May 09, 2008
Coachella 2008: Sunday (Day 3)
[This and all photos by Merry Swankster]
Sunday was the lightest lineup at this year's Coachella. The third and final installment of the fest saw sparse crowds and half filled venues all day long. For a substantial part of the day our group was at a loss on what bands to see. I don't remember that ever happening before, though it allowed time to check out the festival's extensive art installations without the accompanying guilt of skipping acts. The paltry schedule was magnified when our mid day penciled in selection did not show up. I was looking forward to seeing The Field, but immigration issues barred them from entering the country.
While the day still provided plenty of heavyweight entertainment from the likes of My Morning Jacket, Roger Waters and Justice, the consensus opinion of Merry Swankster's extended posse was disappointing. Without doubt the weakest single day crowd in at least five years for the festival so we obviously weren't alone with those thoughts. It gave the impression of a failed festival, something I'm sure the festival organizers will be eager to turn around in the coming years given the established prestige and past successes of Coachella. Expectations baby, they're a bitch. And the high expectations at Coachella are easy to take for granted. I look forward to complaining about making tough choices rather than feeling confused on why there is nobody interesting to see.
Previously:
Coachella Day 1
Coachella Day 2
Final day summary after the jump...
Duffy
The young, soulful Duffy has a bigger voice than her fair complexion and blond hair would lead you to believe and the British press is gaga over another Amy Winehouse type performer on their hands. However unfair the comparisons to Winehouse, they are somewhat valid given Duffy's similar throwback singing style and approach. Unlike Winehouse, Duffy is far less interesting with little engrossing material besides the hit "Mercy" currently tearing up the UK charts.
Not The Field
[Disappointed Field fans decide to take in the rocking silent show of the Shade]
"The Field will not be making it today. They were denied entrance into our fine nation by the US government." Then the disemboweled voice from the P.A. bantered back and forth with a second voice about the full name of the next band, the unfortunately named 'Does it Offend You, Yeah'.
My Morning Jacket
My Morning Jacket is a band prone to caricature. Writers looking for adjective injections can ensure covering of bases with any combination of the following: Bourbon, Kentucky, beards, roots rock, Allman Brothers, etc. Too often with critical parlance, the devilish details are glossed over for the obvious hits in the obvious storyline. Not that My Morning Jacket's talents are in doubt or anything, just that it seems rare to read anything substantive on the band besides the overt observations of geography and facial grooming. See what I just did there? I hit all the check boxes associated with My Morning Jacket in a circuitous way.
My Morning Jacket's sunset show on the main stage was a highlight on many levels. For starters it was far more energetic a performance than anyone else on Sunday and the new material sounded great. Really great. MMJ showed continued range and is clearly evolving with more adventurous sounds. The erroneously simplistic narrative of MMJ being the only hippie band that hipsters can get behind is being shattered as they become less of a roots band, or whatever sub-genre we create for them, and simply settle into their role as Grade A Rock and Roll band. My Morning Jacket is clearly inspired by ambition to moving their art forward. To the surprise of nobody, they are inching towards greater heights as an incredibly cohesive unit and well on their way to becoming one of America's best. They may have already gotten there.
[M. Ward joins MMJ]
Sons and Daughters
The meager Sunday crowds were most evident at the tent venues. Sons and Daughters embodied this unfortunate truth better (worse?) than others. Too bad for them. They missed out on the excellent angular dance-rock these Scottish gals and lads do so well.
Roger Waters
Middle aged skewing couples with psychedelic Pink Floyd tees were a noteworthy minority in the sea of young fashionable hipsters taking in day three's festivities. If there was a distinct segment of festival attendees that made the trip to Indio for one act only, it was the Roger Waters crowd. Nothing really disparaging about it, it just was. No shortage of deer in headlight looks from the older folks with every neon heavy, American Apparel donning gaggle of kids that passed by. Made the already fabulous people watching at Coachella that much better.
Roger Waters performance was a great bang for the buck considering his own concert ticket prices command upwards of $150. Two full sets and two plus hours of music didn't hurt either. Kicking things off with a route snaking through Pink Floyd classics as well as his solo material, monster hits from The Wall, Animals, and Wish You Where Here, were all touched. One thing about Roger Waters solo material that strikes anyone familiar with Pink Floyd is the similarity in paranoid New World Order themes and even the song structures of classic Floyd. Shouldn't be suprising given Waters role in Pink Floyd. His solo stuff just sounds like Pink Floyd, much more so than the sham Pink Floyd offering of the sans-Waters 1994 The Division Bell.
Justice
Daft Punk lite gave people the party they wanted for a proper Coachella send off. It was enough to ignore our barking dogs for just a little longer.
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When Pavement ruined Lollapalooza
Pavement - "Slow Century" DVD - West Virginia, Lollapalooza 1994
Waxing about Malkmus reminded me of being too young and dumb to check out Pavement play Lollapalooza in 1994 and led me to this nugget of hilarity from the band's "Slow Century" DVD (Matador). It then got me thinking about how radically different things are these days at music festivals. Its a complete 180. Pavement was routinely ignored (my 15 y/o self - guilty) during their stint as headliner in '94, to the point where things got a bit ugly in West Virginia. Safe to say leaving the stage to a chorus of boos, flying mud, and reciprocating with flipped birds and dropping trout is not ideal.
So what's changed since? Fourteen years later and the festival circuit in America is as healthy as ever. The model certainly changed, traveling festivals replaced by anchored regional events. But at what point do things unwittingly revert to a facsimile of Lollapalooza's original failed model? Tons of bands do the "festival circuit" and exclusivity of acts is getting harder and harder for festival promoters in such a crowded market. Survival of the fittest? Could be a dangerous way to weed out the losers, considering it's tantamount to cannibalization. Geography will come into play in a big way for some organizers. Pitchfork, Lollapalooza, and Coachella have distinct advantages being in or near Chicago and Los Angeles, respectively. Only time will tell, but the music industry as a whole doesn't exactly have the best record with success these days. Now I'm getting bummed out.
Posted by Merry Swankster at 01:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Coachella 2008: Saturday (Day 2)
[This and all photos by Merry Swankster]
Continued coverage of the Coachella Music & Arts Festival.
Previously: Coachella Day 1
Full rundown after the jump...
Bonde do Role
Call me old fashioned all you want but I don't dig on Bonde do Role's gig. Splicing hit riffs from familiar 70s, 80s, 90s (and today!) and injecting them with heavy bass sounds of Brazilian baile funk and laying raps over them is not my cup of tea in the middle of the afternoon under a tent in the desert. I don't understand Portuguese either so it all sounds like a mess of indecipherable yapping. Maybe it works in sweaty, subterranean, strobe bathed clubs. Maybe. I can capitulate to "Marina Gasolina" and nothing more. Consider me unconverted.
Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks
For an indie rock god Stephen Malkmus sure didn't attract much of a flock. Something about the ease in which we got up front for Malkmus & the Jicks felt wrong. So close that my ears are still ringing. Easily the loudest set of the weekend for us. Literally deafening. Funny considering this was the closest thing to a jamband all weekend. Malkmus looked like a cross between an urban beekeeper and a grandpa, no matter - he's still cooler than all of us will ever be.
Malkmus personified the uber-cool brand of Northwestern slacker. Detached irreverence permeates everything he says or does. It's as if at any moment he might leave the stage remembering that laundry needs folding. At least you can count on getting a joke on his way out. Like the one he told his Jicks, "You guys are pretty good. I'm glad I get to front this shit." Or when he started singing the chorus of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" saying (I'm paraphrasing), "If we had that song we'd be playing over there (points to the main stage)."
[Light crowd for the Jicks]
St. Vincent
Annie Clark, aka St. Vincent, said she "got here by plane" and launched into "Dig a Pony" from the Beatles' classic Let It Be. (Beatles covers were popular all weekend. The Breeders did "Happiness is a Warm Gun" and Prince provided the purple treatment on "Come Together") All alone on stage, Clark lightly strummed her red electric guitar providing a genuinely special moment. Her talents as a performer clearly enhanced when stripped down and vulnerable. The lady can hold her own with an ax to-boot.
Hot Chip
Hot Chip did what they do best. Whipping the crowd into a frenzy with escalating, progressive dance rock. It's been brilliant for some time now and the improbable nerds can throw down like few others. My thoughts on the single song highlight of the entire weekend has already been made clear.
Islands
Something was wrong with the Islands gear while they setting up. Islands, issues? You don't say? Whatever it was ate a good 30 minutes into what is typically precision engineered scheduling. At Coachella, the trains all run on time. It's a nice reliability that helps the overall experience as a festival goer. Obviously troubleshooting the snag was not happening expeditiously because an official roadie looking guy signaled to Islands to get on with it. Which they finally did to the bending of notes in the intro of "Vertigo (If It's a Crime)" from the new Arm's Way.
We stayed through the alloted time for Islands thinking they would be cut off with a hard stop for the good of the schedule, and plus I had to run over to the main stage for at least some of Kraftwerk before M.I.A. came on. While I was running back to the tent area for M.I.A. I noticed Islands was still playing. I'm glad they didn't get shooed off without completing a full set. Lord knows Islands doesn't need any more negative experiences while touring.
["Where There's a Will, There's a Whalebone" featuring Busdriver]
Kraftwerk
Running across the Coachella grounds in the direction of a huge projection screen framing four moored gentlemen standing stiffly behind laptop platforms is rather peculiar. Something almost hypnotic about it. Germans are funny.
While I sprinted back to the tents for M.I.A., "Computer Love" was playing. For the record I did not overhear anyone say, "hey it's that Coldplay song".
M.I.A.
It was a mess of people for M.I.A., packed to the gills (and rafters)! Unfortunately the huge crowd did not get the best of M.I.A. Too much between song build up with little to show in delivered goods. M.I.A.'s set fell victim to the pitfalls of a hip hop show. The kind that is more memorable for what doesn't happen rather than actual performances. In other words if she could just edit out the dead air foolishness of shout outs and "are you ready" questions and actually play songs. Novel concept, no?
The crowd was amped leading up to M.I.A. getting on stage. Once she arrived she was never able to fully harness the boundless energy the audience so desperately wanted to share with her. Disappointing in many ways. I recall the "Paper Planes" gunshots going off the entire time. Our love for the pop-pop-pop gunshot sample has been well documented, though that doesn't mean it should be looped continuously.
The final vibe-killer was when she (someone?) invited throngs from the front rows up on the stage. It seemed to rattle M.I.A. in the while it took to provide room on the stage for her to do her thing rather than ignite careless abandon in what was shaping up to be a flat performance. I'm curious on what Maya's impression of the show was. I hope she is asked about it in a future interview.
Animal Collective
I sneaked into the nearby Mohave tent post-M.I.A. to catch about five minutes of Animal Collective before I had to meet up with some friends. Just enough to snap these pictures and provide zero amounts of commentary on the actual show. Sorry folks. Our attempts at omnipresence failed.
Prince
"When they asked me to come work this place, I told them I don't work, but I'll come to play music. I came to play...I came to party...,but under one condition, I get to choose the music. Is that allright with ya'll? In the spirit of that, you in the coolest place on earth...right now!" - Prince
Prince had many roles at Coachella. Emcee, guitar virtuoso, master of the medley, cover fiend ("Creep", "Come Together", Sarah McLachlan's "The Arms of an Angel"), and was determined to play all night. No joke. Exhausted, we headed back to the car around 1 am to the sounds of "Let's Go Crazy".
[Sheila E.]
Posted by Merry Swankster at 01:00 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Coachella's best individual song performance was by Hot Chip
Hot Chip - "Over and Over" - Live @ Coachella 4.26.2008
And this was it. (Another angle)
Posted by Merry Swankster at 03:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 08, 2008
Art Rock: Mike Keirstead's "The Jam Part I: A History"
Have you ever wondered what would have happened if 19th century French Neo-Impressionist painter Georges-Pierre Seurat listened to Jimi Hendrix on repeat for years on end? Of course you have… who hasn’t? At first I thought the result of this experiment would look exactly like this…
"man, you ever think the world is just made up of small colored dots?"
But it has come to my attention that is has been scientifically suggested that:
As this sound mathematical equation shows, Seurat + Axis: Bold of Love = Canadian artist Michael Keirstead’s magnum opus, The Jam Part I: A History.
While it took Seurat two years to dot his way through his 10ft wide painting Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte , it took Keirstead five years to complete the 113 stippled portraits in his 8ft work. Keirstead used the meticulous technique of stippling in which the artist uses small dots to create the effect of shading instead of using lines or blotches of paint. The delicate and painstaking process proves the gravity in which Keirstead viewed his work.
The musicians that are touching have collaborated while the head size and placement of each musician is a result of Keirstead’s own personal musical cannon of rock n’ roll lineage. It has been rumored that the original work of art was purchased by one of the Beatles. Though I'm not completely sure which Beatle's estate owns this work the fact that John's head is three times the size of McCartney's may narrow it down a bit. The good news for Pete Best and the rest of us is that you don't have to be a Beatle to own this piece of art since a newly established Philadelphia marketing group is now selling the poster.
// to purchase or view close-ups of The Jam Poster
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Video: Love Is All - "Give It Back" (New Song)
Aside from a few clear riffs, there's nothing conclusive about this video, posted to You Tube by Love Is All's powerful pixie singer Josephine Olausson. This grainy, far-off footage depicts an airing of "Give It Back," a tune slated for A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night, the band's increasingly anticipated sophomore record. We can only hope that hometown shows such as this will keep the band sharp and wily as they depart cozy Gothenburg, Sweden next month for a quick east coast jog.
Posted by Jeff Klingman at 12:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Coachella 2008: Friday (Day 1)
Day 1 at the 2008 Coachella Music and Arts festival was a classic Coachella cocktail of young tenderfoots sipping success, old(er) stalwarts tickling fans with new material amongst sprinklings of vintage hits, and established indie bigs proving that swagger best complements talents when the latter is in abundance. Referring specifically to the Raconteurs who were so scarily good it was enough to hasten the rush back to practice garages and basements for the impossibly hyped newbies still in development.
Also operating on all cylinders was the completely different funk and soul phenomenon that was Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings. Ms. Jones and company brought the house, or in this case tent, down with such a flawless execution of the word "Show" one can ever hope for. If you ever walked away from a concert feeling like your live music dollar did not provide the best anticipated return in entertainment dividends, Sharon Jones was the exact opposite of that.
Click through to see highlights of Friday at Coachella.
[All photos by Merry Swankster unless noted]
Breeders
Vampire Weekend
Every year there seems to be a time slot for a super buzzed about band at the Outdoor, not quite main, stage. Past alumni include Arcade Fire and Bloc Party. These well educated gentlemen from New York City drew a huge crowd. Time will tell if Vampire Weekend are hanging with the aforementioned names in the future. The set was solid, bright and notable for a new song I can only describe as sounding like beach appropriate electro, if such a thing were to exist. I guess its fans would make for a terrible beach volleyball team, but the after-party would be dope. Hats off to their continued success. Easy to forget Vampire Weekend barely existed as a band early last year.
The National
Sometimes it takes startups like Vampire Weekend to realize how further along some of the more established acts can be. The coveted sunset slot was owned by the melodramatic rockers. Magical things occur when the sun sets in Indio. Shadows get longer, mountains turn into silhouettes in the distant, rugged horizon, and the nightlife of Coachella fully awakens into an exploding orgy of fire and color. An oasis of light that is equal parts mesmerizing spectacle and a feast for the senses. Add the National's gorgeous arrangements (reinforced by horns) and the lovely heartbreak prominent in Matt Berninger's voice and things start getting transcendental.
The Raconteurs
I've been slow to warm up to the new Raconteurs record. I can't say the same is true for their blazingly hot live show. Let's just say it is very evident that the Nashville boys are well rehearsed and fully gelled. Jack White is poised to officially kick everyone's ass with the effortless way dude displays his talents. Be it on guitar, behind keys, or screwing around with different microphones, even with his back to the audience he is causing all kinds of trouble. And by trouble I mean holy crap they the Raconteurs got so much better as a band, and they were pretty good already! This band might just be the best traditional rock and roll band in America right now. Even the biggest detractors of straight forward rock can appreciate a good old fashioned drubbing from rock gods.
Datarock
85% of the people in attendance for the jumpsuit donning Datarock will tell you they were their favorite performance of the weekend. This is an occasion where "best" and "favorite" is mutually exclusive. Not to say the Norwegian dance punks were not good, but the set was clearly highlighted by intense fun exuded by the boundless energy emanating from the stage. Nobody was more excited to play Coachella than these guys, and they did their best to ensnare the crowd into their enthusiasm.
[Myspace photo]
Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings
Female James Brown. Relentless energy and a sick motivation to leave it all on the stage. Sharon Jones was amazing.
Black Lips
All I seem to remember about the Black Lips is how each member of the band looks like a character from Dazed & Confused type movies from the 1970s. Like a stage full of parody.
Fatboy Slim
Late night cruise through the dance tent was like a drive by through the nightclub when you don't really feel like being at one. You know the music sounds great and most people are cutting up the rug but you just can't get into it and attempts to merge into the dancing masses feels forced. Norman Cook was spinning up a storm for the still up for it crowd as we headed towards the car.
Posted by Merry Swankster at 10:30 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Datarock @ Coachella - "(I've Had) The Time Of My Life" (Dirty Dancing)
Datarock - "(I've Had) The Time Of My Life" (Dirty Dancing) - Live @ Coachella 4.25.2008
I think they call this karaoke.
Posted by Merry Swankster at 04:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Vampire Weekend @ Coachella - "Blake's Got a New Face"
Vampire Weekend -"Blake's Got a New Face" - Live @ Coachella 4.25.08
With a new camera in hand forays into live video documentation may be more frequent on ms.com. I learned still photography is doable while recording video, though not without adding an 80s style effect into the finished product. Still, decent enough.
Prior to this performance Ezra Koenig encouraged the crowd to make up the words in the chorus. For example: Blake's out of toothpaste, etc. I can't make out any of the much funnier ad-libs, but trust me, they were there.
Vampire Weekend's entire set sounded crisp and punchy. Perfect for an afternoon in the bright sun. Enjoy.
Posted by Merry Swankster at 01:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 07, 2008
Retrohump: Finding LiLiPUT (Not so swiftly)
LiLiPUT - "Die Matrosen"
I'd long patrolled the You Tube wilderness in search of proof that LiLiPUT (or Kleenex if you're not a lawyer-type) was made up of actual flesh and blood girls, and not mythical post-punk sprites. To this day, that search remains a fruitless one. The embedded slice of awesome you see above comes courtesy of Pitchfork.tv. I had assumed that the utility of the new music video mecca would be mainly curatorial, dumping lots of good stuff in one place for convenient idle browsing. But if they are going to start packing their archives with footage that can't be conjured up by the anonymous uploaders of the world-at-large, it may take on greater significance yet.
The clip, for the Swiss misses' 1980 single "Die Matrosen" is a groovy little travelogue of the girls' traipsing around Germany with what appear to be their fellas (though the androgynous haircuts of the era are making gender proclamations sort of difficult). Nothing too momentous occurs--a bit of rest stop tomfoolery, a few bored celebrity imitations in the back seat to pass the time. (Man, whoever Willi Milowitsch is, he's gotta be steamed by that portrayal.) But as a endearingly human portrait of musicians whose work was so intoxicatingly alien, it's got charm to spare.
Posted by Jeff Klingman at 05:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 06, 2008
Interview: Parsing This New Puritan
When Jack Barnett and his then teenage band mates in These New Puritans first caught our ear back in November of '06, there wasn't much to go on but a few cryptic podcasts and the ring of mangled synths. In the intervening months, the twitchy Brits have spanned all corners of their home isle, provided a stark soundtrack for the high fashion runway, released their debut album Beat Pyramid on the estimable Domino label, and conquered South by Southwest's dog-and-pony show clad in gladiator's steel. As his band now prepares to bring their own stomp-and-grumble review through the US on their first proper tour this June, we stole a few minutes of young Jack's valuable time. Our digitally transmitted discourse below...
--
Jeff Klingman: How long have you and your twin brother George been making music together?
Jack Barnett: Ages. Since we were really young. He played on my songs.
JK: Why do you think British brothers seem to form bands at a greater rate than Americans?
JB: I don't know -- it's weird -- it's the same as how Dutch brothers seem to become footballers - the De Boer Brothers, the Krol Brothers, the Mühren Brothers.
JK: Was SXSW your first trip to the US ever?
JB: Yep.
JK: Are you looking forward to playing proper gigs here after the big public relations orgy of Austin?
JB: Yeah. Austin was fun though. Different.
These New Puritans - "Numerology (aka Numbers)"
JK: I apologize in advance for this, but what's your favorite number, and what does it mean?
JB: Ha! I like 5, 7, 12, 15, 19, 25, 27, 29, 33, 333, 555, 1222, 1987 .... I don't know what they mean.
These New Puritans - "Navigate, Navigate"
JK: Why did "Navigate, Navigate" work for you as a stand-alone piece, but not as a track on the album? Why parcels its bits up among other songs?
JB: Well, "Navigate, Navigate" was just a collection of musical themes that I'd been thinking up for a while and I like to re-use themes - obviously that's something that's been done in music for ever....classical music anyway. and also because I was writing the album at the same time as I was writing "Navigate..." for Hedi*, and they were just musical ideas that were close at hand at the time. So it's more that the ideas were running parallel for two different releases.
JK: Repetition of song fragments across multiple songs seems to be a theme on the album. Does the context of the individual songs change the meaning of the repeated bits? Or did you just intend it to be a refrain?
JB: It's a refrain - I'm planning to have refrains that span multiple albums as well.
JK: Do you consider your music as continuing the tradition of 70's post-punk groups to whom you're compared, or as a specific expression of the here and now?
JB: Erm, i think there was a bit of that when we first started, but Beat Pyramid drains that away from our music quite a lot. I think old punks try to claim every piece of post-1976 music as their own. Like on TV there's always stuff about how "the Velvet Underground invented everything" or "the Sex Pistols invented everything"... it's quite boring. Clearly Aphex Twin invented everything.
These New Puritans - "Swords of Truth"
JK: Are you more interested in rhythm than melody?
JB: Yes, most songs begin with the beats.
JK: I'd read that you've done a bit of production work for the London band Sunni-Geini. Do you see the role of a producer as completely distinct from that of a band?
JB: Yeah, I've been working with them - Mohammed Durayd and Marie Quest. they're more of a collective than a band.
I think TNPS' music is really production-based and is becoming so more and more. I always thought i'd be a producer, not a band-person. There are some brilliant producers in the Ivory Coast at the moment with whom we should collaborate.
JK: What can you tell me about the Experimental Circle Club?
JB: That's a club run by some of our friends including Ciaran O'Shea who's done artwork for Def-Jam and helped out with some of our early podcasts. They play noise and beats at their club which is in a hotel in Southend near the sea-side.
Jack Barnett @ the Experimental Circle Club
(Southend, 11.18.06)
JK: Do you imagine your work with TNPS moving in a more improvisational direction?
JB: No. We're not really improvisers. It's got to be worked out.
JK: What do you like most about chain-mail?
JB: Everything.
photo by Lee Hopper
--
* Designer Hedi Slimane, who commissioned the band's music for the Dior Homme Show 2007.
Posted by Jeff Klingman at 08:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 05, 2008
Denver/Boulder: Shows this week | 5.05 - 5.11
[actual dead Prez.]
Monday, May 5
The Cops @ Hi-Dive
DJ Scooter @ Larimer Lounge
Kate Nash @ Fox Theatre
Tuesday, May 6
Dead Prez @ Fox Theatre
Efterklang/Slaraffenland @ Larimer Lounge
Emmure @ Marquis Theater
Run Run Run @ Hi-Dive
The Tamburitzans Of Duquesne @ Boulder Theater
Wednesday, May 7
Dusty Rhodes And The River Band @ Larimer Lounge
Eisley @ Fox Theatre
Lyrics Born @ Marquis Theater
Pennywise @ Fillmore Auditorium
VHS Or Beta @ Bluebird Theater
Thursday, May 8
Bandemonium Tour 2008 @ Gothic Theatre
Fiance @ Hi-Dive
Hot Tuna @ Fox Theatre
The Liar Dies @ Larimer Lounge
Phil Lesh & Friends @ Fillmore Auditorium
South @ Marquis Theater
Friday, May 9
A Twisted Conspiracy @ Boulder Theater
American Music Club/Bela Karoli/Hello Kavita @ Larimer Lounge
Animosity @ Marquis Theater
Crusher Bound Cadillac @ Gothic Theatre
Kathleen Edwards @ Fox Theatre
Laura Veirs/Liam Finn @ Walnut Room
The Little Ones @ Hi-Dive
Mary Louise Lee Band @ Soiled Dove
Murder By Death @ Bluebird Theater
Phil Lesh & Friends @ Fillmore Auditorium
Saturday, May 10
Augustana/David Ford @ Gothic Theatre
Conspirator @ Ogden Theater
Electric Hot Tuna @ Paramount Theatre
Film School @ Hi-Dive
Hearts Like Lions @ Larimer Lounge
Lazyface @ Soiled Dove
Marco Benevento @ Boulder Theater
Sugarland @ Red Rocks Ampitheatre
Tiny Television @ Walnut Room
Yo Majesty/Does It Offend You,Yeah? @ Bluebird Theater
Z-Trip @ Fox Theatre
Sunday, May 11
Cruxvae @ Larimer Lounge
Foolish Things @ Gothic Theatre
Subnoize Souljaz @ Marquis Theater
Themes @ Hi-Dive
Schedule appears courtesy of Mystik Spiral.
Posted by Jeff Klingman at 11:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Video: Stereolab - "Three Women"
Via Pitchfork.tv, the new video for Stereolab's spring-appropriate comeback single. I will silently await the YouTube mash-up matching the song's breezy charms to nervous images from the excellent Robert Altman film of the same name. For now, you get blocky retro animation that's as perfectly matched as you'd expect from a veteran band with such a comprehensively conceived aesthetic.
Posted by Jeff Klingman at 09:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 04, 2008
Video: Deerhunter - "Winter Never Stops"
The latest from the Deerhunter blog is notable both for being the first widely available glimpse of a track from the forthcoming Microcastle, as well as the first footage of the band's new guitarist, Whitney, in action. The mysterious new member, whose last name has yet to be mentioned, sits in on an acoustic run through of "Winter Never Stops" with Bradford Cox and Lockett Pundt this weekend in Marietta, GA. While I'm not claiming the mental dexterity to perfectly remember this track from the new record's live debut last month (especially in an altered acoustic form), its melodic emphasis seems plausibly familiar.
Previously:
- Deerhunter, live @ Market Hotel, Bushwick 04.11.08
Posted by Jeff Klingman at 10:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 02, 2008
Numerology: Twilley's Moony For 47, "47 Moons" For Us
Finding a 47 song—one that I could believe in—was turning out to be a tough task. “PO Box 9847,” the Monkees’ version of “Want Ads,” was not eligible, although it was surpassingly stupid and catchy. Mark Kozalek of Red House Painters was certainly eligible for “Metropol 47,” a sincere and heartfelt, if lugubrious, love song, in which he sings about his desire to kiss his beloved’s “sweet koala face,” but I am much more fond of his AC/DC covers (even though they sound pretty much like this) on that same Rock ‘n’ Roll Singer EP (2000). The rollicking “47th Street Boogie” by legendary blues pianist Memphis Slim and his hero, Roosevelt Sykes, displays charms a-plenty, as it extols the virtues of New York’s 47th Street—a place where, it assures us, you’ll meet the hepcats and the fly chicks, as well as get your solid kicks. And while the song’s main lyric, in which Slim pleads, “Don’t talk me to death/Babe, I ain’t ready to die,” feels at odds with the song’s celebration of hedonism, I’ll take the 47th Street of Memphis Slim and Roosevelt Sykes any day over the place that Duane Peters sings about in “47th Street,” with his skate-punk band, Die Hunns. Peters, the inventor of such skateboard moves as “the fakie hang-up” and “the loop of death,” brays a chorus of “I’ll bury you at 47th Street” like a feral wolf, but apparently that’s par for the course for the prolific Peters, who also records with U.S Bombs and the Exploding Fuckdolls.
Feeling a bit desperate, I dug around in my vinyl collection, and turned up something promising, off an out-of-print record from 1977, and that discovery led me to an even better one. Funny thing was, both songs were by Dwight Twilley.
Now, I’ve been mining number songs for over a year now, actively searching for connections, sometimes stretching and pulling muscles in the process. Usually it entails sifting through a slew of vintage anecdotes about songs and artists, but this one—no. 47—was different. The question I wanted to answer wasn’t answerable through the usual channels. It was really up to me to find out why Dwight Twilley wrote two songs featuring the no. 47 in their titles.
So I called him, at his home in Tulsa, a week ago, and he was kind enough to explain it all to me.
“I think it's a sexy number. You know, when you just say it, the way it rolls off the tongue. It has great syllables.”
It sure does. In fact, “Rock and Roll ’47” (the second track off Twilley’s excellent yet ill-fated 1977 sophomore effort) captures what a man sounds like when he is truly enamored of a number. Dwight sings it like this: “Forty-seh HEH-HEH Heh-eh-vunn,” echoing Buddy Holly’s “A weh-aheh-aheh-ell” intro to “Rave On,” But from a lyrical standpoint, the inclusion of the number seems arbitrary. I mean, it’s hard to know what to make of a line like, "Heard a song, baby, yesterday/Saw a man understand/That he plays what he says—47."
Dwight Twilley - "Rock & Roll '47"
So is that it? Now that we know how much the man digs the 15th prime number for its mouthfeel, should we simply conclude that the number was included solely for its syllabic usefulness? We should not, because that’s not the whole story.
“That came from the musician's union in Los Angeles, which used to be called, and maybe it still is, local union number 47.” [It still is.]
But wait. How, or why, does this tough, twitchy little song end up with a title containing an oblique reference to the L.A. musicians’ union in its title?
“Because, well, that was kind of the point of it. Like, this was just another rock ‘n’ roll song. It could have been 46, it could have been 45, could have had a name or not had a name. Coulda been a bit more up-tempo or slower, but it’s just another rock ‘n’ roll song.”
Dwight Twilley - "Girls"
When Dwight Twilley first began making records, the “just another rock ‘n’ roll song” aesthetic still had legs. Rock was, after all, a familiar idiom, and, even though it had been turned into something complicated by a lot of progressive outfits, people like Dwight Twilley were more interested in mining rock ‘n’ roll for its primal pleasures. When he got his first record deal in 1976 (with the notoriously badly managed Shelter Records, whom his label mate and early collaborator, Tom Petty, successfully sued), it was during the brief mid-‘70s heyday of power-pop, when bands like the pre-Budokan Cheap Trick, the Raspberries, Badfinger and Big Star wrote catchy, Beatles-influenced songs featuring tight harmonies and sharp guitars. Most of them were about girls. With its choppy chords, heavenly harmonies and badass swagger, “I’m on Fire,” Dwight’s first single, (no. 16 on the Billboard chart in April 1975) typifies the genre as well as anything. One thing that distinguishes Twilley’s early records is the glorious vocal interplay between him and drummer Phil Seymour, with whom Twilley cofounded his first outfit, the Dwight Twilley Band. Another trademark was Twilley’s fondness for the rockabilly “slapback echo” effect, which gave his vocals more than a touch of Sun Studios-era Elvis, amid the ringing, stinging chords. You can hear these vocal characteristics on “Rock and Roll ’47,” a strutting number with a section in the song’s brief break that sounds a bit like John Lennon’s upper-register keening at the end of “Hey Jude.”
But the stunning title track from 47 Moons, Dwight’s 2005 album on the digital-only label DMGI, is another thing entirely. It’s a song most definitely made by a grownup, with sumptuous Spectorian production (the song was lovingly engineered by Dwight’s wife, Jan), an indelible minor-key melody, a gorgeous guitar excursion courtesy of longtime Twilley guitarist, Bill Pitcock IV, and a palpable sense longing and melancholy that puts one in mind of the Righteous Brothers.
“I think I had to drive somewhere, [I was] driving at night, and I tuned into one of those late-night radio shows, you know, where they talk about UFOs and zombies and stuff. This particular show they had a scientist on—a real specialist—and so it wasn’t so much fiction, but scientific oriented. And he just happened to matter-of-factly point out that Jupiter had 47 moons, which immediately caught my attention. And it kind of begged the question, it’s kinda like: Doesn’t seem fair; we only have one. And obviously, with the word forty-seven, it was just a natural for me. And because of having the other song—it was just another rock song called 47—I felt compelled to write this song. So I spent a considerable amount of time working on it, because I got real serious about it, and then, coincidentally, about a week later I had finished the song, or I thought I had finished the song, and I open up the newspaper here in Tulsa, through the science section, and there’s a big headline that says: More Moons Discovered Around Jupiter. So I had to go back and add another verse: I sing, I believe, “They thought that there were forty-one/They’ll find a thousand before they’re done.” Like, there just keeps being more and more moons around Jupiter.”
--But that totally finishes the song.
“Yeah,” he says, “in a way it does.”
He doesn’t sound completely convinced. In Dwight’s mind, having to add the final verse to accommodate new scientific findings was something he had to deal with. But to me, the curveball that forced him to add that verse is icing on the cake. It takes a fan to see it as a masterstroke, the part where the camera pulls back and hints at a future, rendering the song into a powerful, poignant meditation on time and space, and the endless cycle of change. And when it’s done, what began as a lullaby and swelled to an anthem finally, blissfully, floats off into the ether, where both heavenly bodies and heavenly songs reside.
Numerology is our pal Dave's ill advised quest to find the definitive song for every number from one to a hundred. It's starting to creep everybody out.
Previously: No. 1, 2-4, 5-7, 7 (counterpoint), 8, 9, 10/11, 12/13. 13 (counterpoint), 14/15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26/27, 28 , 29 , 30, 30 (counterpoint), 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46
Posted by David Klein at 12:00 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Not fair
It's fine when we tease people with commentary on music we've heard before them. But when PopJustice does it to us? And when it involves Annie? My title speaks for itself.
Posted by Keith O'Brien at 09:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 01, 2008
A Brief Moment in New Viking Time...
As Times New Viking's Rip It Off sits very high on the list of things I've enjoyed this year, I was chuffed to be given the chance to investigate the roots of their noise-battered pop songs directly. That was my inappropriately lofty plan, anyway. Of the ten or so stout questions I sent into the darkness with the goal of taming TNV's peculiar appeal, only these six staggered back, bloody-nosed; the rest were never seen nor heard from again. From the omissions, I think it's safe to say that the band is sick of discussing what us plebes may perceive as "noisy" or "off-putting." But, I suppose if this terse Q & A isn't a marvel of investigative journalism, the silver lining is that, as a fan, the band emerges from my close encounter with mystique still firmly intact.
Though the responses were returned in an unmarked brown paper wrapper with no discernible differentiation between respondents, forensic analysts have theorized that the the first few snappy retorts came from drummer Adam Elliott and the latter half from the slightly more zen keyboardist Beth Murphy. Due to the ambiguity, it's all just labeled TNV...
--
Jeff Klingman: I appreciate the high doses of smart ass wordplay in your song titles and even your band name. Do you think underground rock has lost a bit of its wit somewhere along the line?
Times New Viking: Who fucking pays attention to lyrics anymore? Not enough people and definitely not enough blogs. There is more to talk about nowadays then girls and sniffin' glue. I miss fanzines, they kept a watchful eye on all that stuff.
JK: Do you think it's a natural progression for initially noisy bands to mellow out with age? Is it admirable or even possible to soldier on with youthful defiance for a decade or more?
TNV: We aren't old yet, hopefully we fade out just right.
Times New Viking - "Love Your Daughters"
Times New Viking - "(My Head)"
JK: In the lyrics to "Love Your Daughters" getting high only made you nervous, but by "(My Head)" you're desperate for drug money. Have you moved on to a better class of substance, or is this strictly an accrued tolerance issue?
TNV: Just because getting high makes me nervous doesn't mean I don't like it. Some people get off on being nervous.
JK: Sophie's Choice - Ohio rock history edition: Devo or Pere Ubu?
TNV: Shit that is hard! I will judge on who was most punk rock. I liked how Devo were just normal looking dudes off stage and they didn't try to look or sound "punk", that is really punk right there. But Dave Thomas hung out with Lester Bangs so i guess they [Ubu] win.
JK: You're playing the Whitney Museum's Wordless Music series later this summer. Do you have expectations as to what a "complementary classical program" to your music might sound like?
TNV: Hopefully it is akin to Cage's silent piece, get the audience all bored and restless so we sound way more awesome.
JK: What are your feelings on the internet's relation to music in general? Did it mean more when lo-fi 7" records were passed from one intensely interested fan to another? Does the ability to reach so many more people online entirely trump that sort of quaint and intimate relationship?
TNV: We are strong proponents of dissemination yet we still have a quaint audience, internet or no internet, that is just the nature of our band. The only thing I have against the internet's relation to music is the sound quality of the songs. Our stuff is wet with treble already!
--
A treble-slick rendition of the swoon-inducing "Drop-Out" below...
Times New Viking - "Drop-Out"
(live @ Sound Exchange Records, Houston, TX, 03.16.2008 via)
Previously Filed Under Interview:
- Where Nick Thorburn's Head is At
- I Talked With Bradford Cox About the "Eternal Drone"
- I Talked to Liars About Britpop
- Romy Hoffman, MC, Macromantics
- Sounds from a Distant Past-an interview with Mike "Rep" Hummel from Mike Rep and the Quotas
Posted by Jeff Klingman at 02:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
