Malcolm Gladwell’s latest meme-as-book Outliers seeks to examine why certain individuals have become successful. Just like Gladwell’s previous two books, the Tipping Point and Blink, specific examples are used to speak to larger truths. In the case of Outliers, Gladwell shows how extraneous circumstances, extraordinary luck and exemplary talent combine to create “outliers”, individuals of exceptional success.

Make not mistake: Gladwell does not discredit hard work or talent. In fact, the text relies heavily on the “10,000 Hour Rule”, which argues that the stated amount of practice time is necessary in order to become an expert in a certain field. The portion of this book pertinent to this website’s interests deals with the Beatles – if you’re writing a book about successful geniuses, why not start at the top, right? Specifically, Gladwell refers to the Fab Four’s good fortune of being from the English town of Liverpool, which frequently sent bands to Hamburg, Germany, where bands where required to play for as much as 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for nearly 50 nights at a time. Because of this opportunity, Gladwell argues, the members of the Beatles were able to cultivate their skills to their fullest potential. Furthermore, their prolific habit carried over to their recording careers, as evidenced by their releasing over a dozen good-to-essential albums in less than eight years.

Continue reading "Book Review: Outliers" »

Posted by Randall Monty at 12:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

My computer is throwing its annual hissy fit, but in with a few borrowed moments now, I will help folk in serious need of some of my ultra-important, laser-focused criticism, by pointing them to a few more L reviews, now online. There's kindness in my narcissism...

- On Merge's Volcano Suns reissues. Klein did these three posts for us before the reissues existed. He'll have more depth to add soon, I hear

- Two fairly harsh judgments, on Beirut's new EPs and Telepathe's Dave Sitek produced debut hit the orange boxes today. I think I was the right amount of mean, in retrospect...

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lotus Plaza - The Floodlight Collective

out on Kranky Records, 3/24/09

It seems inevitable that Deerhunter's guitarist Lockett Pundt will have trouble fully branding himself as a solo artist with this record. I mean, the bleached out childhood cover, the dreamy ennui, the chilly autumn day guitars, it's all steeped in an aesthetic that's familiar by now to fans of DH's MIcrocastle, as well as singer Bradford Cox's Atlas Sound LP. Pundt was in those band meetings, determining that style, playing that guitar, and even helping Brad record his own material, but he's not the bizarrely compelling frontman, and for fair or not, he's not the figure primarily associated with these things. So, in the sense that Lockett's musical identity doesn't stray far from the tree, it's tough to get a read on Lotus Plaza as a autonomous entity, rather than a Deerhunter franchise. It doesn't help that Pundt buries his vocals and lyrics more than Cox does. It's almost too humble to be a discernable statement of intent. That said, this is probably a more solid record than AS' Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel. There are fewer songs that sound like unsuccessful experiments (but fewer unqualified artisitic successes, conversely). Lovely little vintage 4AD rockers abound, though.

Lotus Plaza - "Quicksand"

Wavves - Wavvves

out on Fat Possum Records, 3/17/09

I'm extremely sympathetic to aims and pursuits of the current lo-fi revival, but it's a major understatement to say that the result vary with user. California's Wavves, for example, is pretty much a fraud. While that may seem too dismissive, or even slightly unfair, I don't know how else to describe a record of 13 songs clocking in at barely over a half hour, released only a few months after another LP of similar length and merit, that spends half its time on plodding instrumental experiments that no one interested in songcraft could deem "done." If you don't have enough material for an LP, release an EP pal! The standards here are just irredeemably low. When it's fun, it's pretty fun, even as you sense that the layer of fuzz it's given is really just sleight of hand, misdirecting you from bland vagueness. Dumb/choppy chords, washed out harmonies, brain cells just bleeding away. Fine. But it's just not enough. Also, I've always been suspicious of music that has skateboard culture as a grounding influence. Maybe that's the cultural Rosetta Stone I'm missing here.

Wavves - "No Hope Kids"

the Juan MacLean - The Future Will Come

out on DFA Records, 4/14/09

The Juan MacLean's 2005 LP, More Than Human turned out to be less than relatable away from the dance floor. As the stellar live show I saw late in 08 foreshadowed, the band is coming back to a more mortal place. I don't know how often MS' readers are let loose on the world's dancefloors, but compact song structure and a bread crumb trail of vocals ups really help replay value on a day to day basis. Their are times when Juan (or John, really) gets sardonic over his grooves; songs like the title track that can't help but resemble a less-taut LCD Soundsystem. Ironically though, it's the involvement of LCD's Nancy Whang that differentiates the disc from its label mates. With her plain, forthright vocals in the mix, dueling with Juan's smart aleck, the record achieves its press release's promise of Human League-circa-Dare glory. DFA = Label of the decade? Who's competing, really?

the Juan MacLean - "One Day"

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 06:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Before commencing with this review, I feel a disclaimer is in order. My knowledge of classical music is limited to the pops-plus-some, and my understanding of music theory as it relates to classical music is less sophisticated compared to that. For those of you that have a truer appreciation for these forms, please excuse any forthcoming momentary lapses into ignorance.

The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross (not the comic artist) is among the heavier books I have read. Sure, there is certain gravity in the subject of the text; classical music carries an academic heft that I’m not accustomed to encountering when reading about music – too much time spent in front of the internets, perhaps. But I’m presently referring to the physical weight of the book – 2 pounds – holding it in your hand, the stress on your fingers, the pressure is not unlike that of a brick. As if a 600-plus pages of in-depth analysis of classical music history and theory wasn’t daunting enough, the mass of the book is enough to likely scare off many potential readers.

Continue reading "Book Review: The Rest is Noise" »

Posted by Randall Monty at 07:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night, I went to a screening of David Bowie videos at the MoMA. It was literally just that. A movie with nothing interspersed in between a succession of Bowie videos. It was really interesting to watch and fun to comment on. When we reached the 80s, I knew - TIME FOR WASHED OUT COLOR TRICKS. And you sensed the Bowie was a great innovator, but then you get to 1993 - and it's Bowie trying helplessly to stay hip. Let me try to be NIN. Let me try to be trip hop. I can sense Klingman's blood rising at the denigration of Mr. Bowie, but it's true. Below, you will find the nadir in the Bowie cannon (but, as a bonus, I'll put my favorite video) after the jump.

David Bowie - "The Heart's Filthy Lesson"

Continue reading "David Bowie, highs and lows" »

Posted by Keith O'Brien at 02:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Or, "Review: The Pitchfork 500" (As promised.)

Seriously, this came up when I searched for "pitchfork."

It has been well publicized by voices louder and more authoritative than mine that Pitchforkmedia.com is a veritable trendsetter, all but launching the careers of artists such as Arcade Fire, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Annie (Stateside, anyway), among others. The site’s influence is so vast that long-forgotten acts like Gang of Four, ESG and the Congos have posthumously become prescient. And who knew that Talk Talk and Jesus Lizard were so damn good? Pitchfork, apparently.

Not that they are the only ones on the internets with a stacked record collection; there are practically as many “indie” music websites as there are “indie” artists, each trying in their own way to match Pitchfork’s success and influence. Considering the pull that Pitchforkmedia holds, the decision to pursue a print publication is a rather odd one. Other than the fact that a book sucks in a whole lot more money for the work than simply posting the same information – oh, right.

More importantly, as far as I'm interested, Pitchfork is among the few websites to have made the jump from audience to performer. The gaze has shifted so that P4K isn’t simply chronicling their musical tastes, they are in effect making declarative statements with each new album review, and in doing so, are the subject of other’s criticisms. Their relationship to music is similar to a Keith Olbermann’s to news or a Tony Kornheiser’s to sports. Sure, the former is reporting on the latter, but the former has also reached a certain celebrity status in their own right. So now what they do is occasionally as newsworthy as the actions of the subjects they traditionally cover.

Unfairly or not, Pitchfork Media’s new The Pitchfork 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to Present will inevitably be viewed through a hypercritical lens. Criticism of the book immediately fell into two camps: older, established media outlets hoping to ride the coattails of hipster cred back into relevance, like the Los Angeles Times, which praises it as, “An essential part of the iPod Generation’s lexicon, a must-read”; to envious, pajama-wearing, mother’s basement-living wannabe blogs and posters calling the books proprietor’s, “misguided and insecure”, as one recent reviewer on Amazon.com has done.

My thoughts on the book can be found at the end of this post, but before getting to that, I had the opportunity to exchange emails with Pitchforkmedia.com founder and Pitchfork 500 co-editor Ryan Schreiber. Find out what he had to say after the jump, replete with as much context as possible:

Continue reading "Interview: Ryan Schreiber" »

Posted by Randall Monty at 08:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Eighty years ago the Tower Theatre on 69th St. housed acrobats, magicians, contortionists, and dancers that all performed under the umbrella of vaudeville. Last Saturday in a meeting backstage someone got to say, “Ghosts of vaudeville meet David Byrne.”

I feel like I have to issue an erratum to anyone that I told I was going to see Byrne in concert. This is because at some point during the evening I started to think that there was something else at play that didn’t quite fit into the normal modes of “concert.” Then, just as Byrne dodged a graceful kick from a dancer while another one slid through his legs as he simultaneously hit his guitar and belted out that “this ain’t no disco...” it hit me... this ain’t no concert, this is performance art.

If Byrne’s tour that was so matter-of-factly named “Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno” should be seen as a piece of performance art, then Byrne’s artistic statement would have to be that he is trying to "draw a line linking this new material with what we did 30 years ago, a little bit anyway.” At first this statement seems like the run of the mill kind of line that musicians will say to appease questions from the press about purpose and intention. But then I start thinking about what it would take to actually sketch out this “line” that Byrne is asking us to draw. We first put pencil to paper with the bridge between pop and punk, funk and African cross rhythms from the three Talking Heads albums produced by Eno (More Songs About Building and Flood, Fear of Music, and Remain in Light). From there we draw a line to connect the 1981 collaboration that technically introduced elements of electronic, ambient, and world music in My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Skip almost thirty years and the line reaches its destination at the recently released Everything That Happens Will Happen Today described by Byrne and Eno as “Electronic Gospel.”

If we really are to "draw the line" to attempt to trace the sounds uncovered in Byrne and Eno’s journey from Talking Heads to Everything That Happens, we end up with something that looks like this Cy Twombly piece:

It has taken me nearly a week to digest Saturday’s performance and the new material from Everything That Happens. I can’t help but feel that there is some significance and symbolism in the fact that Byrne and Eno, champions of world music and distant sounds, have arrived on a sound that is distinctly American. Perhaps I’m still in a post election haze and not too far removed from slapping hands, honking horns, and watching Jesse Jackson cry, but I still can’t help but think that Byrne and Eno’s exploration into “Electronic Gospel” is also a reevaluation of the country itself in examining the sound that holds to the deepest roots of the American struggle and then bringing this sound into new territory.

Houses in Motion
(@ the Tower in Philly 11.8.08)

Byrne explains that he came to the lyrics of the song “One Fine Day” while reading David Egger’s What is the What. He describes the plot of the book as being about “a young man named Valentino and his hallucinatory and horrific journey from his destroyed village in Darfur to Atlanta, Georgia and beyond.” Now again, I may just be still under the Oprah spell and completely taken with the events of the past two weeks (not to mention a World Series win) but I can’t help but read the Eggers connection as a direct parallel to the road that the sounds of Eno and Byrne have taken. Thirty years ago they started with the rhythms and samples from distant continents and now somehow have found themselves entrenched in Gospel, not too far from Georgia and beyond.

Byrne and Eno: "One Fine Day"

I was all set to stop my theorizing of trying to look at the recent Byrne and Eno collaboration as a reinvention of Americana until I opened up Byrne’s tour journal which covered his stop in Philadelphia. Byrne blogs that while in Philly he, like Rocky, ran over to the Art Museum but, unlike Rocky, actually went in the building. At the Museum Byrne went to two exhibitions. The first was an exhibit of the Gee’s Bend Quilts which, as NPR puts it, are quilts “created by a group of women who live in the isolated, African-American hamlet of Gee's Bend, Ala.”

A Gee's Bend Quilt: Bars and String-Piece Columns

The second exhibition, that I had also viewed the night before, was on James Castle, a self taught artist from rural Idaho who became deaf at a very young age and communicated through drawings made from soot and spit.

James Castle: Farmscape, view from inside shed through shed doors,

The connection between these two exhibitions is that amazingly these artists with no formal training and who were working in complete isolation from the rest of the art world had hit on the same complex themes tackled by their famous contemporaries. This all led Byrne to question whether there was some sort of universal experience or as he puts it whether “well, nutty as it might sound, some part of the visual and material response to our world is innate — and like myths, a similar response might occur and recur across time and space — unconnected yet uncannily similar.”

Once in a Lifetime
(@ the Wang Center, Boston 10.31.08)

Is the search for the innate American sound what Byrne and Eno have been jabbing at in this new album? Are the explorations into Electronic Gospel an attempt to test the innate sound of the American experience? If so, then we can not call Byrne’s output on this tour as anything less then a work of performance art. On this tour he has taken a sound so deep in American roots and has made it into something new. Something familiar to the heartland but also something that is moving well beyond the constraints of time. It is something that draws on an innate sound, it is something American that looks optimistically forward and most importantly, it is something that also sounds amazing in stereo.

//Buy Everything That Happens Will Happen Today

Previously from the Byrne files:
Byrne and the Science of Nonsense

Setlist and more clips after the jump....

Continue reading "David Byrne @ Tower Theater: Upper Darby, PA 11.8.2008" »

Posted by Yonah Korngold at 05:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Things you ask yourself at a Of Montreal show: Is that a live horse? Are those John McCain masks? And so on, and so forth.

Kevin Barnes is not one for modesty, and, in a "scene" where disaffection is hard currency, it's refreshing to see someone bring the pomp. This was musical theatre, and the spectacle surely had even the most jaded appreciative of the effort.

But it would be all for not if the music wasn't similarly worthwhile. And it was. Barnes and his bandmates perfectly marry hard rock leanings with a dramatic, musical theatre foundation. While much of the group's work features falsetto and precious touches, one can easily imagine Barnes, as teenager, blasting Metallica and Suicidal Tendencies, et. al. (witness the encore performance of "Smells Like Teen Spirit").

The show ran through most of 2008's Skeletal Lamping, including the standout tracks "Gallery Piece" and "And I've Seen A Bloody Shadow" (really I could have just picked two songs at random - there are too many standout tracks on that album). Past hits included "Wraith Pinned to the Mist" and "Gronlandic Edit" - no "Suffer For Fashion", alas.

The aforementioned "Smells Like Teen Spirit" capped a great night.

Posted by Keith O'Brien at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Vampire Weekend = Girl Talk. Why? People who get pent up about the artists either way tend to be a bit irrational. Girl Talk's second album Feed the Animals features mashups of hundreds of pop songs - usually following the format of hardcore hip-hop lyrics over 80s pop hits. So it's like Bad Boy Entertainment, but good. I've put together my four favorite song snippets. If you like it, you should download the album here. It's not Chopin, but what is?

Answer: Chopin.

Girl Talk - Feed the Animals (DJ Keith Dado remix)

Posted by Keith O'Brien at 06:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The top paragraph of the copyright page of the Method Man graphic novel ensures that, “This book is a work of fiction. The dialogue and every scene and situation are fictitious. All characters who appear in this book are inventions, and not intended to resemble any real person or event.” And for the most part, the entire paragraph is absolutely true, even if the name of the novel sounds exactly like the name of an emcee from the Wu-Tang Clan that you may have heard of.

Rather than go through the laborious task of actually showing the origin of its protagonist, Method Man begins with a string of blocks serving as the “prologue.” The first paragraph gives us the physical description of Peerless Poe, a private investigator whose, “clothes need ironing… breath reeks of booze and his office stinks of marijuana.” Remind you of anyone? Someone who likes to smoke weed enough to name three albums after a slang term for the drug? An emcee from the Wu-Tang Clan, perhaps? (It’s Method Man.)

From there, the backstory turns unexpectedly Biblical. Seems our boy Poe is a “direct descendant of Cain, the world’s first murderer.” (Aren’t we all?) Poe, however, belongs to the specific line that, “bear[s] the mark of Cain, a birthmark that attracts supernatural phenomena.” I’m only halfway through page one and I already find myself staring down a double barrel of awesome that is kung-fu ghostbusting.

Method Man - "Bring the Pain"

Continue reading "Book Review: Method Man" »

Posted by Randall Monty at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Two Friday nights: two concerts. One stretched its sound out for four hours in the home of Andrew Jackson and Jack Daniels under the on and off percussion of rain. The second show: compact raucousness under the plush curtained luxury at the very epicenter of the capitalist world. One had a cinema tent; the other once held the opening for To Kill a Mockingbird starring the building’s former usher, Gregory Peck. To paint a perfectly blunt picture, one had a desperate line for the porta-potties; the other had a “gentlemen’s lounge” in the men’s room. True, scene changes do not get much different than going from the 700 acres of dirt at Bonnaroo to a place nicknamed "The Showplace of the Nation," however, the determined aural output of My Morning Jacket at both of these shows is solid evidence that they are well on their way to proving that they are a very different band.

Sometimes you get to catch a concert in which it is obvious to both band and audience that they are being propelled forward. Stellar performances that were once small steps up the musical ladder have turned into a walk up a spiral staircase. If this metaphor for upward mobility still holds true then MMJ’s four hour late night set at Bonnaroo put the band on an escalator... and if Bonnaroo was an escalator then Radio City certainly has to be classified with elevator status... and if MMJ at Radio City was an elevator then the recently announced New Year’s show at Madison Square Garden has the potential to be the “Great Glass Elevator” from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a single show that can take the band through the ceiling and into the upper echelon of musical touring acts (and yes I did pay a boatload of literary bucks for this "elevator metaphor").

What is strange about My Morning Jacket’s rise is that it has been so clearly defined. The festival circuit has gone a long way in giving the band characterization and recognition. 2008 capped off their fifth appearance at Bonnaroo. This in addition to stellar Coachella, Austin City Limits, and Lollapalooza performances make it safe to say that millions have been wowed by this band without ever buying a ticket to an individual MMJ show. Yet, the fact that 6,000 seats to Radio City sold out in 22 minutes should be a signal that all of this is changing. Striving for success while keeping a band together can take a Greek mythological level of persistence (even the Spartans in 300 could have ended up like Guns N’ Roses). The New Year’s concert at MSG shows that the next level from Radio City is fully within distance, it is only 17 blocks and an avenue over to be exact.

At Bonnaroo, My Morning Jacket had four hours to play into what Jim James referred to as the “golden rain.” As a result they took every inch of opportunity to showcase the band’s eclectic range and mix of power. In four hours they went from the spectral planes of reverb in which their following was built to a slew of covers including Sly in the Family Stone, Funkadelic, Erykah Badu’s “Tyrone," James Brown, Kool and the Gang, Bobby Womack’s “Across 110th Street,” The Velvet Underground’s “Oh Sweet Nuthin,” and of course ending with Mötley Crüe’s “Home Sweet Home.” Add a guitar duel with Metallica’s Kirk Hammett and a Nashville horn section to a show ending an hour before sunrise and it is easy to see why MMJ’s Bonnaroo performance was seen as such a stepping stone.

Continue reading "My Morning Jacket, Live @ Radio City Music Hall 06.20.08" »

Posted by Yonah Korngold at 05:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[Photos by Merry Swankster]

M.I.A.'s fiery political persuasions are threaded into every fiber of her being. This is after all, an artist whose debut full length was teased by a mixtape called Piracy Funds Terrorism. Her second album Kala (our consensus runner up to best album of 2007), was as accidental in its globetrotting outcome as it was charged with a loose narrative of being barred from America by paranoid officials. Though never all that angry, Kala's first track, and Fillmore show opener "Bamboo Banger", does find a tenacious and unshakable "M.I.A. coming back with power power".

The unintended consequence of her access denial yielded an exotic effort fostered by global collaborators when planned sessions with Timbaland got sidetracked - an eventual associate that ended limited to one song, arguably the weakest track on Kala - as well as further fueling, and actually justifying M.I.A.'s distrust of officialdom. That Timbaland song was regulated to the tail end of the album and unsurprisingly not where it belongs as a b-side due to the hundreds of thousands of dollars it conceivably cost in producer fees.

M.I.A. (featuring Timbaland) - "Come Around"

However, the biggest difference between the political comportment of M.I.A.'s lyrics and her performance conduct, is she never underestimates what her audience's motivations are. Which, I can safely say from experience, is to throw down heavy to her voracious body of beats. The energetic and colorful Fillmore crowd didn't care about her Tamil Tiger father, or bother thinking intellectually on the true meaning of "Paper Planes"'s gunshot chorus. When music is this unconventionally irresistible, the presented package is enough to sweep you into her patented brand of revolutionary rhythm.

Continue reading "M.I.A, Live @ Fillmore, Denver 05.17.08" »

Posted by Merry Swankster at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

[Photos by Merry Swankster]

As much as hiding anonymously amidst crowds at shows speaks to the part of me that will never be satiated with couch anchored, passive entertainment, too much of anything can get old. Even creatures that thrive under the proverbial rock of dingy clubs deserve a reprieve, and if they exist in the trappings of high society, then so be it. Or, as in the case of Flight of the Conchords playing a show at the Denver Opera house, an excuse for the booze saturated riffraff to take over places that are a) not meant for the jeans and tee shirt crowd, b) not obvious locales for them, and most tellingly c) way too classy. Thank you Flight of the Conchords. Your musical comedy allowed for at least one night away from our usual Colfax and South Broadway haunts and gave us the chance to comfortably plop into the plush chairs of the gorgeous Ellie Caulkins Opera House.

I am a fan of the HBO show in which I, and I'm guessing most people were, first introduced to Flight of the Conchords. The post-ironic musical comedy of a fictitious band whose innocent exploits trying to make it in New York City speak perfectly to a generation whose adherence to satirical comedy has been refined by the likes of Jon Stewart and The Office. FOTC's flavor of parody is quite different from past masters of the genre. Weird Al Yankovic this is not. FOTC excel in the ways they harness cliches of different genre artists and ludicrously take them to their logical end by playing out the norms of such behavior. But unlike the Weird Als of the world, they don't get silly with it. Because silly is really not that funny. Anyone can do silly. Actually looking (and sounding) like you're serious makes it that much funnier. From the way they unapologetically "break it down" in R&B numbers, or when they self-consciously admit to the ambivalence of their rap lyrics, the group is brilliant in form and effort, much to the delight of both their television fans, and the Denver faithful who showered the duo with a rapturous reception.

Sample lyrics from "Hiphop-potamus vs. Rhymenocerous":

My rhymes are so potent that in this small segment
I made all the lady listeners pregnant
Yeah that's right, sometimes my lyrics are sexist
But you lovely bitches know, should know
I'm trying to correct this

Continue reading "Flight of the Conchords, Live @ Ellie Caulkins Opera House, Denver 05.15.08" »

Posted by Merry Swankster at 01:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sometimes we hear albums before most, and occasionally when they are still pretty top secret. It's horribly unfair, we know. But in an attempt to at least soothe your curiosity, we are not averse to laying out these tantalizing near-future albums in extensive detail. You may remember our guide to the still(!) unreleased new Portishead record. Now, in regard to the successor to the site's favorite record of 2005, we turn to part-time music critic and occasional krautrocker John Motley. Take it away John...

As great as Wolf Parade's 2005 debut, Apologies to the Queen Mary, was, it showed a band democratically divided between two distinct personalities. Throughout the entire record, Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner politely flip-flopped between melodramatic prog tendencies and homespun Springsteen worship, respectively. In the three years since, the band has been seemingly drawn and quartered by myriad side projects. Most notably, Krug issued two albums and an EP as Sunset Rubdown; moonlit in Frog Eyes; and indulged a studio one-off as Swan Lake with Dan "Destroyer" Bejar and Frog Eyes' Carey Mercer. Boeckner, on the other hand, unveiled every trapper's delight: his own Handsome Furs, a drum machine-fueled duo with his wife Alexei Perry.

Recording this still-untitled second album (both Pardon My Blues and Kissing the Beehive were red herrings, apparently) must have been somewhat arduous. According to the band, early candidates for album number two were shelved for sounding like Apologies holdovers. To trigger fresh strategies, they began recording improvisational sessions to see if something spontaneous could be extracted and developed into a more structured composition. But how well did such a disjointed band reconnect? And did it manage to evolve creatively, rather than simply lapse into formula? Based on some rather compulsive listening, the answer is: not so easily. While the new album does reveal Wolf Parade to repeatedly play against its instincts and expand its sound, half the album sounds like Apologies-era paint-by-numbers. Yes, that's a slight, but remember: Wolf Parade still slay the competition.

Here's the breakdown:

1. "Soldier's Grin"

As an opening shot, this one's a little timid. The Boeckner-penned song is a tidy segue from Apologies' farewell, "This Heart's on Fire": steadily driving rhythms, Krug's bubbling budget synth tones, and Boeckner's keening, earnest vocals. But around the two-minute mark, the song slows to a looser, more ambling tempo for some necessary breathing room and a satisfyingly plodding climax.

2. "Call It a Ritual"

The rollicking ragtime noir piano riffing immediately announces that this is a Krug composition. While the jerky vamping conjures Apologies opener "You Are a Runner," "Call It a Ritual" gradually fills out with passages of teeth-clenching guitar scrawls. As Krug sings "while you turn your flower petals so slow," the song continually blossoms into something lovelier than Krug's scrawny sketch suggested at the beginning.

3. "Language City" (mp3 is live bootleg)

Back to Boeckner — and the first sign of the Wolf Parade we've missed so much. Here the band bang out a serviceable verse, but knock it out of the park on the restrained choruses, in which Boeckner sings, "All this work in, just to tear it down" over several complementary keyboard melodies. The song's coda drags more than it explodes, though, as Boeckner cribs lyrics from the last time he recorded an outgoing message: "We are not at home! We are not at home! We are not at hoooooooome!"

4. "Bang Your Drum"

With its creepy harpsichord, descending melody, and archaic lyrical tropes, "Bang Your Drum" sounds like a cameo by Sunset Rubdown to me. Here, Krug wonders over some character of ill repute: "Do they beat that drum to get you back home or do they beat it to keep you away?" He also shows how his friendship with Dan Bejar has paid off in musical collateral, ending the song with a beloved Bejar device: the song-within-a-song. Like the conclusions of "A Testament to Youth in Verse" (from the New Pornographers' Electric Version) or "Leopard of Honor" (from Destroyer's Trouble in Dreams), Krug leads a chorus of la-la-la's, ostensibly belted out by the "you" in this song.

5. "California Dreamer"

Here's where things start to get good. Yes, there's the unmistakably clichéd title, but Krug uses the Summer of Love connotations to craft something far more sinister. While the song retains the Mamas and the Papas' conceit of displacement and love lost (Krug laments a lover's departure for the Golden State, which strands him in Canada to make snow angels solo), it scrambles the rest of the signal. (Key lyric: "I thought I might have heard you on the radio/But the radio waves were like snow.") In spite of Krug's sunny, Supertramp keyboards, Wolf Parade detour through Los Angeles' ghettos with a bludgeoning caveman riff and honking sax passage that evokes the Stooges' Fun House.

Continue reading "The New Wolf Parade Album: A Track-by-Track Preview" »

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

For almost the entirety of his debut book The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture, author Andrew Keen comes across like a mom forbidding her children from watching MTV: old fashioned and bitter. But instead of attacking one of the more popular channels from the advent of cable television, Keen bemoans the advancement of the most popular trend of communication in the twenty-first century: the Web 2.0 phenomenon. By the time he claims to be “neither antitechnology nor antiprogress” (184), Keen* has already established himself as a jealous and elitist curmudgeon and a completely contradictory and misleading rhetor. Perhaps it’s fitting that the photo of Keen on his own Wikipedia entry makes him out to be a dead ringer for Walter Peck.

Radiohead - "2+2=5 (The Lukewarm)"

Continue reading "Book Review: Cult of the Amateur" »

Posted by Randall Monty at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

With no drive or incentive from the Merry Swankster crew to write traditional record reviews, and the lack of any willingness on our part to join the uptick of music writers currently part of this amazing web 2.0 phenomenon, one which, even with the best intentions, dilutes the market of opinions, I will state we are not in the business of writing full on reviews (what business we are in is up for debate). We are well aware of the obvious hypocritical nature of such comments when it comes from opinionated authors of a music blog, but before we entertain accusations of undermining ourselves I must remind the narrow focus exclusively lies with album reviews of the established format.

Did the dramatized lead-in produce wagging tongues for our new album review feature, did it? In the spirit of the new theme I will utilize just one sentence for describing what this is all about:

These are reviews of new albums written by Merry Swankster.com staff using just one sentence.

We are cognizant of the importance of portion control. Enjoy. - M.S.

David Klein: Kala is nothing less than a feat: a rich sonic stew that incorporates
styles and sounds of the last three decades while managing to sound
completely up to the minute.

Yonah Korngold: Studies will soon show that hospitals are abandoning the
defibrillator and using Kala to restart patients' hearts.

Randall Monty: The flamboyant strings part on "Jimmy" is the most discotastic sound I have ever heard.

Jeff Klingman:Eclectic in the fullest sense, Kala throws the hippest parts of global pop culture into a trough and gorges omnivorously.

Merry Swankster: If Kala were candy, it would be an explosion of flavor in my mouth.

Keith O'Brien: Kala is the soundtrack for a Model UN conference, gone both awry and insane - or the pop equivalent of distractedly spinning the globe on an indolent, late-May school day

//M.I.A. - Kala - BUY!

Posted by Merry Swankster at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Continuum Books 33 1/3 series is a set of hand-held texts, each one focusing on a particular album. The official 33 1/3 blog can be found here.

The success and detriment of the 33 1/3 series of books is that they peel away the mythos surrounding our favorite albums, exposing them for what they largely are: impersonal, commercialized works of art. This is not to say that they take all of the mystery or pleasure out of listening to the particular albums, as not all questions are answered. But these books do answer enough of them as to make the albums seem just a little bit less interesting. So it was with great trepidation that I got Doolittle, the book detailing the story of my all-time favorite album. It sat on my shelf for a good six months before I opened it; I guess there are some stories we don't want to know.

According to author Ben Sisario, the main themes of Doolittle are the old staples of R'n'R: sex and violence. However, what makes the Pixies album particular to pop music is that it doesn't discriminate between the two. Instead, it approaches this taboo binary as a singular characteristic: sex is violence. For those of you that are familiar with the seminal '80's album, this analogy falls well short of a revelation, but the author is better for the focus.

Continue reading "MS Pick: Doolittle 33 1/3" »

Posted by Randall Monty at 01:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

There are two predominant ways writers will use rock & roll in fiction. In the first case, the author will integrate music into the story, namedropping pertinent artists and songs and motifs to create an environment where the musical concepts become another set of characters just as important as the story’s plot and setting. Think Nick Hornby’s trend-setting High Fidelity. The other sort finds the author using music as a backdrop, something that helps develop the plot but makes no specific demands as to the rest of the story. Salty falls into that latter category.

Continue reading "Book Review: Salty" »

Posted by Randall Monty at 02:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adopted Texan and MS pal Randall Monty drops in once again to prove that we're not a bunch of emotionally stunted dolts who only read in two sentence bursts about bands on the internet. Sometimes we manage hundreds of sentences. On paper. In a row. Alright, they're still about bands, but we're smart dammit! Anyway...

The Beatles and Philosophy: A Review
by Randall Monty

A quick Amazon.com search gives us some 22,000+ different books about the Fab Four, 273 of which fall under the “Gay and Lesbian” grouping and 435 categorized under “Science Fiction and Fantasy”. Included in this massive list is the Beatles and Philosophy: Nothing You Can Think That Can’t Be Thunk, one of Open Court’s newest additions to its ambitious-yet-ultimately-insatiable Pop Culture and Philosophy series.

Following the form of the series, this volume employs roughly 20 different writers, academics and, yes, philosophers, that address the titular topic from an allegedly philosophical perspective. However, rather than fully utilize the Beatles’ work as a vehicle for philosophical thought, most of the authors take an, “Aww, shucks, I sure do love the Beatles” approach to their essays. This is not to say they are poorly written or underdeveloped – they aren’t. My primary complaint with the PC&P series, and the Beatles edition in particular, is the collective writers’ trepidation; only one or two of the bunch will ever fully challenge the legitimacy of the selected artifact. Instead, the bulk of the writers tend to either focus too much, or not enough, on the subject. In this sense, most of the essays become about the Beatles or philosophy.

Furthermore, most of the writers take the most obvious approaches to the task at hand, as the same tracks and stories are repeatedly mentioned. (I don’t know how may times I need to be told that John Lennon didn’t like the Maharishi. Apparently: a lot.) Even though the Beatles released over twenty albums between the years 1963 and 1970, (which are neatly catalogued, along with a list of the band’s cover songs, as an appendix of this book), and even though each article mentions many different songs, most of the writers contained within this text focus on only a small handful of the group’s tracks. If judging solely on number of mentions, the Beatles songs most suitable for philosophical discussion are as follows: “Across the Universe”, “All You Need is Love”, “A Day in the Life”, “Eleanor Rigby”, “Help”, “I Am the Walrus”, “I Me Mine”, “The Inner Light” (which I hardly know), “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”, “Nowhere Man” (#1, by far), “Piggies”, “Rain”, the various incarnations of “Revolution”, “She’s Leaving Home”, “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “Tomorrow Never Knows”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “Within You Without You”. While these tracks would make one heck of a greatest hits album, it would have made for a better read if the collective writers had shown a bit more variety in their approaches. Unfortunately, this lack of daring and critical chutzpah has become a disappointing hallmark of this (conceptually fantastic) series.

the Beatles - "Across the Universe"
the Beatles - "Nowhere Man"

Continue reading "the Beatles and Philosophy: Book Review" »

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 01:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Listen to the album here…

And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
-Langston Hughes “The Weary Blues”

Photograph by Matthew Rolston from Rolling Stone

I wonder how many musicians have been proclaimed by overzealous music critics that they are to be the next Bob Dylan. Turns out there is another one around, his name is Bob Dylan. He looks just like Bob Dylan but as a preemptive strike against subway graffiti artists, this one already wears a pencil thin mustache. The last time a box of new Dylan albums arrived by truckload into the shipping rooms of our favorite record stores it was five long years ago, the album was Love and Theft its release date was September 11, 2001.

Some would say the world has changed a bit since Dylan’s last release. As a result one would think an album called Modern Times would directly reflect this current world and would be an album full of Desolation Rows and Blowin in the Winds. Yet, Dylan strangely does the complete opposite. He stays the course and follows up on the album trilogy just as he had done before, crooning backward with a beautifully raucous sound, pairing songs full of driving rockabilly rhythms with mellow twilight strolls.

With the album being released on the date marking the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina it is certainly not far fetched to judge an album called Modern Times with a song called “The Levee’s Gonna Break” within this context.

There is no doubt that Dylan could have wrote a song about New Orleans that was so emotional, so gut retching that the radio couldn’t play it because the DJ 's tears made the electrical wires malfunction. Throughout his life Dylan has never made an attempt to hide his love affair with New Orleans. The city is even a main character of sorts in his autobiography Chronicles. In the book Dylan goes into great detail describing how New Orleans bled into his psyche while he struggled to record his 1989 album Oh Mercy within the city limits. If anyone understands the mysteries of the Crescent City it is Dylan. In a book where major events like his motorcycle accident barely get a fragment of a sentence, New Orleans gets a full chapter. Dylan doesn't even think twice before announcing that “There are a lot of places I like, but I like New Orleans’s better.”

Just take a look at some of my favorite Dylanisms on New Orleans from his autobiography:

Continue reading "Modern Times are Not a Changin'" »

Posted by Yonah Korngold at 01:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[Posted on behalf of MS.com contributor, Yonah Korngold]

It’s been three years, one month, and thirteen days since shock and awe. Three years since Toby Keith, Fox News, and the Texas Rangers banned the Dixie Chicks from radio play. Ever wonder what three years of jarred anger, frustration, and disappointment sound like when uncapped by an old singer, angst filled electric guitar, and 100 studio vocalists?

Living With War, a fiery yet reflective musical call to attention. An upbeat but angry Neil Young is able to capture the modern American emotion of being seesawed between coming to terms with the fact that roadside bombs have become a part of the daily routine and all the anger and rage that refuses to accept this very concept.

Many will compare this album to Ohio, realised only 10 days after the shootings at Kent State1970. But in the terms of protest songs, this album comes through with a much different sentiment. Neil tapped into Ohio on the spot after David Crosby revealed to him the cover of TIME magazine. Where as Ohio is a gut reaction, Guernica horse screeching, call for action, Living with War is something even more since it not only contains this rage but also holds something that the rock world has never before seen, a calculated, well thought out argument for change, based on three years of living in silent disgust with newspaper headlines.

There are no intentional walks or whispers on this album. No one will need to play anything backwards on the record player when “Let’s Impeach the President” is a song title. Even with all the anger the music somehow manages to be uplifting and inspirational enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two songs land on an intern’s ipod in the West Wing. The album can completely speak for itself the music is raw, lyrically straight forward, honest, and catchy all at the same time. In a period of a couple years Young has managed to make a rock opera, battle an aneurysm, make a beautiful country album, and now take on the President of the United States. I’m not one to keep score but I must say he has to be one up on Bono. I really do hope this album gets all the attention is deserves and is able to rile up feelings of people who are tired and frustrated. As for Young, my guess is that it goes without saying, the southern man do need him around anyhow.

[Yonah can now be had two delicious ways; with, or without.]

Listen to Neil Young's - Living With War [free stream]

Previously: Neil Young - Living With War Movie Review - Neil Young: Heart of Gold

Tags: Neil Young, Living With War, Iraq

Posted by Merry Swankster at 02:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Here is a short clip of the end of "Listen Up!" from last night. Enjoy.

Tags: The Gossip, Listen Up

Posted by Merry Swankster at 02:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Throw me in the fire and I won’t throw a fit

Last night I saw The Gossip perform an all ages 11pm show at Larimer lounge in Denver. For a band on their way to SXSW this show could have downshifted into an advanced respite before expunging energy in Austin. It was Monday night and they easily could have mailed it in. No A&Rs or NYC bloggerati to impress or worry about, just young kids crowding the (alcohol free) stage area of Larimer Lounge. Why not take it easy and save it for the festival?

Beth Ditto, the name attached to perhaps the most dynamically powerful female voice in rock, punk rock, R&B, etc. wouldn’t allow it. Following a restricted show described as difficult she was Grateful for the enthusiasm of the kids in the crowd.

To ignore the disproportionate number of young girls emboldened by the two-to-one grrl power to guy power rocking onstage would mean compromising the journalistic integrity that is not expected from a little blog like this, but nonetheless is my duty to report. It’s unambiguously embedded into the fabric of the Gossip’s connection with the audience. Ditto literally announcing the queer selections from the Gossip repertoire like “Coal to Diamonds” introduced as a “gay love jam.”

The playing for the other team gag continued when introducing blistering breakout “Standing in the Way of Control.” With a disguised snickering she joked how the song works equally at both frat parties and those of the gayer ilk. Drawing laughs when mentioning college fellas shaking their asses Groove Armada style only to awkwardly deny it all the next morning

Contrasting the spare (yet proper) instrumentation of “Coal to Diamonds,” the funky disco breaks elicited a fantastic frenzy among the crowd. The scorching cut was an intense four on the floor march suspending the facts that only two of the three people onstage had instruments. Such was the fire coming from the stage that a sweaty and clearly wiped Ditto “need[ed] to chill out” after completing it.

I did not recognize several songs that followed including one introduced “about survival and helping your friends out.” My notes say “Gospel/Punk.” Not a defined genre last I checked but apropos of the fusing of blues meets punk meets Mamma Cass.

The fun to play and unmistakable “Scentless Apprentice” beat was teased by Gossip drummer Hannah during a break and Beth Ditto mockingly sang with a heavy death metal growl. I wouldn’t have paired a snarling Nirvana track for the Gossip to cover, but her huge pipes could have produced an interesting version. The modern Cass imitating Cobain’s best Pantera, why not?

The Gossip’s encore began with the band returning to the stage bantering about tissues and snot. After most of the group blew their noses they tore into MS Pick and 2006 frontrunner candidate for an insane remix, “Listen Up!” (MP3) Kick drum volume maxed out and Ditto’s old time ohhs and countdowns rallied the congregation.

On the subject of bodily fluid tangents, a small cut on my finger opened up during the show and bloodied the pages of my notepad. Bloody show notes is the new punk rock.

Gospel punk is the Gossip.

Previously: MS Pick - The Gossip - Listen Up! - Lady 'House of Jealous Lovers', MS Daily Picks - Am I denigrating this by evoking Lady Rapture?

Tour dates after the jump.

//The Gossip - site
//The Gossip - myspace
//The Gossip - Standing in the Way of Control - buy

Continue reading "The Gossip – Live @ Larimer Lounge, Denver, CO March 13, 2006" »

Posted by Merry Swankster at 01:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While I still reserve my right to complain when concert reviews laser focus on the sway of the crowds, I do think it's worthwhile exhibit (Z) to get a first-hand perspective from the man in the band we paid to see.

YYY play and play and give and give, but the majority of the crowd is quite reserved. I think we have a problem where we get spoiled by amazing audiences. We know we have to deliver 100% plus every night , and always do such, but we are a very reactive band, needing that symbiotic interplay, even if its hostile.

Tags: Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Posted by Keith O'Brien at 07:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chan Marshall - marvel or blanch at this fact: I managed to sneak the playing of your entire CD on an O'Brien tri-generational SUV trip to New Hampshire. At the time, Sue O'Brien claimed to like the melodic Nashville-insipred sounds, but changed her mind after soaking it through.

Without further ado, a terse, Sue's first negative review.

Okay - I listened again, and there is not one song that I really liked. The music all sounds the same. I could feel myself floating in the air with nothing in my brain…I really couldn't get into any of the songs... I will probably never listen to it again.

Sue Addendum:

"Guess what - I saw another CD from Cat Power in the newspaper - I wouldn't have know about her if you hadn't given me the cd........keep them coming...........I am on the cutting edge!!!!"

Posted by Keith O'Brien at 05:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The showmanship, drum staccato helmed by Brian Chase as Nick Zimmer and, after some delay, campy Cleopatra-attired Karen O sauntered to the stage to start with Cheated Hearts let the audience in on two bits of important information.

One: the YYY’s have not moved on without us – they remain as fervently devoted to their unique sound as before.

Two: they reaffirmed that they know how to put on a show.

The prevailing thought I had during the YYY’s show at Bowery Ballroom – from the delayed arrival of Karen O to begin Cheated Hearts to the glacial pace of Modern Romance – is that this is the band I want to represent our generation.

I want to listen to Black Tongue before while driving to pick up my children from futuristic school and listen to Maps as I’m sweeping my futuristic apartment floor with my futuristic broom.

No other band, I feel, represents what I would hope is the summation of our talents, our pageantry, and our energy.

While it may have been safer, with internet negative-buzz fretting about new directions, to open up with Bang or Date with the Night, they went with a new – and YYY-unprecedented anthemic – track Cheated Hearts, with the equally inspirational refrain “Sometimes I believe I’m bigger than the sound.”

Continue reading "Swarm Coverage! Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Live @ the Bowery Ballroom, 2-24-2006 part deux" »

Posted by Keith O'Brien at 09:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

To come straight to the point and acknowledge the elephant in the chat room immediately, Show Your Bones should be awesome. Any lingering doubts of that were smashed the moment the Yeah Yeah Yeahs took stage to face an especially buzz filled room and launched into what is likely to be their new album's biggest hit, "Cheated Hearts." A funny, tongue in cheek lyric in which Karen addresses fan fears of a Gwen-ish caterpillar to boring/glossy butterfly transformation head-on goes:

"I'm taking, taking, taking, taking, off/ Sometimes I think I'm bigger than the sound/ I think that I'm bigger than the sound."

Alot of the instant internet reaction to the show focused on the supposed apathetic nature of the crowd, but from where I was standing I didn't get that at all. I'm not ready to build the stone throwing porch on my glass house by deriding the fact that the crowd make-up was at least 40 percent blogger, but if you were constantly glancing around to notice if fellow attendees were having a good time only to notice the others glancing around, I'm sorry that you missed what was happening on stage.

Which was Karen O in peak form with an audience mainly situated in the palm of her hand. Getting a hyper-critical NYC audience half hoping for a newsworthy crash and burn to not only sing and clap along, but to instantly belt out a "Happy Birthday" to your beaming Mom in the balcony can't be easy. Sure maybe there was no Vice magazine, slam dance, beer in the air anarchy, but thank God for that. I'll take enthusiastic cheering and head nodding over forced debauchery 10 times out of 10. As the also brand new "Way Out" jacked up the intensity level from the dizzy heights of the opener, all was fairly golden in my little slice of the Bowery Ballroom for the rest of the evening.

Continue reading "Swarm Coverage! Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Live @ the Bowery Ballroom, 2-24-2006" »

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Oh mocktastic Web 2.0, a milieu where your father is IM’ing you at work and your mother is reviewing Ben Gibbard side projects for your web-based publication. Mother, while she picked up her prolificacy (next review to come tomorrow) and has become an autodidact reviewer, she is an editor’s nightmare for failing to conform to the agreed upon-structure of reviews. But since this is the Internet, we can let it slide and let Mother’s review be posted, unfiltered.

Today, she reviews The Postal Service’s Give Up, which soared to the advertised level, placing 17th in the 2003 Pazz and Jop Poll and 29th in Pitchfork Media’s Top Albums of 2003.

With out further ado, super reviewer Sue O’Brien

The Postal Service CD is not in the real world – all the songs seem to be either in his head (dreams) like [he is] sleeping in. He could accomplish a lot in his dreams, he just didn't apply it when he was awake. He liked being in his dreams, everything always looked better from afar, but not actually in real life. I don't think he could handle real life so he made believe everything was perfect.

The first couple of songs seemed to move slowly in their music and then [the album] got a lift with Clark Gable, he was trying to make out that he still had his girlfriend and everything was great and rosy, then he went back to morose with This Place is a Prison.

Nothing Better was a favorite.
He still wanted another chance with his girlfriend and she wanted to show him graphs and charts showing him how many times he wanted another chance. I loved it. Men seem to feel that if they say they are sorry, the woman will always forgive, there comes a time when that just doesn't cut it anymore [ed. note: did I open Pandora’s box?]

Natural Anthem
The beginning sounded like his brain going in all directions; he didn't know where to turn. Everything was breaking down; maybe he was going to actually try to stay in the real world and make decisions and take responsibility and actually face everything, bad and good without slipping off to dream world again.

Such Great Heights
He missed her because she was away. Once she came back home, he probably wouldn't remember that he missed her.

Sue O’Brien’s, channeling Oprah, “I think Postal Service needs to get a reality check and come back to the real world. It wasn't the most uplifting CD.”

Previous matriarch musical express

Have a CD suggestion my mother should review, e-mail keithobrien@merryswankster.com

Tags: Postal Service, Give Up,

Posted by Keith O'Brien at 09:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tonight, fellow MS.com'er Jeff and I see the YYYs perform live in NYC. We are angling to pick up at least half of the Blood on the Wall set.

And, tomorrow, I finally get internet delivered to my apt (no more spotty wife piggybacking for me, neighbors), and I will make some long-overdue postings about SxSW, specifically what showcases and day shows I will attempt to push my way into. Perhaps you don't care; but I do. That's dedication, Holmes.

Posted by Keith O'Brien at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Neil Young: Heart of Gold
Directed by Jonathan Demme

A Review - by Yonah Korngold

It seems that the movie camera and Neil Young have had a bit of an up and down relationship through the years. They had a rocky beginning when Young refused to be filmed during CSN&Y’s Woodstock performance in Michael Wadleigh’s 1970 documentary. The next image that comes to mind is the way the camera captured Young’s astonished gawks at Dylan’s performance during the last scene of Scorsese’s The Last Waltz. Since then Neil Young has become the subject of many film cameras all seemingly trying to catch a glimpse of the musician that could costume change from a moonlight serenade to one of the fathers of Hard Rock all within a single chord change.

Continue reading "Movie Review - Neil Young: Heart of Gold" »

Posted by Merry Swankster at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Everytime you -- in your mid-twenties -- return home for a quick jaunt, something changes. I am no different. About three spells ago, I learned that my mother -- a Catholic in heritage only -- was listening to Christian music.

My mother, a passive, but nonetheless eclectic music listener, has always had a peculiar interaction with music. She often drove to work listening to WSOU, which any proper New Jerseyian knows to be (or, perhaps, was) a haven for Pantera and other heavy metal, thrash music.

During my inevitable foray into house/trance music in college, my mother listened with a keen ear to Paul Van Dyk. My most recent return home -- and the revelation of her Christian music affinity -- coincided with my devout listening to Sufjan Stevens' Come On, Feel the Illinoise (KO MS #1 pick.

So, for Christmas, I purchased her the same album, and we proceeded to rock-out, as it were, to Illinoise during our co-preparation of Christmas dinner. She dug it, as well as demanded I become her personal DJ. Given the wonderfully vague template of MS, I decided to make my mother an unknowing blogger. I think I mentioned it to her, but her grasp of blogging is probably rudimentary at best. So, in order for her to receive two new CDs (CDRs mind you, I'm not made of money), she has to review what I previously gave her. The arbitrary rules I initially created were that she needed to give each CD a five-word review, 1 to 5 stars, and name her favorite song and why. Well, that didn't work so well.

But she did give her enthusiastic approval and her comments, dictated to me, will appear below.

This will be a semi-regular feature here at MS. The next two CDs in the queue are Cat Power's The Greatest and Postal Service's Such Great Heights.

The overall album evoked a "country bumpkin trying to escape his mundane life," who "thinks the outside world is much better than what he has now."

Song highlights: Chicago: "He keeps saying, I made a lot of mistakes, like he's sleeping in the car or something" Casimir Pulaski Day: "Soothing", and John Wayne Gacy Jr.: "Chilling."

Despite Stevens' wonderfully exploratory lyrics and her recalling of the more chilling of the Gacy lyrics, she loved the music, which was slow and soothing, and allowed her to work without thinking much about what he was singing.

Have a CD suggestion my mother should review, e-mail keithobrien@merryswankster.com

Tags: Sufjan Stevens, Illinoise

Posted by Keith O'Brien at 05:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A lot of the appeal of Serena Maneesh so far has been the mystery. Norweigan band that no one's heard of because they're, you know, Norweigan drops out of the sky with a glowing and very vague Pitchfork review. MBV and Sonic Youth as hip reference points. As the rest of the indie world plays catch up and negotiates with various retailers to hear the band, info starts to drip out about details that would normally dominate early album press. Cameos brought from connections romantic and otherwise with hip Christians Daniel Smith (Danielson Famile) and Sufjan Stevens. Light Steve Albini involvement. Enough to sell out a couple NYC venues for sure even if the album wasn't any good.

It was good.

Which brings us to a very sold out Mercury Lounge on a Saturday night. I think the opening band was still on stage at the posted start time of 11:30. 12 o'clock came and went. Alot of tall folks flooded the stage to set up equipment. 12:15 and the nervous crowd chatter began to take an annoyed edge. By 12:30 as the band and crew disappeared back stage, catcalls began in earnest. When they reconvened at around quarter to one, we were all ready to be blown away.

It sorta happened.

Continue reading "Serena Maneesh - Live @ the Mercury Lounge, New York City, 1.21.2006" »

Posted by Jeff Klingman at 04:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Approaching with fairness and possibly even some balancing, the Merry Swankster checked out Wolf Parade at the El Rey theatre in LA last night. I was confident that the band would be either less drunk than their October show in New York, or as drunk but more tolerant to the hooch with a show following the reveling and tolerance fortifying New Years Eve holiday.

Conclusion? Beers were definitely onstage, though additional empirical data was lacking to conclude drunkenness to the levels reported in New York. It is obvious that Jeff Klingman’s review changed the band for the better.

The show was great and seeing Wolf Parade is so far one of the best things I’ve done in 2006. Apologies for being short on details, but transcontinental travel is catching up to me.

Remaining Wolf Parade tour dates:

1/4/06 – San Francisco - The Independent
1/5/06 – San Francisco - The Independent

Tags: Wolf Parade, El Rey

Posted by Merry Swankster at 04:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Joy Division: “Here are the Young Men” DVD-R Bootleg

While record companies struggle to find their footing in the DVD market, the unending surge of technology threatens to undermine their status as exclusive gatekeepers of content. Rather than suffer the whims of audience and funding driven re-issue schedules as our fore fathers, the paleo-hipsters, might have, the technology surge of the last five years has put the means of production in the pasty hands of any kid who stumbles upon something cool and wants to get it out there. It was this convergence of DVD-R burner, cord, VCR, and love that delivered unto me, the much sought after 1982 concert film Joy Division: Here are the Young Men. By that, I mean I bought it at Jackpot Records in Portland.

<em>Here are the Young Men is the most complete visual document of Joy Division’s short performing career. Culled from four club shows around Europe in late 1979 and early 1980, the collection documents the wake of debut album Unknown Pleasures. Five of the disc’s fourteen featured songs come from that album, rounded out by monumental singles “Transmission” and “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” a smattering of non-album tracks, and an embryonic version of “Decades” from JD’s second record, Closer. As lead singer Ian Curtis took drastic steps to ensure the band would not drop off in quality as the years progressed, this is all the footage available/ not available to the sobbing Joy Division enthusiast.

Continue reading "The Rock DVD: Type 3: DVD as Self-Distributed Archive" »

Posted by Merry Swankster at 01:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Trey introducing his bassist:

"For all you motherfuckers in love."

Because the bass brings the funk and the funk brings the groove and the groove leads to...

UPDATE: Stewart Copeland of The Police joined Trey's band for a cover of Can't Stand Losing You by The Police.

Tags: Trey Anastasio, Funk, Stewart Copeland

Posted by Merry Swankster at 12:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jeff Klingman brings us a field report from the Islands show last night in NYC.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this band’s name printed without being immediately followed by (ex-Unicorns). Every internet headline, every concert listing, every passing mention, even the ticket for Tuesday’s show was branded "Islands (ex-Unicorns)." I half expected to walk into the Knitting Factory to find a stall of (ex-Unicorns) t-shirts. So, its not surprising that I went to the show expecting Islands to be a practical extension of the Unicorns. Singer Nick Diamonds and drummer J’aime Tambeur are still there, and if the other guy flaked out, then so what? They added some friends, some instruments, formed a "collective" in fashionable Canadian style but they wouldn’t totally turn their backs on the sound of a beloved young band disbanded prematurely, right?

Continue reading "Islands – Live @ the Knitting Factory, New York City. 12.6.2005" »

Posted by Merry Swankster at 08:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night I attended the final night of Paul McCartney's US tour at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Thanks to the never ending generosity of a friend's parents, I was lucky enough to be sitting 13 rows from the stage, floor level and one row behind Paul Stanley of KISS who was accompanied by standard rock and roll (and LA) arm candy - a statuesque, blonde bombshell. My friends and I were practically sitting on Sir Paul's lap. Big thanks to Jigga-Ira and Rendogg for the nod on the (very) expensive tickets.

The timeless music of the Beatles will always be popular and its influence will continue to bridge generations, but not surprising, the crowd was overwhelmingly middle aged. If median age rises then entertainment budgets increase therefore $300 tickets are justified. Classic modus tollens, but this is about the music, not high school trig. As I was saying, the Beatles were and continue to be a force in music that is unparalleled, unprecedented and include every other synonym for brilliance and genius that a thesaurus can provide. The amount of work the Fab Four produced in their relatively short career is astonishing. The Beatles songbook is a maddening showcase of the Lennon/McCartney songwriting tandem. If in two hundred years rock and roll becomes the new “classical music” these two will be the Bach and Mozart of rock. Except they were in the same band.

This is why seeing Paul McCartney live is not like seeing other rock pioneers/dinosaurs of the ‘60s and ‘70s who still tour/need a buck. The sad caricatured performances that often lie below the surface of those shows take away from the spirit of the original incarnations. For someone my age who was born twenty years after the venerable decade of love, it’s a godsend, but to think for one minute that seeing the Allman Brothers Band play in 2005 is the same as seeing them play in the sixties is simply foolish.

Here we’re talking about a Beatle. A real Beatle, one who sounds remarkably similar to the one in those cherished classic albums. Last night he was 30 feet from me performing with four hired guns making them the best Beatle cover band in the world. There was silly scripted banter that normally would draw scoffs, rants and plenty of high marks in the lame category, but sometimes the contemptuousness must be curbed to enjoy these moments without the need to drown in hipsterdom. No time to waste the cynicism when there is plenty of scorn to be directed towards the farce that INXS has become with their reality show winner new lead singer.

Continue reading "Paul McCartney - 11/30/05 - Staples Center, Los Angeles" »

Posted by Merry Swankster at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Take some time off from demonstrating how thankful you are today by momentarily pausing the binging and gorging and sit back, unbutton your pants and let yourself spread.

Presenting Part 2 of Jeff Klingman’s continuing analysis of The Rock DVD. A terrific match for the pumpkin pie cheesecake.

The Rock DVD: Variations on a Theme :: Type 2: DVD as Independent Product

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Tell Me What Rockers to Swallow DVD

For all the marketing muscle dedicated to alerting the wayward music connoisseur of upcoming releases, most of the effort is firmly directed towards the album. Albums generate the most pre-release buzz and the most tortured post-release dissection, and any other product a band might put out is treated as a marginal supplement lucky to get any discussion at all. So it was that late last year I stumbled across the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ DVD "Tell Me What Rockers to Swallow” with, get this, no idea that such a thing even existed!

Somewhere an Interscope PR suit’s blood just ran cold.

It’s unfortunate, and a tad ironic, that a band who gets attacked for the amount of press they receive should release such a well produced DVD with such little fanfare. To the surprise of no one, Lance Bangs is the man behind the disc. As opposed to the somewhat sloppy assembly of the Sleater-Kinney disc I discussed in my last post, Tell me What Rockers to Swallow looks great and is bursting with more content than one would think such a young band could muster. In addition to a full concert at San Francisco’s Fillmore Theater, the DVD is fleshed out with six songs from a separate live performance, all the band’s uniformly neat videos, two behind the scenes type featurettes, and a MTV performance. There’s even funny menu art by Liars drummer Julian Gross depicting Karen O as a pizza loving mummy and a cameo appearance by a nonsensical vampire piece of toast.

Continue reading "The Rock DVD: Type 2: DVD as Independent Product" »

Posted by Merry Swankster at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This site aims to shine light on the local scenes of different cities around the country, and someday perhaps the world. The Merry Swankster is just one man and with the cost of private jets, and that annoying full time job thing, he cannot be in all places at all times. To ensure diverse postulation, Swankster allies from points far and wide will be contributing show reviews, their own m.s. style track breakdowns, and other excellent dispatches from their corner of the world. Perhaps you'll feel like you just had a great nights sleep, with clean sheets! Or maybe you'd wish the band should do so and get on the wagon before a big show.

Old friend of the Merry Swankster, scholar of the obscure, and fellow quasi-bicoastal resident I present Jeff Klingman and his take on last weeks Wolf Parade show in Manhattan.

Wolf Parade 10.25.2005 - Bowery Ballroom, New York City

I love Wolf Parade’s album Apologies to the Queen Mary. Since they are currently walking the tightrope between rapturously received debut album and inevitable “too much press” backlash this is hardly an earth-shattering opinion, but it really is terrific. I’m hard pressed to think of another rock album released in the 00’s that is as consistently filler free.

Continue reading "Wolf Parade – Live @ Bowery Ballroom, New York City. October 24, 2005" »

Posted by Merry Swankster at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan

Whether it’s a stolen glimpse of a beautiful stranger across the room, a déjà vu double take, or that split-second realization that your car door is closing with the keys still inside, there are moments in life that stop you dead in your tracks. It’s an unnamed human feeling that simultaneously moves in slow motion and light speed. You are awed at the moment, see a glimpse of the future, and really wish you didn't lock the door before slamming it shut.

A few years ago I had a similar moment while driving my car in Generic Suburb, USA. I flipped to Generic Rock station and from the speakers I heard a raw, kinetic sound that I hadn't heard in years. A dirty, distorted guitar screeched over a simple beat while dynamic vocals sheared indifferently with punk’s intensity.

Continue reading "Truth Doesn't Make a Noise" »

Posted by Merry Swankster at 07:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)