label was calling, asking “How can we get it?”
Now, the Library of Congress does not itself retain any rights to the intellectual property, it all reverts back to the estate of the artist. The attorney of Thelonious Monk’s estate, Alan Bergman, received a listening copy of the recording and took it around to different labels. Working with Monk's son T.S., it ultimately came out on Blue Note at the end of 2005. I was just so gratified that it sold so well - I mean, you’re used to pop jazz selling well, but to think that a record like that of instrumental jazz that’s not Kenny G, selling half a million copies -- that’s unheard of.
Look, I mean, this is why we do what we do! I was really pleased just at the thought that someone maybe bought it for their twelve year old kid who’s just learning music.
I’ve found lots of rare things over the years, things we weren’t even looking for -- a jam session with Lester Young during a period when he was in his prime but had been thoroughly undocumented, right before he went into the Army. We’ve been working on preserving all the Newport Jazz Festivals for years, and we have the Newport Folk Festivals as well. We were lucky with the Coltrane/Monk show because it was a really well-made recording, and many other Newport recordings are distorted.
Of course, there’s always more for which we know nothing yet about the content and the significance. We systematically go through things that are in the most danger of degenerating and can't cherry-pick things out of the collection when other less-stable recordings may be in danger. We’ve been focusing on the ‘50s, but what we might find once we get through into the ‘60s? I remember one item from our NBC collection from when the Beatles first performed in New York, it was used as backup sound for a news story. Or a 2" quad video reel I preserved and transferred that was recorded at the Family Dog in San Francisco by NET [National Educational Television] with the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and either Quicksilver or Santana, and then at the end they all jammed together. That was great -- not just for the music, but also how you can see the audience and the culture of the moment. And I remember seeing a really nice film of Joni Mitchell once, at a festival in the Midwest where she’s just performing all by herself. Lovely.
Think about it, if I had not been at work that day, we would have still preserved that recording of course -- but who would have known what it was? I mean, maybe years later a researcher would walk in the door and look in a database and say, “What’s this?”
Sometimes if all the planets line up just right and you find something with unique content that’s well-done, it can have a profound impact in the music world today, years later. If people can hear something they’ve never heard before, and it moves them, is there anything more important in terms of music and culture? It really says something about who we are.
So yes. To answer your earlier question -- yes . . . it’s cool.
NOTE: In addition to a Recorded Sound Reference Center online, the Library of Congress also has an American Folklife Listening Room -- incidentally staffed by a guy named Todd Harvey who has written a book called The Formative Dylan: Transmission and Stylistic Influences, 1961-1963 that I had fun flipping through as I listened to the tapes of Dylan at Newport in '63. The main room holds sound recordings that you can listen to and search (I looked through the catalogs of Johnny Cash and Otis Redding). Three hours felt like thirty minutes. If I ever move to DC and no one hears from me for a few months -- check there.
Two of the strongest recommendations I received of places I needed to see while I was in Washington DC last week were The 9:30 Club and The Black Cat. The latter was partially accomplished on Friday night when I found myself at the downstairs part of the club, Red Room. No live music at The Black Cat that night, but Red Room has the best jukebox I've ever seen in a venue. I spent many dollars.
The 9:30 opportunity presented itself earlier in the week, when after the conference meet & greet, I found myself with not much to do around 7:30pm. Never one to sit when I could listen to something good, I cabbed it over to the sold-out show at The 9:30 and bought a ticket off some guy standing outside looking vaguely lost and somewhat interested in selling the ticket he clutched in his hand. I think he'd been stood up. I wanted to apologize on behalf of whomever'd done it, but gave him a few crisp bills instead and was on my way into the mysteriously completely unmarked door.
After missing most of the Black Lips' set, I got a spot up near to the front in a location so close to the speakers that my clothes literally vibrated with each thrum of the bass and kick of the drum. After their fedora'd roadie crew set the stage, The Raconteurs sauntered on a bit before 10pm. The last time I'd seen them was in the overwhelmingly huge chaos of Coachella, but in this concentrated and intimate setting their music scorched and flayed each of us. The riffs were excoriatingly raw but tight, their songs were all blues grit and swagger, and they looked like they were having quite a bit of fun.
SETLIST Consolers of the Lonely Hold Up Level Keep It Clean Top Yourself Switch and the Spur You Don't Understand Me Rich Kid Blues Yellow Sun (rockin' version) Attention Steady As She Goes Blue Veins
ENCORE Shades of Black Intimate Secretary The Stones Will Shout Salute Your Solution Carolina Drama
Location: Colorado, originally by way of California, United States
FUEL/FRIENDS HAS MOVED! Please visit http://fuelfriendsblog.com...
"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there’s something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It’s the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part...."
-Nick Hornby, Songbook -
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Got something I should hear? Email me at browneheather@gmail.com. Each comment left here is also emailed to my inbox, regardless the age of the post.
Music submissions etc. can be sent to: Fuel/Friends, PO Box 64011, Colorado Springs, CO 80962-4011
Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. If you represent an artist or a label and would prefer that I remove a link to an mp3, please email me at browneheather@gmail.com and I will immediately remove the file.
I'm still recovering from my weekend, what with all the SoCo-sponsored libations in the hot hot sun that set off other fun and unexpected happenings (like my rookie winning streak at the Klacker dice game, netting me a championship $7 --seven dollars!!-- all in singles). Incidentally the SoCo also improved both my Cornhole game and my Rock Band skills (oh! doubtful!!).
Eagle Seagull
LSD (Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds remix)
Ah, Colorado. Anyways, this song was one of the crowd highlights of the set -- made better when combined with the delight that Ashton took in watching all of us as he recreated it with his laptops and turntables. I recommend an experience with Bassnectar when he comes through your town.
The Notwist
Song For 
Romantica
(out last week on SonaBLAST! Records).
Frightened Rabbit
