greenideas

October 06, 2005

Sunbomber yo

Excepter were due to release a record titled "Alternation" on 5RC sometime this winter, but according to Dan Hougland, that record's been pushed back a bit. Now "Sunbomber" will see release, still on 5RC, this January. I'm betting they put out, say, 5 albums in '06. Don't get me wrong- that's a good thing.

Posted by Kevin at 10:46 PM | TrackBack

October 05, 2005

Countdown to psych-oblivion

Whoa doggies. It's offically only 13 more days (that's less than two weeks--by a whole day!) until the new Espers record comes out! In order to tide you over, the good folks at Locust Music have made available one (1) track from the new LP. It's here and you best get busy downloading it. If the song sounds familiar, it's because it's a cover. More specifically, it's "Afraid" which is an old Nico track from Desertshore. Now, with the exception of "I'll be Your Mirror," I pretty much hate all things Nico. Of course, there's not a lot of Nico to be found in this thoroughly Espers-ized track, so you know, yay.

Full disclosure, I am so high on Sudafed and Ricola right now. My teeth feel awesome.

Posted by matt at 09:17 AM | TrackBack

October 03, 2005

Rock on, old man.

So I somehow ended up seeing the Pixies half of Saturday night's Across the Narrows festivities. As someone who kind of hates the Pixies, there wasn't much fun to be had looking at those elderly uggos lounge-ify a bunch of songs I didn't really like to begin with (I realize that I'm in the minority here, and I'll take all comers in the comments).

But there really wasn't any chance that the sta-puff marshmallow band could've looked even remotely impressive playing, as they did, after the older, tighter, more energetic Gang of Four. I mean, holy crap. Those guys have to be in their mid-50s, and they rocked like nervous punk teenagers (in a good way). Jon King definitely did some weirdo rave dancing at a couple of spots, but even that didn't take anything away from the ferocity they projected. It's a small miracle, but with the exception of a slightly questionable bass sound, GoF's music hasn't aged a day since 1977.

Built to Spill were also great. Although, with no new record in four years, and nothing on the horizon, it was almost depressing to see them trot out "the hits," like they were Toto playing "Rosanna" at a state fair. Obviously "Carry the Zero" is an anthem of many of our younger days, and a much better song than "Rosanna," but you get my meaning. At the absolute least, they're doing what they do best, and they do it note-perfect.

It's odd that, of all of the three headliners at Keyspan Park on Saturday, none of them were performing new material. I won't speculate as to why that should be the case, but I will say that it was a remarkably successful evening of music--except for the Pixies, who still suck.

Posted by matt at 08:42 AM | TrackBack

September 27, 2005

Credit where it's due

Mark Richardson's review of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is good as far as it goes (I like the "emotional antenna" bit), but he seems to have left out the part where he says it's the best album ever. For shame.

By the way, people who like the Trembling Blue Stars should know that they're playing one of their last five shows at Magnetic Field on Thursday.

Posted by matt at 09:04 AM | TrackBack

September 22, 2005

Writing about records in a whole new state

First things first, I have to say that I love the eff out of Florida. I realize that might sound crazy, but I really do like Florida. Ocean=Awesome.

Now, on a recent spate of iTunes purchases:

I know I'm a little late in jumping on the Antony & The Johnsons bandwagon, but I've jumped on it so hard. I honestly can't remember the last time a piece of music affected me so deeply so immediately as did "Hope There's Someone" from I Am a Bird Now. Within just the first few phrases, my eyes glossed up something terrible I wanted to lift weights and eat raw meat.

I honestly couldn't have imagined that the new Devendra Banhart could be as good as it is. P4K made some stupid noise about how Cripple Crow is now the defining record of the whole freak folk movement. Unfortunately, a class can't be defined by something that isn't itself an instance of that class. They taught me that in dictionary school. My point is that it just isn't a freak folk record. I won't say it's more than that, since I don't want to knock the scene I dig so well. It's just not a part of that scene. The fidelity, the instrumentation, and the conspicuously un-mannered vocals all make for an unexpectedly mature record that smashes the tropes established by the legion of Banhart imitators. Quirky, ecstatic, and gorgeous.

The Calexico and Iron & Wine record is as fantastic as you think it would be. Next time Sam Beam needs to let my man Joey Burns sing a little more. I ♥ Joey Burns.

Anyway, I'm at the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization's annual meeting, and I'll be in the dang ol' exhibit hall from 7 AM tomorrow, so I'll just have to talk to you all on Monday.

Posted by matt at 09:14 PM | TrackBack

September 20, 2005

Rock for a cause, and Rock for its own sake!

Lest anyone think that Brooklyn indie rockers can't put together a Bono-sized benefit at a moment's notice, JellyNYC, Trampoline House, and KEXP have joined forces for not one, but two benefit shows at Southpaw. Brooklyn Responds will consist of two kind of spectacular shows--the first of which is Wednesday, 9/21, and the other is on Sunday, 9/25. Just look at these line-ups (I'll omit exclamation points, since I'd be putting them next to about half of the damn bands on these lists):

9/21
Radio 4
Craig Wedren (of Shudder to Think)
The Cloud Room
Dirty on Purpose
Pela
Domino
Au Revoir Simone

9/25
They Might Be Giants
The Wrens
Matthew & Ira (of Nada Surf)
Richard Buckner
Sam Champion
Eiffel Tower
Harlem Shakes

I mean, really. Everyone understands that that's really almost overkill, right? I'ma be in FLA, USA for the first show, but you best believe I'm gonna make it out for the second right when I get done with the other awesome thing on Sunday.

What other awesome thing? Why nothing less than the annual guaranteed great fucking time that is the Atlantic Antic. In particular, the little stretch of the Antic between Hicks & Henry that is Magnetic Field's Antic Celebration, which will go a little something like this:

The Ponys (Thurston-sized Coup!)
The Hong Kong (I don't know who they are!)
The Soul Shakers (Almost literally too much fun!)
Detachment Kit (Has your heart exploded yet? Have another Mozzarepa!)
The Dansettes (Mreow!)
Mighty Fine (I don't know who they are, either!)

There is literally no beating this week, luvvies. You can't do it, so don't try.

Posted by matt at 09:20 AM | TrackBack

September 15, 2005

The greatest band you've never seen (Updated)

I know I tend to go on (and on, and on...) about Lungs of a Giant. Since I "manage" them, that's partly my job. But the reason I took that job is because I just love them so freaking much. So it's with a metric ton of pleasure and more than a little pride that I say that they absolutely rocked CMJ last night. And for the first band of the whole kit & caboodle, and playing at 7 PM, I'd say the turnout was actually decent.

Here's the thing: it should've been better. I say this as much as a public service as I do out of frustration. Obviously I personally want them to do well, but I wouldn't be involved with these characters if I didn't believe 100% in what they do. You'll be doing yourself a tremendous favor if you were to check them out. Rest assured that I'll be keeping you up to date on LOAG shows, but in the meantime go to the website, download/buy some stuff, and enjoy the crap out of it! I promise you'll be glad you did--unless you suck. You don't suck, do you? I didn't think so.

Update: If you don't believe me that LOAG are awesome, check out the luv from Marie, the Deli Magazine's indie pixie.

Posted by matt at 09:23 AM | TrackBack

September 13, 2005

Go Forth Unto CMJ

Lungs of a Giant
Ace of Clubs
9.14.2005 | 7 pee em sharp

You know you want to. It's $10 for a short set, but I still say it's a steal at twice the price. Also, LOAG has the distinct honor of being the first stop for The Deli Magazine's CMJ Music Marathon Runner.

Posted by matt at 09:33 AM | TrackBack

September 08, 2005

Mangum barely escapes interview!

A few days ago, Comes With a Smile had updated their website with news about their 20th issue. For those who don't know, CWAS puts out a magazine composed pretty much entirely of interviews with musicians, which magazine is then packaged with a CD compilation of rare or unreleased tracks from the featured musicians. Right. So anyway, the list of people who were up for #20 was looking pretty impressive (Bonnie Prince Billy, Constantines, New Pornographers, etc.), and then a name popped out that was sort of incredible: Jeff Mangum.

So not only was the press-shy Georgian going to do an interview, but he was also going to possibly allow Comes With A Smile to release a rare or (good god) new track on its compilation CD? Figuring that whatever music Mangum would pick to represent him would be a rare Neutral Milk Hotel track or maybe one of the live takes from the "Jittery Joe's" album, I emailed Matt Dornan at CWAS to get the lowdown, and here's what he kindly wrote back-

since the post about content, jeff mangum has decided against doing any press so won't appear in issue 20. we never got as far as discussing tracks, so there was no guarantee we'd have had one... sorry the news isn't better.

In the meantime, CWAS has updated their news page to say something similar. Would have been amazing to read that interview though, to see what Mangum's been up to, to see what he thinks of the near-universal (and rightly so) adoration that "In The Aeroplane Over the Sea" has garnered in the years since its release.

Posted by Kevin at 01:19 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

September 07, 2005

A mopetastic autumn for Drag City

I think I take back what I said about not listening to much depressing music anymore. I've had "Your Wedding" from Smog's Julius Caesar in my head for a couple of weeks now. I finally listened to it this morning, and it was a lot like scratching a mosquito bite.

With that in mind, there's good news coming out of Chicago via Drag City. Not one but two of that label's maudlin heavyweights are dropping new platters on November 15th.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy is set to release a double (!) live album called Summer in the Southeast. The label's website describes it as "a crashing, raging collection," which is actually pretty well in keeping with the one live experience I've had with the Bonnie one, when he played Master and Everyone straight through as total rock record. Anyway, angryape has the tracklist, and now so will you:

01. Master & Everyone
02. Pushkin
03. Blokbuster
04. Wolf Among Wolves
05. May It Always Be
06. Break Of Day
07. A Sucker’s Evening
08. Nomadic Revery
09. I See A Darkness
10. O Let It Be
11. Beast For Thee
12. Death To Everyone
13. Even If Love
14. I Send My Love To You
15. Take However Long You Want
16. Madeleine Mary
17. Ease Down The Road

The other bundle of glum that drops on 11/15 is from Edith Frost. All we know so far is that it's called It's a Game, and that it's the first anyone has heard from her in a long time, save for a few shows here and there, and her downloadable demos record remember?).

Also, in case anyone was wondering, Xiu Xiu were great, and the Graham Smith/Wooden Wand/Ali Roberts show was also exemplary. Maybe more on that later, and maybe not.

Posted by matt at 09:14 AM | TrackBack

September 02, 2005

Music for the Nice People: Now what're you doing this weekend?

This is how bad I want our NYC readers to go to the Graham Smith/Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice/Alasdair Roberts show tomorrow night (remember?): I'm giving you tracks to show just how much awesomeness you'll be missing if you don't go.

"I Fell in Love" is an Ali Roberts track from the album Farewll Sorrow. It's grisly and morbid and wonderful. The song's narrator lists the body parts of his lady love that he intends to remove and turn into musical instruments ("Of your long fingernails / I will fashion ten quills / To pluck on your veins like a harp"). Of course, at no point in the song is it made clear whether or not the poor girl is supposed to have died before or after this harvesting takes place.

One of these days, I'll get around to writing my treatise on how these new folkers (Ali Roberts, Joanna Newsom) and fellow travelers (Neutral Milk Hotel) use bodies and body-imagery in their songs.

While we're here, I just have to say how much I love the album this track came from. Ali Roberts is often called the Scottish Will Oldham, which makes his old band, Appendix Out, the Scottish Palace. Both of these comparisons are apt. Although Roberts's warble is thickly accented, it still comes from a similar place as Oldham's. Thematically, the two are also kindred. In terms of style and instrumentation, the two are apparently very different (plectrums & autoharps vs. pedal steel). However, that difference melts away when you consider that each of them is just appropriating the vernacular music of his homeland, but to much the same effect.

And in answer to a question someone asked me a long, long time ago. No, I still don't get tired of listening to stuff like this.

"You & Me & Leslie" is a Graham Smith song that I think I've mentioned before around here. It's epic in its greatness. How anybody could listen to this track and not want to cancel whatever plans they may've had for tomorrow night is entirely beyond me.

I don't care if you go to Xiu Xiu tonight ('cept, go to Xiu Xiu tonight), but mos def make an effort to get out to the Mercury tomorrow night for this show, and get there in time to see Graham.

Posted by matt at 08:59 AM | TrackBack

September 01, 2005

Childballads!

Hey peeps. Stewart Lupton, of Jonathan Fire*Eater fame, has a new band- the Childballads- with Betsy Wright, Hugh Macintosh (French Kicks), and a bass player with the sweet, sweet name of Tunde Oyewole. Before a couple of months ago, the only clues about what Lupton had been up to since the dissolution of J F*E were comprised mostly of vague rumors and internet scuttlebutt, but now, heck, the band's got themselves a mailing list and a brand spanking new website. Not to mention the fact that Fluxblog and grenideas' own Molars have both featured Childballads' debut song, 'The Onion Domes of Tallahassee' (the mp3s are still up on both sites, if you care to listen) in recent posts.

Expect to hear great things from this band. A single's on its way this fall, and an LP is scheduled for some time early in '06.

Posted by Kevin at 01:22 AM | TrackBack

August 31, 2005

Nice weather we're having OH!

With all of this talk of great shows coming up, I somehow forgot to mention that Xiu Xiu will be rocking the Bowery Ballroom on Friday with Frog Eyes. Of course, when I say that the BB will be "rocked," I mostly mean that it will be made really uncomfortable, and a little embarassed despite itself. At any rate, greenideas has been a long-time supporter of Jamie Stewart and his bracingly intense confessionals about, well, things that are kind of gross. Sorry.

I said (good) things about the new Xiu Xiu record here.

Unrelated to that, I don't know about you, but I'm just having the Brit-folkiest day ever. Maybe it's the excitement over being just a month and a half away from a new Espers record or over getting to use my fancy CMJ badge to get into the Devendra Banhart Show next month. Whatever it is, I'm devouring all of my Vashti Bunyan, Bill Fay, and Bert Jansch records like nobody's business today. It's a very, um, serene kind of devouring.

Posted by matt at 09:19 AM | TrackBack

His nickname in high school was merely 'Zeit'

Q. Quickly answer without thinking: Who is one of the best dance/techno/weird disco music producers working today?
Hint: this person is not a member of the DFA.

A. Morgan Geist! One half of Metro Area, curator of the classic "Unclassics" italo disco compilation, head honcho of Environ Records. Now let me tell you something that's actually news-

In November, Environ will release the Kelley Polar Quartet's debut full-length on CD, entitled "Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens", 10 tracks, all new, mostly vocal based. Co-produced, along with Kelley Polar, by Morgan Geist himself. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, I dare you to listen to KPQ's 'Rhythm Touch' and not fall in love with it.

Posted by Kevin at 02:10 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

August 29, 2005

Monday morning music mroundup

Two things, real quick:

Thing #1: Kevin asked me an excellent question this weekend. He wanted to know if I had any dirt on the new Espers record (Newer readers can browse the greenideas music archives to see that the reason this is such a good question is because of my monomaniacal fixation on all things Espers). Anyway, to answer Kev's question, the answer is 'no.' I know what everyone else knows: the new record is called 'The Weed Tree,' it'll be out October 18th on Locust Music. I also know that it'll be awesome. Expect to hear lots more on this.

Thing #2: This Saturday (9/3) will be a show of monumental brilliance as Ali Roberts (of Appendix Out), Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice, and Graham Smith (of Kleenex Girl Wonder) take the stage at the Mercury Lounge. It doesn't look like there are advance tix, but you're getting there early to see Graham anyway, so you'll be okay. This won't be the last you hear about this, either.

(Note: Graham told me I goofed on the date when I posted about this a couple of weeks ago. He was right, but I'ma leave it that way for posterity.)

Man. I'm listening to the one and only Marine Research full-length for the first time since the great twee pogrom of '03, and I'm enjoying it immensely.

Before I go, I'll leave you with one final thought. Today is a banking holiday in the UK, yet we here in the USA are hard at work (due to last week's overposting, this is particulary true in the roughly 3 cubic feet of US territory located in my swivel chair). The obvious question then is: How much did we really gain from independence?

Posted by matt at 09:18 AM | TrackBack

August 25, 2005

Review: Mt. Eerie - No Flashlight

The more I think about it, the less inclined I am to write a full review of No Flashlight, Phil Elv(e)rum's follow-up to Mount Eerie, and his first full-length under the Mt. Eerie moniker. It's good, and I'll talk some about it, but more than anything, I like it because it helped me focus my thoughts on Elv(e)rum's discography as a whole. What I think I'll do, is expand on some of those thoughts, and then bring it back to how they relate to NF.

In all of Phil Elv(e)rum's recorded work to date, there is an overwhelming emphasis on introspection and brute phenomenology. Take for instance, these lines from the song "You'll Be in the Air" from The Glow, Part 2 which recreate the first-person feeling of flying:

But if you just moved your arms then you could tell / That you are in the air / You'd feel the yawning gulf grow wider / And you'd feel the dwindling fuel for your lungs / So your breaths would slow

Considering the force with which these minutiae are conveyed it's almost like Elv(e)rum has uncovered some kind of phenomenological lingua franca with which to express each and every experiential nuance.

For another example, take the simple phrase "the awful feeling of electric heat" from the same album's opener. It's so compellingly evocative that it borders on hypnotic suggestion. You don't just know what he's talking about it, you almost literally feel it.

What makes The Microphones records so extraordinary is the unity of purpose towards which each and every aspect of their construction seems directed. Not only does Elv(e)rum write lyrics that get to the core of what it's like to be an experiencing thing, every nuance of his production begs to be listened to on headphones. In so doing, the listener becomes the medium. This gives the sounds an immediacy that reinforces and is reinforced by the lyrical content.

Further, Elv(e)rum's insistence on using acoustic methods to get certain sounds (e.g. putting microphones in boxes to get the right kind of muffle) gives every note, thud, or drone the essence of having been made by a body. This creates a seamless continuum between the intent of the musician, the acoustics of production, the psychoacoustics of listener perception, and finally the listener's emotional/visceral response.

That's why the Microphones' rarities comp, Song Islands, was so psychically jarring. It wasn't just a collection of singles from various periods in the Elv(e)rum's discography. It was a cobbling toether of small parts from incommensurable wholes. Here's whay that doesn't work: for all of the reasons listed at length above, each and every Microphones album (and so far I do mean just The Microphones, and not Microphones/Mt. Eerie) is more than just a concept, it's a gestalt. To be sure, there are lyrical, musical, and sonic themes that go throughout the whole discography, but each album still exists in such a holistic aesthetic/psychological/sonic space that putting snippets from those eras right next to each other creates as much cognitive dissonance as reading a literary mash-up like, say, The Sound and the Fury and the Half-Blood Prince.

To bring all of this back to No Flashlight, I think that the strength and innovation of Elv(e)rum's pre-Mt. Eerie output only stands as an indictment of how just-OK NF is. The songs are good, by and large, and there are some exciting new rhythmic elements (my man Phil blames it on the bossa nova!). But the magic continuity just isn't there. Sure, the album's title and title track seem to fit in with the themes I've been describing, evoking as they do the idea of being in the dark and having to navigate by feel. And there's plenty of Elv(e)rum's oft-used melodic cutting & pasting which ties the album together (Which, to be sure, is a Very Good Thing. I don't think that there can be any real Microphones fan who doesn't salivate a little on hearing the familiar melody of "You'll Be in the Air"). Nonetheless, the songs still feel like discrete entities. The clean sounding production, and oddly metal guitar sounds (to name just a couple of examples) in part create a palpable disonnect between the act of the creation and the thing created.

If it had been made by someone else, No Flashlight could've been their magnum opus. As it happened, the guy who did make it had already amassed an ouvre that eclipses most of what anybody else is doing in terms of raw unfettered genius. The bar is monolithically high, and he just didn't clear it this time around.

It's possible that I've gone very far off the deep end here, but I don't think I have. It might well be that Elv(e)rum's abandonment of his Microphones handle in favor of calling himself Mt. Eerie signifies just this very break with the old body of work and with the old creative process. If so, then the thing to do is celebrate everything he's done so far, and wait for him to grow into the next phase of his creative life.

Posted by matt at 10:22 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 22, 2005

Music for the Nice People: Old Man Week Edition

It's Old Man Week here at greenideas! Expect rants about whippersnappers and plaudits for hard candies.

Seriously though, when I decided to do an Old Man theme week, I'd intended to make it strictly about curmudgeonly grousing about stuff that annoys my aging sensibilities (you know, like these kids today, with their hair and their clothes). But it occurred to me that (and stop me when this gets unbearably sanguine) part of being a legitimate grown-up is not being a mopey, disaffected kid anymore. The nice thing about that, is that it means not being a totally morose bastard all the time.

Here's where the music comes in. See, I've noticed a massive shift in my listening habits: namely, I've largely stopped listening to sad bastard music (except for when a spot of bad news sent me barrelling towards the Elliott Smith), in favor of records that are genuinely (and I really do choke when I say this) joyful--like this:

"Bridges and Balloons" by Joanna Newsom is probably the first track that I ever really latched onto for no other reason than the pure exuberant joy of it. To my mind, it's a quality that's endemic to the whole first wave of the free/freak folkers who exploded onto the scene last year. It's what's great about Newsom, and Devendra Banhart, and Vetiver (and it's also why I kind of hate the "second wave" folks like Mike Wexler, et al, for their cynical adoption of barely year-old genre tropes). There's just something simple, charming, and transcendant about this track, and I deeply love it.

(For the record, I realize that many if not most of you have this track already, but I'm trying to make a point here.)

Maybe less life altering (for me, anyway), but no less gleeful is "Caravan" from Van Morrison's Moondance. Is it challenging? Nope. Is it groundbreaking? Maybe, but who cares? All it is is the most fun you can have listening to a six-minute pop song. I honestly just don't know what else to say about this song, besides that it's utterly magical and I love it immensely. This ties into the Old Man week theme too, since it's hard to think of anything more unhip than adoring Van Morrisson.

Okay. That's done. For the rest of the week, it's all about the curmudgeon.

Posted by matt at 06:15 AM | TrackBack

August 19, 2005

Save the date!

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what kind of friend would I be to you guys if I didn't tell you right away about two v. v. important shows as soon as I hear about them?

Mark your calendars:

9/4 @ Mercury Lounge: Ali Roberts (Appendix Out), Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice, Graham Smith (!!) (The night before has Mr. Roberts at Tonic with Samara Lubelski, and the Skygreen Leopards, which is nothing to sneeze at either)

9/14 @ Ace of Clubs (on Great Jones): Lungs of a Giant + several others (CMJ)

Lordy lordy look who's forty...?

Posted by matt at 01:56 PM | TrackBack

August 10, 2005

Feels Fools [updated]

Animal Collective's "Feels" will (most likely) leak in the near future just leaked today(!) (check the comments section if you're curious), but if you're morally against firing up the old steam-driven Slsk to get your figurative mitts on those precious files, you can head over to Boomkat to listen to 3 short track samples. 'Did You See the Words', 'Daffy Duck' and 'Loch Raven' are the ones available. And they're good.

p.s. I'm still alive and in the glorious land of Pennsylvania. Rejoice. Later in the week: more on my bid to walk-on as a tryout for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Posted by Kevin at 01:51 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 09, 2005

August: It's not just for breakfast anymore...?

Who likes indie-pop? Oh, come on, you know you do. So shave your handlebar moustache, uncross your arms, and smile at the fun you'll have dancing to the unaffected hottness of Hot August Nights (it says "Hot" right in the name!. Sparkle Motion brings you two whole nights of only the finest pop in all of God's creation. And it all takes place at Magnetic Field. Behold:

Thursday, 8/11
Voxtrot
With one foot in the library and the other on the dancefloor, Voxtrot combine classic '60s pop (think Love and Left Banke) with the heady, subversive sounds of '80s Britain and still come out ahead of their time. Supported by only their Bus Stop (Apples In Stereo, Television Personalities, Rocketship)/Cult Hero (Sound Team) "Start of Something" 45, Voxtrot has been selling out shows in New York and Texas.

The Mugs
Meet The Mugs -- a five-piece rock band based out of Brooklyn, NY. Drawing comparisons to The Smiths, R.E.M., and Neutral Milk Hotel, The Mugs create music that moves freely across stylistic lines to produce a wide range of captivating melodies and driving rhythms.

The Consultants
Essentially a trio, the band gets help from a wide array of musicians and the sound is remarkably full and occasionally sophisticated. "Hollow-Bodied Evening" (great song title!) sounds like prime Velocity Girl.

Friday, 8/12
Hotel Lights
Darren Jessee started Hotel Lights after many years of writing songs, playing drums and touring with Ben Folds Five. Jessee's vocals are as distinct and endearing as the songs themselves. His warm, warbled tenor is similar to a mellower version of The Shins or a more heavenly Will Oldham. Like The Band, Hotel Lights play with authority and confidence, creating their own brand of timeless pop.

Mascott
"In the early '90s, Kendall Meade stopped writing about music in her fanzine and started playing it. Her first band, Juicy, was poppy in a rudimentary, construction-paper-and-glue sort of way. When they disbanded, Kendall played keyboards on tours with Helium and the Spinanes. And now she's gone solo as Mascott, sometimes calling on collaborators, like roomie Joan Wasser (Those Bastard Souls)." - Jane

Mark McAdam
Although his sound is comparable to Jeff Tweedy and Elliot Smith, he may best be described as a Nick Drake for the modern age, with McAdam's sincere acoustic guitar plating, substantial lyrics and soft baritone vocals strongly rivaling that of Drake's. Mark just completed a video with Mike Myers of Shrek and Wayne's World fame.

I mean really. How could you not come to this? The answer is that you couldn't. You counldn't... not... come to this. Whatever. Anyway, I'll see you all at the Field on Thursday.

Posted by matt at 08:29 AM | TrackBack

August 04, 2005

I love you Jesus Christ!

Key
1: Olivia Tremor Control
2: Jeff Mangum

Thanks to Greg LOAG for the pic.

Posted by matt at 09:54 AM | TrackBack

August 03, 2005

And Thomas Pynchon played harmonica

If you weren't at the Olivia Tremor Control show at the Bowery Ballroom last night, then I'm sorry to tell you that you missed seeing (and I'm pretty sure I can't say this without swearing) JEFF FUCKING MANGUM get up and sing a song with the OTC (I was right. I swore).

Anyone who was there, if you're not completely catatonic from the awesomeness, get in touch with me. I want to eat your brain to have a part of that experience inside of me hear all about it.

Posted by matt at 04:08 PM | TrackBack

August 02, 2005

Whistling while the threnody plays

This is a greenideas exclusive. Boo yeah:

Later this year, March Records will issue a Kleenex Girl Wonder box set. The planned set will include all five KGW albums, those being: Sexual Harassment, Graham Smith Is The Coolest Person Alive, Ponyoak, Smith (music only--no skits), and After Mathematics. As if that weren't enough, it'll also have all of the EPs, Japan-only tracks, and other rarities. That's called "comprehensive," dogg.

But wait, there's more! Graham Smith (who, if you didn't know, is Kleenex Girl Wonder) will be playing his first show in a long long time with a full band on August 21st at Pete's Candy Store. Be there or be lame.

I'm going to assume that this bonanza is a direct result of my publicly recanting my earlier misgivings about Graham's last solo record.

Posted by matt at 01:33 PM | TrackBack

July 29, 2005

Kingsbury Manxin

Quick update from rebel country:
Kingsbury Manx laid some notes to tape and have finished their LP, which instead of bearing the loathsome provisional title of "Faced: the Music" (which I whined about here) will be called "The Fast Rise and Fall of the South" and will own your ass on September 20th. Also, as Stereogum pointed out, Yep Roc has an mp3 of the first track, "The Harness and Wheel", up right here. Y.R.'s publicity essay says the LP'll be a sparser affair, which is all right by me.

Posted by Kevin at 03:18 PM | TrackBack

July 28, 2005

Oh but the AC loves you best||Maybe Phil Elverum does too

So I realize that my last post was just about the Animal Collective and everything, but this one is only like 37% about AC. Here goes: Fat Cat is saying that the band will release a single 3 weeks prior to the album (on September 26th in the UK, hopefully the next day here), called "Grass". The title track is taken from "Feels", and will be backed with two other songs, 'Must Be Treeman', and 'Fickle Cycle' (which is actually the other part of the longer song that begins with 'Grass'). Since the band recorded at least 13 or 14 songs, that means there are still a few B-sides to look forward to.

The other great and fantastic news is that Phil Elverum Mr. Mount Eerie has made "No Flashlight" and "Singers" and "Drums from No Flashlight" available for order from his label, P.W. Elverum and Sun Ltd. Not only that, but there are options, oh, are there options. You can order one disc, two, or all three in a package (all albums come to you in both CD and LP format, for one price), or you can forego the CD and try to rock the SPECIAL OFFER (for the first 80 people only) in which Phil rewards you with some kind of prize (a lock of his hair! kidding). Pretty cool.

Posted by Kevin at 03:35 PM | TrackBack

Our first fill-in?

Since greenideas' Canadian Music Editor Kevin is busy relocating from one early outpost of colonial America to another, I don't know if he'll have much to say until next week. With that in mind, we're lucky that Yahoo! News has a story on the Montreal music scene. Read it and pretend that it's funny in kind of a Dave Eggers meets gin-flavored cotton candy kind of way, and it's just like Kevin were still alive and with us today.

Posted by matt at 12:28 PM | TrackBack

Hopefully this is the only major decision that gets overturned in the near future

The sad kitty represents me saying "I'm sowwy." Here's why: In the year and a half that I've been writing this here weblog I've dished out plenty of praise for awesomeness and blame for, you know, non-awesomeness. But there's one post that I wrote a while ago that I've repeatedly revisited in my thoughts, due mostly to my thinking that I was just wrong (a word of warning to those who click back to the old post, it dates back to before the greenideas manual of style abandoned the editorial 'we,' so don't get too freaked out). So let's set the record straight:

Final Battle is a phenomenal record. As a rule, I still hate the kind of distortion Smith uses all over the thing, but it's definitely consonant with the vocal production on the crucial harmonies of "The Heat" and "You & Me & Leslie." I overlooked how important that sonic consistency was to supporting and enhancing the visceral impact of the lyrics, which are some of the best of the current crop of heart-on-sleeve youngsters. To wit (Prose-ified for easy reading):

"...she's tempting me by taking her clothes off, and feeding me Zoloft, because I know I'll be blown off, but her voice is so soft"

"...'cause I only said it to make you get angry at me. Oh I only want you happy... does that sound right?"

Sorry man, but that's effing genius. It's a great record, and I gave it short shrift before.

Regarding the other subject of that post, The Mendoza Line's Fortune, I'm sorry to say that I haven't really softened too much. I still think that they're good songs performed well, but that the production really kills it. Tim Bracy will disagree (see comments on the original post), but that's just because he still hasn't gotten used to how talented he is. I will say though that Ray Ketchem did a fine job on Lost in Revelry, and the rough mixes I've heard from his work on the next ML record sound great, so nobody should infer that he doesn't have knob-twiddling chops.

And hey, if I hadn't said nasty things about that record, then I wouldn't have booked those Slow Dazzle shows at Magnetic Field, so it all worked out.

Posted by matt at 10:55 AM | TrackBack

July 25, 2005

I killed my dinner with...

Bum-mer! Pitchfork reported today that Karate is calling it quits after 12 years of surprisingly consistent awesomeness. Eerily harkening back to the break-up of their Boston rock forebears, Mission of Burma, maestro Geoff Farina has cited damage to his hearing as the cause of the band's retirement.

Karate's self-titled debut might've been the first indie-rock record I ever bought (it was either that or Hayden's Everything I Long For). That record, more than any other of its proto-emo contemporaries, has managed to stand up to, well, 12 years of repeated listening. Still, far from letting their debut define their sound or their career, that record's mopey post-Fugazi melodicism served as a launching pad for an improbably long career of jazz experimentation, beat-inspired lyricism, and unabashed Steely Dan worship.

Farina has also recorded three solo albums. One was good, one was great, and one was unlistenable, but, as a wise man once said, two out of three ain't bad. At any rate, there was nothing very ear-splitting on any of those releases, so hopefully he'll continue with his solo recordings (unless he wants to do another "Blobscape" in which case I hope he takes up macrame instead).

Anyway, thanks much to Geoff Farina, Jeff Goddard, and Gavin McCarthy. Thanks also to Eammon Vitt, the band's original bassist who left the band to go to med school, but not before teaching Farina the physics he used to build the sweet amp with which he recorded the awesome Reverse Eclipse.

Posted by matt at 10:28 AM | TrackBack

July 21, 2005

Black Dice - Revealed!

Black Dice's new album, entitled "Broken Ear Record", will be released on September 6th on DFA Records. In this sweet little publicity poem on the Kork Agency website, the band talks about how they wanted to sort of recapture the feelings they had from the early (hardcore) days, and how the new record also has beats "front and center" (!!). Apparently remixes of one track, 'Smiling Off', have been completed by the DFA and Vladislav Delay (Luomo). Seems like this fall is going to be just littered with exciting records.

Posted by Kevin at 11:32 AM | TrackBack

July 20, 2005

Music for the Nice People: Reading is Fundamental Edition

It may have been a while since we've convened the mp3 club around here, but let's just move on, shall we?

Prefuse 73 rules really, really hard, and The Books rule even harder. The obvious question that presents itself concerns just how hard they'd rule if those groups combined their powers. The obvious answer is: very hard. "Pagina Dos" from the Prefuse 73 Reads the Books EP is a remix of The Books' "The Lemon of Pink (1)" from The Lemon of Pink, with a handful of samples from other Books efforts. The start-stop rhythms that result sound something like a mashup of "TLoP(1)" and any Timbaland joint. Throw in Scott Herren's puckish sense of humor (by which I'm pretty sure I don't mean that he's all putting his finger in Pedro's peanut butter, but I could be wrong), and you've got two and a half minutes of ecstatic pop concrete.

2005 is going to go down in history as the year that Phil Elv(e)rum began his enlightened despotic rule over all of musicdom. Since he plans to release 27 full-lengths a month through December (or something like that), Microphones/Mt. Eerie fanboys (koff) and fangirls will have plenty to hoard. "I Hold Nothing" is part of the imminent bounty, coming from the No Flashlight LP which dropped at this month's What the Heck Fest in Anacortes, and will hit stores on 8/16. I'll hold off on going into too much detail about this track or the record now, since I'll prolly end up writing a pretty huge treatise on NF and where it fits into the the whole Elv(e)rum continuum around the time it comes out in stores. The short answer, however, is that it's the samba record.

Posted by matt at 09:35 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 18, 2005

Sad News (Updated)

Word just came in that three leading lights of Chicago's music scene were killed on Thursday in an auto accident. Doug Meis (Exo & the Dials), John Glick (Returnables), and Michael Dahlquist (Silkworm) who all worked at Shure Inc. together, were driving back from lunch, when the car they were in was hit by another driver who was talking on her cell phone.

Kevin and I extend our condolences to the families, friends, and fans of those young men.

More info on Silkworm's message board.

Update: Tragically, the story gets a lot worse. Tinymixtapes reports that the incident was intentional. Also, this woman is the driver who killed them, and who now faces three counts of first-degree murder.

Posted by matt at 02:35 PM | TrackBack

July 17, 2005

Who is your Geodaddi?

For those who missed the Warp newsletter, Boards of Canada are about to release a new album this October. With Lightning Bolt's "Scribblemania 2", Animal Collective's "Feels" (the Fader has the cover art for this beast right here), and Silver Jews' "Tanglewood Numbers" all arriving on October 18th, if BoC's album is released that day, it might just become the best new release day ever. It'll be like X-mas level overstimulation, I won't even know which one to listen to first, I'll just be paralyzed with excitement.

Posted by Kevin at 01:05 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 15, 2005

Abouter

Last Excepter update was about Throne, which I never wrote a review of, I'm sorry to say. But it's a good, possibly great album. Depending on where you listen to it. In a car is good, inside a tree is better, perhaps. John Fell Ryan said it was a heavy couch record and it is that, through and through. Sort of a dinosaurs-playing-free-jazz vibe to it. So anyway, those crazy dudes and one chick are up to their antics again, releasing a new album (soon) on Fusetron , called "Self Destruction". Other Music helpfully refers to it as '...a house record. If Xenakis had made one', but you might be better served if you just listen to the Real Audio clips that they have up here (scroll down). It's Excepter's pop record!

Posted by Kevin at 01:47 AM | TrackBack

July 14, 2005

Would you like your post-rock with mole sauce?

Q: What're you doing after work today?
A: Going to see Calexico for free at Castle Clinton, silly.

That's right, luvvies, the only thing better than seeing Calexico is seeing them for free outside. Weather permitting, get yourself down to Castle Clinton in Battery Park at 5 PM to pick up your tickets (two per person) for the show at 7.

The only possible excuse for not going (besides inclement weather) would be if you were staying in to see what might be Curt Schilling's first bullpen outing for the Sox--against the Spankees, no less!

While I have you here, I'll mention that Brooks had a good one in letter and spirit today. Also, the FT has an awesome piece about why supply-siders can't take the credit for yesterday's good news on the fiscal deficit.

Posted by matt at 09:45 AM | TrackBack

July 13, 2005

Two things that are hella sweet

Lately, by about noon on most Tuesdays, I find myself saying "I can't believe it's only Tuesday." Still, the second day of the work week is still the awesomest since it's also record release day. And what a record release day yesterday was. The Decemberists' fantastic concept EP, The Tain was reissued by Kill Rock Stars (the original was put out by Spanish micro-indie, Acuarela Discos). Also, MF Doom put out installments 9 & 10 of his Special Herbs series (I have a reliable source that says that Doom smokes drugs). But while there were a few great platters that dropped yesterday, two of them beat the living hell out of the rest, and I don't think abybody should be the least bit surprised by which ones they are.

Xiu Xiu: La Foret - On a first listen, La Foret seems a lot like 2003's A Promise. Like that record, there are a lot of quiet verses that break without warning into anthemic industrial/noise choruses. The way the new record references older work while pushing ahead into new forms of sonic terrorism, you really get the sense that Jamie Stewart is really honing in on something. What are most shocking on this record, however, are the moments that are convetionally beautiful. Previous outings were rife with hyper-intimate frailty, and this one is no different. What is different, though, is the newfound embrace of the use of traditional sounds in traditional ways. This move away from the fringe makes the whole affair more convincing by removing any trace of the "scary for its own sake" aesthetic of their previous records.

Prefuse 73: Reads The Books EP - I wanted so badly for this EP to be called The Lemon of Crunk, but I just don't have that kind of luck. Still, there's a lot to love on this collection of Prefuse collaborations with/remixes of folktronica juggernauts, The Books. Scott Herren did a perfect job of capturing--even enhancing--the joy that explodes from the source material. The EP fully delivers on the promise of "Pagina Dos," Herren's reworking of "The Lemon of Pink (1)" that appeared on his last Prefuse full-length. His facility with The Books' material clearly shows that the two projects' aleatoric kinship is a more than adequate bridge between their external hip-hop and Appalachian folk trappings. Seriously.

Posted by matt at 09:56 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 11, 2005

Some people like Mt. Eerie

Tiny Mix Tapes has got the scoop on Mt. Eerie's new album, "No Flashlight", which is being released this weekend at the What-the-Heck Fest (in Anacortes, WA), and commercially on August 16th, on Phil Elverum's P.W. Elverum and Sun Ltd. label. All right so anyway, the nice thing is that TMT went and tracked down some preview mp3s, which were put up by the company that's releasing "No Flashlight" in Japan. 7ep has the songs, right here, 'I Hold Nothing' (organ-droning, segues into a 'Lanterns' light-percussion jam) and the marching band drum workout 'the Universe is Shown', which are both unsurprisingly very, very good.

Also, the Microphones/Mt. Eerie now have an amazingly well-designed and comprehensive fansite, over at the Mt. Eerie Preservation Society. Lyrics, discography, tabs, live show tape-trading, etc. Looks cool.

Posted by Kevin at 10:45 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 08, 2005

You know who sucks? Pitchfork. The answer is Pitchfork. It is Pitchfork who sucks.

I sure do like to bitch about Pitchfork and the NYT. Mostly it's beacause both of those media outlets (who have nothing in common over and above their frequent suckage) piss me off a lot of the time. I've already groused about the Times this week, so it's the 'Fork's turn.

Look, the Slow Dazzle record (reviewed here on P-fork) is really good. Is it going to set the world on fire? Probably not. Is it a well-written, well-performed, well-produced, and terribly enjoyable record? Absolutely!

What does Pitchfork's Marc Hogan think is wrong with the record? Well, he decries producer Peter Langland-Hassan's "Pro-Tools psychedelia." If I had any idea what that meant, I guess I'd respond to it. Also, I think he meant to say that Slow Dazzle are like the Thomas Harris of country-pop. This is tied to an oblique assertion that Tim Bracy and Shannon McCardle (who, more or less, are Slow Dazzle) are talentless. I happen to know for a fact that that's not true, nor does it seem true on the record. And if Hogam doesn't want to substantiate the assertion, I guess I don't need to substatiate the rebuttal.

They don't all suck, though. I do like Amanda Petrusich's review of the new Sufjan Stevens record. Somebody must have torn the page out of her Pitchfork Style Manual that tells you not to enthusiatically like things--also the one that says "Always be a dick."

Posted by matt at 10:23 AM | TrackBack

July 07, 2005

The unbearable lightness of being in bed listening to the new Sufjan Stevens record

Oh my god. Iloveit!Iloveit!Iloveit!Iloveit!Iloveit! I'm about, oh, a minute and a half into the first track, and I'm just plain giddy.

If Jeebus is responsible for giving him that voice, then it might well be high time to climb aboard the Jeebus train. I assume Don Cornelius can help me with that.

'John Wayne Gacy Jr.' is heartrendingly beautiful. It makes me want to throw up. I'm pretty sure that's the right response to a beautiful song about a serial killer. Either that, or it's just this little stomach bug I'm getting over.

Posted by matt at 09:14 PM | TrackBack

June 30, 2005

What cavefish on the prowl say

I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness just announced recently that they have signed with Secretly Canadian, and are working on finishing up material for a full-length and possibly another EP, both to be released in late 2005/early 2006. However, it remains to be seen whether this new material is going to be like the spare and elegant dark-pop of the EP the band released in 2003 (pictured at left), or like the watery new wave of the 12" the band put out on Artikal records. Singer/guitarist Christian Goyer says, in this interview with the Austin Chronicle, that people can expect "richer textures, different percussion, and more keyboard and electronic sounds". Looking forward to it.

Posted by Kevin at 12:18 PM | TrackBack

June 29, 2005

Neko is Once Again Just a Kind of Waifer

Who missed an awesome show this weekend? If you didn't see Lungs of a Giant on Saturday, the answer is you. Just look at them up there. I think it's a pretty safe bet that the New Pornographers had exactly nothing on my LOAGers.

Ed Note: I do have a couple good pictures of the full band from the show, but I went with the above because:

1) If Erin were in the picture, all you dudes would get in trouble at work for trying to make out with your computers, and

2) Just look at how hard Greg is rocking in the back there. C'mon, people.

Posted by matt at 12:51 PM | TrackBack

Finally, some Liars news

As P-frok mentioned today, Liars are prepping their new album, "Drum's Not Dead" for an October release. This is the one that, according to Aaron Hemphill, was recorded and re-recorded like seventeen times or so. Still no word from the band themselves about the album- in the news section, they just have a nice, heartwarming story about how someone set up a My Space page as 'the Liars' and is pretending to be the band. Hopefully there'll be some U.S. tour dates in August, as the band seems to have pretty much permanently moved to Europe.

Posted by Kevin at 11:45 AM | TrackBack

My Other iPod is an eReader

Maybe you like to have recorded music, but you can't afford the money cost variety. Maybe your magazine budget is bigger than your music budget (because you suck). Maybe you're just all about value (now we're talking). Well dude, you're psyched that there are some great magazines that come with free records on newsstands right now.

Like Kevin mentioned, there's some hot shit on the CD portion of Comes with a Smile #18 (and, you know, #5-17, too). It's possible that I've mentioned liking Six Organs of Admittance before.

Better than that, though, is the last issue of The Wire (prolly still available at your local B&N). Every copy comes with the 13th installment of the publication's Wire Tapper series, which features tracks from Pajo, Matt Elliot, Currituck Co., Juana Molina, Tu M', and scads more.

Best of all (and you must know this already), the new issue of The Believer has a fucking fantastic (in theory more than execution) collection of awesome artists covering awesome songs, including Colin Meloy doing his strummy take on Joanna Newsom's "Bridges and Balloons." Other than that, the disc is chock a block with other greenideas-approved acts such as Espers, Mt. Eerie, The Mountain Goats, Vetiver, Josephine Foster, Devi B-hart, Wolf Parade, and fucking Ida, ferchrissakes. Believer offered Kev & I a co-sponsor slot on the comp, but we told 'em to shove it on account of they're small time. The whole affair is kind of 'meh,' but worth the price of the mag to get the couple of standouts.

Posted by matt at 09:16 AM | TrackBack

June 28, 2005

Music for the Nice People: Countrypolitan Then and Now Edition

Oh my effing gee, I love the new Laura Cantrell record so much. I've managed to make myself take small breaks from it, but I usually spend that time listening to things that sound like it, so they'll remind me of Laura Cantrell. I think it's safe to say that I've got a pretty severe crush on that record. Why don't you listen to "14th Street" and see if you don't get similarly obsessed? You'd think the Spector-y sleigh bells would be a bit much, but you'd be wrong.

Speaking of girls with gorgeous voices who sing songs that I love dearly, Nina Nastasia's The Blackened Air is an underappreciated gem of a record that mixes down-home sweetness with creepy foreboding (courtesy of the musical saw, obvs). "That's All There Is" is less about the foreboding, and more about the swoon-inducing harmonies and the heartbreak.

While we're at it, let's also listen to "Horsey" by Hem. Hem was the first band I'd ever heard described as "Countrypolitan," so I guess they're sort of my paradigm. Anyway, this song showed up on the This is Next Year comp a few years ago, and after a couple of years without a full-length, I sort of assumed that they'd only ever be a gorgeous song on a comp. Then I went to see Joe Pernice at Housing Works, and it turned out that he was opening for Hem, who had just put out their debut long-player, Rabbit Songs. I was happy.

Posted by matt at 09:24 AM | TrackBack

June 27, 2005

...In which our hero sews a special pocket onto his sleeve for the sole purpose of housing his stupid, sappy heart (Updated)

Faithful readers will know I tend to wuss out hardcore on occasion. They will also have surmised that, more often than not, the reasons for my doing so are Ida-related. With that in mind, there are two new releases that are sending my wussometer off the charts.

First, there is the double live album, The Bottom of the Hill. This is a recording made by a fan in the audience at Ida's 4/26/2000 show at The Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco. I don't have this one yet, so I can't vouch for the sound quality, but I'm inclined to trust that the band didn't put out a crappy recording full of crowd noise and bar transactions. I could be wrong, but I'll let you know tomorrow.

Here's the tracklist:

Disc 1:
01 R U Tired of Me Darling*
02 Capo
03 Maybelle
04 Shrug
05 Down on Your Back
06 Turn Me On
07 Honeyslide
08 Everybody Knows this is Nowhere
09 Encantada
10 This Water
11 Shoe In (A Secret Stars cover? The plot thickens...)

Disc 2:
01 Shotgun
02 Dreamdate
03 Requator
04 Don't Get Sad
05 Poor Dumb Bird
06 Steely Daniel
07 Downtown
08 O Caroline
09 But Beautiful
10 Child of the Moon

The other new Ida-related release is Dan Littleton's Nobody's Fault but Mine. This is Littleton's only bona fide song-based solo outing, heretofore only available as an ultra-rare Japanese import. Anyone who has been frustrated with Littleton's domestic output, which has so far consisted entirely of "experimental" drone wanks, should rejoice for this beautiful collection of well-crafted, intensely fragile ballads. Also included is Down by the Riverside, an album of "experimental" drone wanks.

Both of these albums are available only through Insound.com, in store at Other Music, or in person while Ida is on tour.

*Please oh please forgive the band's unfortunate use of single-letter abbreviations of English words. It makes me cringe, too, but if I can get over it, so can you.

Update: The recording quality is actually really good. There's a little crowd noise, but for the most part people just hang out and listen quietly. It is, you know, Ida. Also it's awesome. Other also, it is indeed a Secret Stars cover.

Posted by matt at 02:02 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 24, 2005

(Get Your) Rock Pants On

Ohmanohman. Tomorrow night, at Magnetic Field, there will be a show that will test the very limits of your capacity to rock. Lungs of a Giant will deliver the kind of jams you thought they only had in movies... or something. Seriously, you need to come out and see LOAG as they play their first show with the new line-up of DENTISTDENTISTA (formerly Nimbus). We're talking rock & roll chemistry of Dexter's Lab proportions.

I hear there's another show people are going to tomorrow night. I think that's unfortunate since that band epitomizes being "full of sound and fury, yet signifying nothing." You'd be much better off coming to the LOAG/DD show.

Speaking of hyperbole (not that any of the above was hyperbole), did you see yesterday's NYT Article about The Shins Will Change Your Life?

Did I mention that tomorrow's show is actually presented by greenideas? Seriously, look at the MF calendar. How do you like them apples?

By the way, Ma & Pa greenideas will be in attendance tomorrow night, so watch your language.

Posted by matt at 09:34 AM | TrackBack

June 17, 2005

A Question for Our Canadian Readers

I know that, due largely to Kevin's odd fascination with Canadian bands (just 'cause it's warranted doesn't mean it's not odd), we have a small contingent of northern neighbors who read this site. This question is for you guys:

In the song "This is the Dream of Win and Regine," from the new Final Fantasy record, Owen Pallett sings the line "Montreal might eat its young." Now, Ugly Americans such as myself, tend not to think of Canadian cities as the sorts of places that are likely to chew up and subsequently spit out any of their citzens. Clearly any large metropolitan area will have its share of mean streets and its unfortunates, but Montreal "eat[ing] its young" seems (to someone who has not once set foot in Canada) kind of like talking about Branson, MO's red-light district, or perhaps Andy Williams's mean streak.

If this is a misconception, and Montreal really is a kill-or-be-killed kind of place, I'd be happy to corrected. I'm planning on traveling soon, and I'd like to be as well-informed as possible about the dangers of my potential destinations.

Posted by matt at 10:19 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Music for the Nice People: I Went Shopping Edition

The following tracks have nothing in common except for the fact that they're both awesome and they're both from records that I just bought:

The original version of "Theme De Yoyo" is from the Art Ensemble of Chicago's unused soundtrack to the French film, Les Stances a Sophie. This version is by Spaceways Inc., a collaboration between Italian free-jazz/rock trio Zu (think Morphine meets Naked City) with boldface names, Ken Vandermark and Hamid Drake.

I saw Zu open for Karate upstairs at The Middle East a few years ago, and lemme just tell you, it was fantastic. Their ability to almost literally blow the doors off of the place more than made up for the fact that the trio had about six words of English between them (I think "I glad to be America" was a collaborative effort).

"The Room" is from Bill Fay's recently reissued self-title debut LP. Had anybody heard it when it first came out, one could say that it laid the foundation for how to rock out with a string section (having predated "Live and Let Die" by a good couple of years... koff). Whatever. It's great and you should be listening to it now, if you're not already.

Posted by matt at 09:45 AM | TrackBack

June 16, 2005

Bonanza!

This is great news for people on the side of all that is good and true.

It is bad news for those who worship the dark side, and hate Phil Elv(e)rum and the light that he stands for. You know who you are.

Posted by matt at 11:21 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

This is Not a Review of the New Pernice Bros. Record

Seriously. I'm not going to review the new Pernice Brothers record, Discover a Lovelier You, here--at least that's not what I'm doing right now.

Why am I so opposed to putting forth a judgment of the record, using facts about the material to support my position? It's because, after three days with the thing, I just really don't like it. It really feels like all sheen, no heart. And everyone knows that a Pernice record without heart is pretty much Coldplay (To be fair, a Coldplay record is more like a Pernice record without heart, talent, or any desire to make good pop records).

I didn't really get that into Yours, Mine, and Ours when I first heard it, but it grew on me like Athlete's foot after a few listens, and then hearing the songs live really made me fall in love with them. That said, I just don't see that happening with the new stuff.

That's not to say that I'm not going to try like hell to get into this record. Of course, I'll certainly be at all of the shows, and I'll be just as enthusiastic before the next record comes out as I was about this one.

After ten releases, Joe Pernice was bound to misstep eventually. Nonetheless, I have every confidence that he'll come back, David Wells-like, and deliver more awesomeness in the future.

Posted by matt at 10:36 AM | TrackBack

June 15, 2005

A 4-Year Return to Form

Via Catbirdseat comes the fantastic news that Mazarin has finally found a new label, one that will at last release their third album, "We're Already There" on July 26th. Way back in September I quietly lamented the fact that the band had all but disappeared from the face of the earth, but now it looks like I And Ear Records is preparing to help bring them back.

Here is a quote from Brian McTear (guitarist of Mazarin, main guy in Bitter, Bitter Weeks, and producer extraordinaire), courtesy of an interview with ShinyGun:

[I'm excited about] Mazarin's third album (which was finished about a year ago, but there's still no release scheduled). This is Quentin [Stoltzfus]'s best record, in my opinion. I hope to god it finds its way to the public soon. When we did our first record together, Quentin, Sean and I barely knew one another, and we were pretty innocent to the music world. Nonetheless, it was the first record from Philadelphia that I can remember making an impact outside the city. ... The newest one was an excellent return to the old days. It was back to the original threesome, plus bassist Mike Walker. I think we felt a lot older and wiser (only four years later) and made it with very little care for what would come of it. It also has appearances by Kurt from the Lilys, Don from Icarus Line and Walt from the Walkmen. Now I just want people to hear what we did.

Posted by Kevin at 12:31 PM | TrackBack

June 14, 2005

Everything Old is New Again

O lucky day! Bill Fay's first two LPs have finally been reissued! British label, Eclectic Discs, has remastered and reissued Fay's eponymous debut as well as Time of the Last Persecution, his fantastic sophomore effort.

For those of you keeping score at home, this means that Fay's entire catalog is now in print again. That includes the stellar outtakes and rarities comp, From the Bottom of an Old Grandfather Clock, as well as his godawful bathos-filled swan song, Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now).

If you're normally given to import sticker-shock, you'd do well to get over it and pick up at least one of these new reissues. You still have some time to say you liked him before he was in a Volkswagen commercial.

(I also rhapsodized about Fay way back in the day)

Posted by matt at 09:34 AM | TrackBack

June 10, 2005

Music for the Nice People: 'S' Could Stand for a Lot of Things Edition

You know what's really good? The new Smog record, that's what. Word on the street has it that it was recorded at Willie Nelson's studio, and it's odd how much of a Red-Headed Stranger vibe permeates the whole affair. I don't know if it's that or just the way that Bill Callahan seems so much more grown-up worldly that makes A River Ain't Too Much to Love so fantastic, but it is, and "Say Valley Maker" is evidence of that.

I saw Shearwater open for the Mountain Goats a while back, and was totally blown away (remember?). Jonathan Meiburg's voice is better than mine, and I gotta tell you, that really sticks in my craw. That's probably why I picked a track on which Will Sheff handles the main vox. "Near a Garden" is a simple, pretty, Iron & Wine-y little number that stares death in the face like any good pop song should.

Posted by matt at 08:06 AM | TrackBack

June 09, 2005

Good News for People Who Like Good News

Okay, I'm going to cover a lot of ground here, so try to keep up, okay?

First of all, with the release of Discover a Lovelier You, The Pernice Brothers' fourth long-player, just five days away (if you didn't pre-order it, that's just something you're going to have to live with), the band has announced a veritable slew of summer tour dates. They look just... like... this:

07/15/05 Northampton / MA Iron Horse Music Hall
07/17/05 Ottawa / ON Cisco Systems Bluesfest
07/18/05 Toronto / ON Lees Palace
07/19/05 Buffalo / NY Mohawk Place w/ Mark Norris, Royal Gun
07/20/05 Cleveland / OH Beachland Ballroom w/ Royal Gun
07/22/05 Chicago / IL The Empty Bottle w/ Royal Gun
07/23/05 Minneapolis / MN 400 Bar w/Royal Gun, Dressy Bessy
07/26/05 Seattle / WA Neumos w/ Royal Gun
07/27/05 Bellingham / WA The Nightlife w/ Royal Gun
07/28/05 Portland / OR Doug Fir Lounge w/ Royal Gun
07/30/05 San Francisco / CA Great American Music Hall w/Jim White, Royal Gun
07/31/05 Hollywood / CA Knitting Factory w/ Royal Gun
08/01/05 San Diego / CA The Casbah w/ Royal Gun
08/07/05 Louisville / KY Uncle Pleasants w/ Second Story Man, Royal Gun
08/12/05 Philadelphia / PA North Star Bar w/ Royal Gun
08/13/05 New York / NY Bowery Ballroom w/ Royal Gun
08/14/05 Middle East Down, Cambridge / MA w/ Royal Gun

I'm not thrilled about them only having one NYC date so far, since I think I've seen them at least twice every summer that I've been here, but I remain optimistic.

Okay. Are you still with me? Good. Now let's talk about baseball. Specifically, let's talk about how the Sox actually managed to not get swept by St. Louis. Could it be that David Wells has a yen to dispel the assertion that hiring him was an unmitigated disaster? If he keeps it together long enough to make it a slightly mitigated disaster, he'll have exceeded my hopes that had been heretofore thoroughly dashed (and what better incentive could anybody have for doing anything?).

The bad news is that the Spankees also managed not to get swept by the Brewers. Also, I think I heard that A-Slap did something that was praiseworthy in some way. Maybe that means he can skip therapy this week. At any rate, last night's win was only the second out of the last eleven games, so I'm pretty convinced that their brief turnaround last month was the fluke and not the rule for this season.

Lastly, I got my harmonium yesterday. I'm pretty sure it's the best instrument ever. If you pull out a couple of the stops and just keep pumping the bellows, you can make this awesome drone without even pressing any keys. I was very close to calling in sick today just to stay home and play with it all day. At any rate, I'm sure I'll record something with it in the not too distant future. Also, it might end up on some future Mendoza Line or Slow Dazzle project, so that'd be pretty hot.

Speaking of Slow Dazzle, their debut album hit stores on Tuesday and it demands to be consumed.

Posted by matt at 09:09 AM | TrackBack

June 08, 2005

News (Good)

The rough (with a capital "rough") demos that I did with Lungs of a Giant are up on their website. Go partake of them and marvel at how the songs still shine despite the shoddy recording.

Posted by matt at 11:49 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Manximum Velocity

Finally, some Kingsbury Manx news. The band has signed with Yep Roc Records (home to such luminaries as Robyn Hitchcock, the Go-Betweens, the Sadies, Ken Stringfellow, et al.), and are currently working with Wilco's Mike Jorgensen (keyboards) on their fourth full-length, due for a September release. Yep Roc has a sweet little article up about it right here. One thing I'd like to point out though, which I'm not certain if it's serious or not, but the band's tentative title for the new record is "Faced: The Music", which is just disgusting and wrong. Kingsbury Manx have always had such nice titles, both for their albums and for their songs, and it would be a shame to ruin that tradition now. Even the old working title they had, "4-0", was better than this- hell, even the title of this post would be a better album name. Anwyay, I'm quibbling- this is v. exciting news, and I'm looking forward to hearing how the band has changed in the past 2 years.

Posted by Kevin at 10:40 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

June 07, 2005

Spread the LOAG Love

Here's what Dusted's Doug Mosurak said about the Lungs of a Giant/La Pieta split 7":

La Pieta plays harmless, slightly irregular indie pop with dual male/female vocals; works OK if you like Rilo Kiley or Rainer Maria on a budget. Brooklyn's Lungs of a Giant have grander aspirations, though, calling to mind the stormed port of some of the best artists of the New Zealand underground from the 80s and 90s (Straitjacket Fits and the Clean come to mind immediately). Two songs apiece. Not bad, not bad at all.

Keen! Just wait till he hears what they're cookin' up these days!

Also, I BOUGHT A HARMONUIM!!! The only bad part about that is that I feel compelled to listen to a ton of Ida, which spells trouble with a capital 'troub' these days.

Posted by matt at 09:43 AM | TrackBack

June 06, 2005

A Veritable Coup!

Rest assured, I'll remind you about all of this as it becomes more imminent, but this news is ripe for the telling:

Brooklyn's own spaz-rock all-stars, Detachment Kit, will have a residency at the great (and getting ever greater) Magnetic Field in Brooklyn Heights. The DK will rock the Field each and every Thursday in July, so you have no excuse for not checking out at least one of these shows (but each one you see is guaranteed to make you cooler, so it's best to see all of them).

Even before that, you can (and should, nay, must) head to the Field on June 25 to see the monolithic team-up of DENTISTDENTISTA and Lungs of a Giant. This will be the first pairing of these bands since DD rose from the ashes of Nimbus, so expect lots of hott hottness and hip-shakery.

The LOAG/DD show will be the first ever official presentation of the show promoting arm of greenideas media (it's on the club's schedule and everything!), so come out and support some great bands, a great bar, and a great blog.

Posted by matt at 10:38 AM | TrackBack

May 27, 2005

Music for the Nice People: Good for Its Own Sake Edition

Andrew Broder (that's Fog to you, pal) has this thing about making fantastic records, by which I guess I mean he likes to do it. Exhibit A is 2003's Ether Teeth. It kills me how underappreciated that record was. Its sometimes sweet, sometimes goofy songs were smartly orchestrated, and awash in subtle turntable squeaks and well-placed samples (also, it's got my favorite album art/liner notes probably ever). Anyway, Exhibit B is the recent 10th Avenue Freakout. On this record, Broder opts to head for more electro-pop territory. Some of it's pretty straightforward (which is a little surprising given the curveball-heavy Hummer EP that Fog offered as a snack between Ether Teeth and 10AF), but it's still a Fog record so there are plenty of leftfield moments. "We're Winning", a clear standout, has some of the album's more electro moments.

But since we're on the subject why don't you check out "The Girl from the Gum Commercial" from Ether Teeth, too. Two years later, and that song has yet to make me feel anything other than elated.

And then there's "Stone" from the new Okkervil River record (which i wussed out over hardcore here). It's relentlessly sad, and that's okay, cause maybe that's just what kind of day it is. Back off, man.

Unrelated to sad/good music, I've got to admit that I really like to watch G4 (the video game channel). Although, they do have a show where you just watch semi-famous people (Barenaked Ladies, the second oldest brother from "Malcom in the Middle") play video games. That's going too far.

Posted by matt at 10:39 AM | TrackBack

May 26, 2005

Ululate With Me, People

Oy! Busy busy busy! Even though every second away from greenideas feels like an eternity, it doesn't support my lavish lifestyle, so I need to do real work for my real job today. I'll write when I get a second though.

The good news is that Lungs of a Giant and I were burning the 11PM oil last night doing some (super-rough) recording, and we got one or two really solid things done. Maybe it/they will make it onto the LOAG website in the not-too-distant future. You are lucky people.

Posted by matt at 10:13 AM | TrackBack

May 20, 2005

Music for the Nice People: Covers and Others Edition

Here's a cover song, and also the original. I might do something like this next week, too.

Vashti Bunyan - "Window Over the Bay"; These days everybody knows about Vashti Bunyan, since she was the patron saint of last year's freak folk explosion and, more recently, pulled double duty as muse and chanteuse for Animal Collective on their fan-freaking-tastic Prsopect Hummer EP (and I say that as no fan of the Tare/Bear duo). But before all that, she was just a lady who made a fantastic folk record a long time ago. Just Another Diamond Day clearly anticipated the freak folk aesthetic typified by Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom. More than that, though, it's just a simple, beautiful record that deserves the bigger audience it's now getting. And, um, "Window Over the Bay" is a song from it.

Appendix Out - "Window Over the Bay": Contrary to what some people may think, Appendix Out does indeed exist. Also they're awesome. This track comes from their Warm and Yeasty Corner EP, which is all covers, and all awesome. People call Appendix Out the UK's Palace, which would make Alisdair Roberts the UK's Will Oldham. That might be right, but it's a little beside the point, since Ali Roberts and Appendix Out just make fantastic (if morbidly depressing) records.

Also, today's Achewood is really funny. To wit:

Stephin Merritt and Guided by Voices have a lot in common. Wait, they only have one thing in common: 5% of their songs are not complete jag-off.

Posted by matt at 08:38 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 19, 2005

Two Things, Completely Unrelated... Or Are They.

Yes, they are.

The first thing is that you can now purchase a bunch of Lungs of a Giant tracks on iTunes. I think that is pretty much the coolest thing ever.

Also, if you didn't read Matt Miller's Op-Ed in the NYT yesterday, do so now.

Also Also, way to go Netflix. Okay, three things.

And did I mention how effing psyched I am for the show tomorrow?

Posted by matt at 09:53 AM | TrackBack

Too Much Pernice News!

Whoa... whoa! There is just too much going on right now at Pernice Bros. Inc. Okay, let's start slow. First of all, they've redesigned their website. Also, there's an awesome new t-shirt designed by the band's erstwhile pianist and Joe's new wife, Ms. L. Stein.

But the big news is that you can now pre-order the new album, Discover a Lovelier You. If you do, not only do you get the record delivered right to your door (probably) on its street date (6/14), but you also get an autographed digi-pak insert, as well as a four-page comic about the band drawn by artist Robert Ullman (Thanks, by the way, to Mr. Ullman for making the colors in the comic so greenideas friendly).

Also, there are some tour dates, natch. Some NYC shows had better be TK.

07/20/05 Cleveland / OH Beachland Ballroom
07/23/05 Minneapolis / MN 400 Bar
07/30/05 San Francisco / CA Great American Music Hall
07/31/05 Hollywood / CA Knitting Factory

And if that weren't enough, the man himself, Mr. Joe Pernice is venturing into the realm of fake TV production with his own "pilot" of MTV2 Cribs. Not only do you get a guided tour of Joe's luxurious estate, but you can see just how out of control his hair and beard have gotten. Expect lots of sitar on the new record.

Okay, I need to lie down.

Posted by matt at 09:22 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 18, 2005

Also Jazz

Speaking of great shows, you will most definitely not want to miss the Peter Brotzmann Chicago Tentet tonight at Tonic. Seriously. Ken Vandermark, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Joe McPhee, and Mats Gustaffson (and others) on one stage?! I can't imagine when you might see such a line-up again. Be there or be lame.

Posted by matt at 11:12 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Hott Rock Action

So I'm officially back home in New York, and boy do I come bearing great news for you! This Friday (5/19), there will be a show of monolithic proportions at Magnetic Field:

Graham Smith (the once and future Kleenex Girl Wonder) and Slow Dazzle (featuring at least 2/5 and possibly as much as 3/5 of The Mendoza Line) will both be making their triumphant return to the Field. In the past, both have positively decimated the place with the blinding white light of their awesomeness. But since this is the first time that they will have shared a bill, we can only expect them to form Voltron-like into an unstopppable force for Truth, Justice, and Really Good Music.

Slow Dazzle will be playing songs from their forthcoming debut long-player, The View From the Floor, which is due out June 7th on Misra. You can hear some tracks on the band's (aforelinked) website.

If we're lucky, Graham will play a tune or two from his forthcoming (someday) EP. People: make no mistake, you must hear these songs. The man writes songs like... somebody who does something really well really often.

The show was baked fresh for you by elfin hands. Specifically, the deal was put together by our very own greenideas matt (or, if you prefer, my very own me), so you know it's going to be good.

Posted by matt at 10:15 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

May 17, 2005

Animal Collective finish up new LP

Dave Portner/Avey Tare posted the following on an Animal Collective message board yesterday, about the new album:

We're out here in seattle right now hanging and trying to mix our new record. Actually it's done now....we took a sweet drive through some winding woody roads and listened to the final order and it makes us happy and so thats that. No...it doesn't have a title as of yet... it has many (as many of our records do which you all know apparently...ark/here comes the indian). We like to think of it as "the love record". Hey, how about this lineage...tongue...tongue songs...sung tongs. Anyway the new record has nine songs on it and i see they have mostly been mentioned in your discussions about our live shows but since we have one more day here i can't completely let the cat out of the bag. Those songs we have been playing have all been recorded (except for "sponge luke" which was only played at bowery last summer) but they won't all be on the record. Another thing i should mention is that in creating our new website our friend Billy is going to have his own bootleg page because there are definitely some past shows we would like to make available for people

Some of the setlist titles of the new songs they've been playing out are: People, Banshee/Swimming Pool, Grass, Muffins, Lake, Big Big Bea, Country Fuck (this song is ridiculously good), White Antelopes, Daffy Duck, and Fikkle Cycle. If the live shows are any indication, Animal Collective's new album will be sort of perfect. Avey Tare went on to mention that the band will be touring again after the new album comes out, probably a month in the U.S. and a month in Europe. They are simply unstoppable.

Posted by Kevin at 09:51 AM | TrackBack

May 11, 2005

Music for the Nice People: "Because I felt like it" Edition

These tracks have nothing in common except for the fact that I just got both of these records, and they're both awesome. Yeah.

Oh shit. You just don't know how fantastic Edan's Beauty and the Beat is. You just don't. I mean, what's better than erudite lyrics that make as good a hip-hop history lesson as you're likely ever to hear? How bout all that plus guest spots from Insight and Mr. Lif? How about how almost the whole record is built on loops from choice 60s psych records? Nothing. Nothing is better than that. Plus, "Beauty" has strings and echo-y, acid-soaked psych breaks! You like strings and echo-y, acid-soaked psych breaks.

Chirpin' Hard/Church Gone Wild is Hella's Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. Spencer Seim and Zach Hill each made solo records, and packaged them together as a Hella 2xLP. "Gold Mine, Gold Yours" is the lead-off track to Chirpin', Seim's videogame freak-out half of the affair. If, while listening to this track, some latent Double Dragon anxiety causes your pulse to quicken, don't worry--the sick polyrythms about half way through the track will bring you back to the here and now.

By the way, this hotel sucks! It's big, but it's just this huge palatial track house in the middle of nowhere. There are two (!) fake swamps inside the hotel, and they don't sell the FT here. Also, everything here has the shadow of The Mouse on it. Oh, and the duvet in my room has pirate monkeys on it.

Posted by matt at 07:57 AM | TrackBack

May 10, 2005

Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown - Releases

So there is some actual news to report about these two bands. Wolf Parade, as some of you might have seen over on Pitchfork, is releasing an EP/single on July 12th, featuring 3 of the tracks from the CBC Session ('Shine A Light', which I wrote about over on Molars, 'You Are A Runner, I Am My Father's Son', and 'Lousy Pictures'), plus the brand new but also non-album B-side, 'Disco Sheets'. 'Shine A Light' and 'You Are A Runner, I Am My Father's Son' will both be featured on Wolf Parade's forthcoming (in October) debut LP, "Apologies to the Queen Mary". [via Catbirdseat]

Sunset Rubdown, Spencer Krug's (singer/keyboardist in Wolf Parade) solo project, will release its debut on June 14th, however, Global Symphonic (the label that's doing the releasing) said it will have copies ready for mail order on June 1st. Good stuff.

Posted by Kevin at 03:52 PM | TrackBack

May 09, 2005

Love, Exciting and New

Remember a little while ago when I taunted you about the promise of future Lovers tour dates? How much did that suck? Well, your Tantalus-like agony can now end in sweet satisfaction, since the band has announced some honest-to-god dates, many with venues and everything! Just look:

(All shows except for 6/20 with Soltero; some venues still TBD)

May 9 - NYC @ Rockwood Music Hall, 7pm w/ Ryan Doyle
May 10 - Philadelphia @ The Padlock Gallery, 8pm w/ Lewis and Clarke
May 11 - Pittsburgh @ The Quiet Storm
May 12 - Akron @ 587 Colfax Place, 10pm, with Trouble Books and Your Friend
May 13 - Cincinnati @ David Shoe (1665 central avenue) 10pm with Sweet Sayer and Best Pedestrian
May 14 - Chicago
May 15 - Milwaukee @ Riles' House (2457 N. Oakland Ave.) 9pm
May 16 - Milwaukee @ house show, 2767 s. herman st, 9pm, free
May 17 - Minneapolis
May 18 - Minneapolis
May 19 - Ames
May 20 - Columbia @ Ragtag Cinemacafe, w/Jerusalem and the Starbaskets, 10:30PM
May 21 - Bloomington @ Cascades Park. 6pm Early Show! with Impossible Shapes
May 22 - Bowling Green, KY @ Spencers, 915 College St. 8pm, all ages, $3
May 23 - Athens @ Flicker Theater with Jesse Flavin
May 24 - Asheville @ Caldwell's House
May 25 - Chapel Hill (Carrboro) - House show, 1104 N. Greensboro St, Apt 7, 8:30 PM, free
May 26 - College Park, MD - The Crib, 8701 48th Place, 8PM. w/ The Summer We Went West and Kid Tiger
May 27 - New Paltz, NY @ 3FU
May 31 - Cambridge, Ma @ Zuzu
June 20 - Portsmouth, NH @ The Red Door with Hotel Alexis and Feathers

For those of you playing along at home, you'll notice that that NYC show is tonight, so drop whatever plans you had and head over to the Rockwood Music Hall for some hott hottness. Also, Lover-in-Chief, Carolyn Berk says that the band is done recording a whole new album, which you'll be able to consume sometime this fall.

Posted by matt at 09:43 AM | TrackBack

May 08, 2005

Review: Jane - Berserker

Scott Mou (of Queens, 14K, and Other Music) and Noah Lennox (Panda Bear of Animal Collective) have brought together some very disparate influences to make a gorgeous little record in "Berserker". One clarification though: this has been labeled a (semi-) 'dance' project (by Noah himself), and I can see that, maybe...but the only real way you could dance to this music is if you were 'luded to the gills and had a taste for soft, slinky grooves. Having said that, Mou has done an exceptional job on the production- it's layered and nuanced (definitely should be listened to on headphones if you want to catch everything) and deep. There are threads of Black Dice, Excepter, and Kompakt running throughout the entire album, but it retains an undeniable force and flavor all its own (although I can say, if you've heard "Young Prayer", then you'll know exactly what Noah's vocals sound like on this record).

"Berserker" opens with the title track, which I reviewed a little while ago over on Molars. It was the only thing I had heard from Jane before listening to the LP, and it's a great start to the album: it's the shortest track and also possibly the catchiest. 'Berserker' (the song) is all about static and rotation (it's like if you made the audio equivalent of one of those old zoetropes or praxinoscopes but somehow constructed it out of shards of pennies and long tin strips). Noah's vocals are amorphous and v. pretty indeed. 'Agg Report' is the second track, and this one's got more of a Black Dice meets Kompakt feel to it. There are chirping birds, soft synth lines, underlying stampede beats at the beginning, and that gives way to a nice shuffle-beat around the 2 minute mark. It's laidback and hot. 'Slipping Away', the third track, is my favorite: zombie chorus at the start, Noah's best vocals on the album, and some just feverishly dark beats. 'Slipping Away' feels like musically sublimated vengeance, if that makes any sense (I cannot stress enough how good this song is). Final track, 'Swan'. Bit of an oddity. 24 minutes long. Labeled as the 'extra cd track' in the liner notes. It seemed like just a test of patience at first, but it does have its merits (i.e., it's a grower)- Noah's vocals are sparse but well-placed, and the song itself is a series of intense and sweet drones (one which sounds a lot like the sort of whispery and comfortable noise you hear inside a car traveling at high-speeds on a smooth and seamless highway. That alone makes 'Swan' fantastic) that fluctuates about midway through to incorporate some disruptively pretty synth chirps.

Jane have made an incredible album, and hopefully there'll be some more of this stuff coming out in the near future (the liner notes say that the "coconuts" and "paradise" EPs will be available again soon, which must be referring to the CD-Rs the band was selling at Other Music last year). No word yet on whether they're going to tour for "Berserker", but it would behoove you to get out and see them if they do go on the road. You can (and should) buy the album from Paw Tracks, um, whenever they put up the link (the record comes out sometime this month- maybe next week?). Update: "Berserker" actually comes out on 5/17, and Nicki was nice enough to put up a pre-order link over at Insound, which you can check out here. If you like either music or fun, I highly recommend it.

Posted by Kevin at 11:11 PM | TrackBack

May 06, 2005

My Love is Like a Dark Cloud Full of Rain that's Always Right There Up Above You: The Mountain Goats at the Knitting Factory 5/5/05

It's really not often that any type of performace is uniformly great from start to finish. That fact is what turned last night's strong showings from Erik Friedlander, Shearwater, and The Mountain Goats into a great collective achievement.

Friedlander's solo cello performance covered a lot of ground, from cerebral improv to almost buck-jump or gypsy jazz workouts. It was uniformly awesome, and he definitely has the personality to hold the attention of a rock show audience, which is saying quite a lot for a guy with just a cello (although saying "just a cello" like it's a bad thing chills me to my very core).

I've got to tell you, I was so ready to be bored by Shearwater. I pretty much assumed going into the show that I'd probably like a couple of the songs (they did get tapped by John Darnielle, after all) but start getting impatient for my Goats to come out. I mention this only because that was so not what happened. In all honesty, there was one moment where I literally forgot that I wasn't there to see Shearwater. Their backwoods indie stomps and brooding, Nick-Cave-via-Sufjan-Stevens-y elegy-ballads were no less than completely engrossing. The best part, though, was how frontman Jonathan Meiburg always had this completely unselfconscious grin which communicated just how happy he was to be doing exactly he was doing. That kind of conviction is impossibly infectious.

And then there were The Mountain Goats...

I've always had a weird connection in my head between John Darnielle and Bruce Campbell (Ash, of the Evil Dead films). I don't know how it started, but I don't think it's totally unwarranted. Both men have huge bodies of work (some parts of it better than others), both have teeming masses of cultishly loyal fans, and both seem to relish the role of the alpha dork. Oh yeah, John Darnielle is a huge dork (the man quotes The Canterbury Tales in Middle English on the band's website, for god's sake! "[S]malle foweles"... sheesh). Had it not been for the fact that the main space at the Knitting Factory last night was packed to the gills with people who were just as dorky as the man himself (myself so included), he would've seemed really out of place. But as it was, every time he looked out at the crowd, his beaming schoolboy smile showed that he knew exactly who his audience was, and that he was our king.

Just as Darnielle was among friends in the venue, the same could easily be said of his compatriots on stage. Bassist Peter Hughes, who seems now to be a full-time Goat, was right where he needed to be in holding down the low end as well as perfectly complimenting Darnielle's voice on the harmonies. The presence of John Vanderslice, a frequent tourmate and studio knob-twiddler for the Goats, on electric guitar was a welcome surprise. Of course Erik Friedlander, who played cello on a handful of songs, was perfection. The best surprises though, were probably the times when the boys from Shearwater would lend a hand. Considering they pretty much had me at 'hello' during their own set, it was especially stirring to see how they handled themselves as impromptu collaborators. Also, Jonathan from Shearwater had a really sweet melodica (I love my melodica. It's truly one of my most treasured possessions, but this thing was a nice little machine).

The setlist pulled admirably from all over Darnielle's mammoth discography, but what they played seemed to matter so much less than the fact that they were there playing it. The event was so much greater than the sum of it's parts that the fact that they played or didn't play a particular song almost didn't matter.

One last thing demands comment. As much as I normally hate crowd sing-alongs, I couldn't help but be charmed by how polite all of the crowd singers were during "Color in Your Cheeks," when their collective whispering was so quiet as to be almost inaudible save for the occasional hisses of their sibilants. Also, we all shouted with abandon during "No Children." How could you not?

So yeah, it's really going to take a lot of discipline to keep me from going to see them again on Saturday night.

Posted by matt at 09:43 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 05, 2005

The Best Ever Death Metal Band out of Denton Will In Time Both Outpace and Outlive You. Hail Satan.

Lucky you! At the time of this posting, there are still tickets available for the Mountain Goats show at the Knitting Factory tonight. As if The Darnielle himself weren't reason enough to want to go, he'll be supported and accompanied by avant/jazz cellist, Erik Friedlander (about whom I've gushed), who contributed oodles of awesome to the last Goats outing (about which I've also gushed). Joining the Goats tonight will be Shearwater, who I'm told (by the Knit's website) features members of Okkervil River. I don't know from any Shearwater, but I do enjoy the Okkervil River.

So buy your tix now, while you still can, and I'll see you at the show.

Posted by matt at 10:10 AM | TrackBack

May 02, 2005

Music for the Nice People: greenideas is a Real Boy Edition

Doesn't greenideas look great? I'm so psyched. It's like, your hot single mom is gonna want to date my weblog. In celebration of the new hottness, here are a couple of severely awesome tracks.

Graham Smith: "The Heat" - Yeah, I know I've put this song up before (as part of greenideas' Holiday Depression Mix 2004), but I've been on a total Graham kick since I heard a couple of the demos for his forthcoming (someday) EP last week. Seriously, this is gonna be some Wyld Stallynz-type world religion shit. Prepare thyself with this here awesomeness.

Final Fantasy: "Please Please Please" - A string melody that barrels ahead with there's-a-bomb-on-the-bus urgency and gooey harmonies? Yes, please! While this record (Final Fantasy Has a Good Home) is inconsistent and overlong, there are a handfull of fantastic tracks, and this one is a home run. I literally can't stop listening to it. Also, "don't let your cock do all the work" is Good Advice.

Posted by matt at 07:37 AM | TrackBack

April 26, 2005

Animal Collective's new album

Everything that follows is speculation and hearsay (at most, 56% of it is true):

Animal Collective finished recording their new full-length album (in Seattle?) a little while ago (obviously before they started the current tour), and apparently laid down more than an album's worth of material, so the album release could be followed by an EP or a single backed with a few non-album B-sides. The new LP should be out some time around October and may feature such tracks as: Banshee (the swimming pool song), Tiquid, Big Big Bea, Lake, Daffy Duck, Fikkle Cycle, and White Antelope(s). Also, and this is conjecture on my part, they're building a giant Mexican robot called "El Sismo", in order to more efficiently transport their gear and merchandise from venue to venue (but try to keep that under your hat).

Posted by Kevin at 08:00 AM | TrackBack

April 25, 2005

Blah Blah Blah

I don't know if it's low blood sugar or the malaise of disappointment, but I just don't feel like writing a whole review of the new Magnolia Electric Co. record. It's okay, but it's mostly pretty underwhelming. I'm glad Jason Molina is inching ever closer to his personal Neil Young Nirvana, but to the unenlightened folk, the whole thing seems pretty flat and uninspired. It doesn't live up to the promise of the live album that came out earlier this year (on which, this).

Honestly though, if a lesser light had made the record, it would be at least a little praiseworthy. However, when a giant missteps, villages get crushed.

On an unrelated note, I'd like to congratulate Pitchfork's Brandon Stousy on his having been a Mountain Goats fan since back in the day, before they were cool. If he hadn't regaled us with stories of listening to the Goats' Shrimper output when he was in high school, I might not know how cool he is. It's entirely possible that I'm simply full of hate today.

Posted by matt at 12:15 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

April 20, 2005

O Lucky Day!

Here's why today is awesome: I'm going to go record shopping when I get off work today. This is the first time that I've had enough money to go record shopping in a long, long time.

The following are the bands who have new records that I (and most likely you) simply must have (although I won't get even close to all of them tonight):

Caribou (fmrly. Manitoba), Magnolia Electric Co. (fmrly. Songs:Ohia), The Books, Fog, Gang Gang Dance, Edan the DJ, The Perceptionists, Great Lake Swimmers, Phoenix, Hrvatski (also Keith Fullerton Whitman, also Keith Fullerton Whitman with Greg Davis), Nagisa Ni Te, and Final Fantasy.

I like-a to say 'holy crap.'

Also, after the record binge, I'm going to watch the Sox/O's game with  my doggies. That will be good because this year, the Sox are not going to inexplicably have a losing record against Baltimore, and tonight will be evidence of that.

Also, the Mets had seven (7!) home runs in last night's game against the Phillies. That's a club record! What's not to love?

Posted by matt at 11:30 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Radio Parade

According to Greenplastic, Thom Yorke played a quick set of 5 songs at the Trade Justice Rally on April 15th, including two new songs: 'House of Cards' (which is brand new), and 'Glass Flowers' (which, who knows, could be the new name for the old 'Last Flowers till the Hospital', that was recorded during the OK Computer sessions). However, the really exciting news is that Thom played what may be the all-time greatest Radiohead song, 'Big Ideas', which has been around since time immemorial, and played both solo by Thom and with the whole band (you can hear it at the end of the 'Meeting People is Easy' documentary), but never given the studio treatment. The other song, 'Reckoner', was premiered during the "Kid A" tour, and is another classic Radiohead tease (never been recorded). Hopefully the fact that Yorke performed those songs live means that they're at least in contention for the new album (Yorke also mentioned recently that they're still working on that track 'Arpeggi', which debuted live at the Ether Festival).

Some more good news: Wolf Parade is touring soon, mostly in Canada, supporting Arcade Fire. But- they are coming down to the U.S. for one date, June 4th, at Pianos in NYC. It will be ruthlessly awesome, I can assure you of that- and this is probably one of your last chances to see them play a 'smaller' show- so if need be, sell some organs to be there, because it is not to be missed. Sub Pop has the other dates up here, if you're curious. 

Posted by Kevin at 08:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 19, 2005

Music for the Nice People: There's Always Room for Cello Edition

I have a very serious problem wherein I can't make myself stop listening to the new Mountain Goats record (on which, this). One reason for this, is the additon of out/jazz cellist Erik Friedlander to the usual stable of Goats (Franklin Bruno, John Vanderslice, et al.). If you don't know Friedlander, he's worked with lots of people who have made fantastic records. On the jazz side, he's collaborated with John Zorn and Dave Douglas to name but two. On the non-jazz end, he's worked with such diverse sorts as Ikue Mori (yay!) and Hole (boo!). "May It Please Heaven" is an example of his solo cello work. It's kind of breathtaking.

Now Friedlander is shacking up in the house that Darnielle built, which brings us to "Dilaudid." This song has Darnielle's most effective string collaboration since Alisdair Galbraith's haunting violin parts for the Orange Raja, Blood Royal 7" (anthologized on Ghana - "Raja Vocative" is still one of my fave Goats songs). "Dilaudid" shows the world a brand new John Darnielle. There is nary a tinge of detached "cleverness" to be found on this track, but neither is its earnestness at all off-putting.  The melody is kind of a direct "Eleanor Rigby" rip-off, but I don't care, and neither should you. It's a fantastic song, and you should be listening to it right now if you're not already.

Posted by matt at 10:45 AM | TrackBack

April 12, 2005

Review: The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree

When the release date and tracklist for the new Mountain Goats record were announced, I wasn’t nearly as excited as I should or could have been. Mostly, that was because Darnielle & Co.’s last outing sucked really, really hard, and I was in no way anxious for the new one to also suck, and thus maybe indicate that the head Goat had peaked. Well, since The Sunset Tree is nigh, and advances abound, I can say that those fears could not have been more baseless. I’m almost at a loss for what to say about the new jam besides “It’s really great and you should get it as soon as is humanly possible.” Nonetheless, I will soldier on.

My biggest complaint (out of very, very many) with We Shall All Be Healed was that it was too clever (which I intend as a pejorative). That is to say there was plenty of smart wordplay (it was still John Darnielle, after all), but no emotional meat to it whatsoever. A bon mot is nice enough, but it’s not going to communicate any deep truths about life, love, or whatever else we want out of a good song. That’s why Yogi Berra never made pop songs. If it’s poignancy or emotional intensity you want (and I do), TST has got it in spades. If anything, the Darnielle’s lyrical frankness is almost enough to make you uncomfortable—particularly given the fact that much of the album is themed around domestic abuse.

Darnielle’s voice too is more raw than on previous outings. This only serves to magnify the directness of the lyrics. Normally, his vocal timbre is either a snarktastic TMBG whine (“Anti-Music Song”) or an insistent yelp (“Raja Vocative”, “The Mess Inside”) with little middle ground (I mean all of that in the absolute best possible way—god, I love him). This time around, however, he dons an urgent, painfully effective rasp, as in “Dilaudid.” Seriously, it’s almost downright Oberstian.

Speaking of “Dilaudid,” that track shows off what might be the best thing about the record, namely the addition of cellist, Erik Friedlander, to the Goats posse. Darnielle’s ode to prescription narcotics and passionate self-destruction is also his “Eleanor Rigby,” and not because it’s a minor-key string workout. Listening to that song is a lot like the chestburster scence from Alien, except that the vile thing that’s chewing its way through your body is going to exit through your heart instead of your stomach.

“Love Love Love” would be just as beautifully heart-rending even if it didn’t namecheck Sonny Liston. I thought I was wistful before I heard that one for the first time today…

Somewhere in there, I went from not having much at all to say, to wanting to tell you about every beautiful detail of this record. I won’t do that, but I will say that you really should seek this out. This is the best record Darnielle and his Goat cohorts have made. Seriously. Lo-Fi Goats “purists” will disagree, but they will be wrong. This is it.

Posted by matt at 11:23 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

April 08, 2005

How Much Rock Can You Take In One Weekend?

Goodness gracious! Oh me, oh my! You don't even want to know how much good stuff there is going on this weekend! Okay, mayhap you do. If so, let me just tell you.

Tonight, Brooklyn's own Detachment Kit are playing at Magnetic Field in Brooklyn for a scant $4! I promise you that that is the deal of a lifetime. Especially when you throw in the second ever performance of The Summer Babes, the keys/bass/drums trio whose pop is so hott that it will melt the Mounds bar that you were hiding in your pocket.

Chances are, you'll be exhausted from all of the MF awesomeness, but be sure to chug some Gatorade or something, because from there, you'll want to go see Sunburned Hand of the Man who are playing a midnight show at the one and only Tonic. (If you fancy a stroll down memory lane, here's something I wrote about SHotM about a year ago.)

Hopefully you'll get some sleep after the Sunburned show. You'll need to rest up so you can prepare yourself for the pop onslaught that is the return of the Sparkle Motion night on Saturday at Magnetic Field. Le Concorde and Eiffel Tower will provide the live musical portion of the entertainment. Francophiles of Brooklyn, unite and rejoice for these are two bands whose names reference the French language or landmarks! Also they play la musique pop. C'est magnifique! After that, DJ French Toast will literally knock your socks off with his massive collection of pop hits through the ages, from the 60s to the nowies. See how French the whole thing is? The best part is that since it's at the Field, you'll know how to get there since you were there on Friday!

Also on Saturday, should you find yourself MF'd out, you could also go see Grizzly Bear at Tonic or Ponies in the Surf at Pete's Candy Store. Saturday rules too hard for my own good.

Posted by matt at 08:01 AM | TrackBack

April 07, 2005

Excepter - Throne

Who doesn't love this band? Maybe a lot of people, but hell, that's their loss. I've been listening to Excepter's last CD, "KA", since December or so, and it just gets better every time I listen to it ('Forget Me' is such a solid jam). Fortunately the band is, like fellow noiseniks Black Dice, relatively prolific, and have a new album coming out later on this month. "Throne" will be released by Load Records (Lightning Bolt, Sightings, among others) on April 26th, and if the recent streams (the band offers mp3s of their live shows for free on their website) are any indication, this new album will waylay you with its awesomeness. And isn't that really what you want from music?

Posted by Kevin at 10:39 PM | TrackBack

Music for the Nice People: Bummery Bummer Edition

Both of these songs are kind of bummers, cos that's the kind of day it is. What's it to ya?

As I mentioned before, I love the hell out of the new Decemberists record. It's got some of their most expansive productions to date, and that's saying quite a bit for them. "Eli, the Barrowboy" isn't one of those numbers. It's a pretty little bare-bones acoustic tune about (near as I can tell) a poor (meaning destitute and lamentable) boy whose lover dies, so he kills himself. Depressing as hell, but characteristically pretty.

It took me a really long time to get into the Grizzly Bear record. Since it's mostly mopey electro-folk, and therefore pretty much right up my alley, that was a little distressing. Eventually though, I managed to fall in love with it. So should you. Unless I miss my guess, "Don't Ask" ought to help you along in that regard.

Oft times, sad musics are good musics.

Posted by matt at 12:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

April 03, 2005

GY!BE sleepover party

Despite rumors that they've broken up (which have been circulating for the past year or so), everyone's favorite vaguely political Montrealian post-rock collective, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, are apparently just taking an extended hiatus, and will re-group some time in the near-to-mid future to record a new album. Here are the quotes from Aidan Girt (one of the two drummers in GY!BE) that were featured on the Godspeed mailing list[courtesy of Phil]: "there are definite plans to get together at some point and record a new album", however, when asked about when exactly that would happen, Aidan responded with, "Oh you know, there are a lot of us in Godspeed and we fight a lot. It's a very long process". So, sounds like we should see another album from them in, say, late spring 2008.

If you want to hear some of the newer stuff GY!BE's been working on, try to slsk the two tracks "Gamelan" (which should come in parts 1 and 2) and "Albanian", both of which are characteristically bombastic and gorgeous.   

Posted by Kevin at 10:57 PM | TrackBack

March 31, 2005

Orange Juice!!

When I saw today on P-frok that Domino was planning on releasing a compilation of Orange Juice's Postcard-era singles and pre-Polydor jams, I just about did a double-take. Only four months prior, I was whining about the lack of available Orange Juice albums, and now, boom, May 17th comes around and you can lay your sweaty hands on an honest-to-god Orange Juice CD. Capitalism comes to the rescue once again. Anyway, if you're curious about what OJ sounded like, I've got two songs (that won't appear on the comp.) up over at Molars.

Posted by Kevin at 11:40 PM | TrackBack

March 29, 2005

Music for the Nice People: Older than Ashton Kutcher, but not as Old as Demi Moore Edition

Psych-folk weirdo, Simon Finn, recorded Pass the Distance in 1970. At the time, (quite literally) nobody noticed. In the intervening decades, it has become encrusted with the approbation of a couple generations of critics and scholars of the psychedelic. That said, even by contemporary out-folk standards, it's still a pretty weird record. Overall, the whole record has the feel of an extended acid casualty version of "Cry Baby Cry." Lyrically, there are plenty of wizards and devils for the Syd Barrett/D&D set, and one good old-fashioned "religion is hypocrisy" number. The nutty stuff comes in the arrangements and in Finn's own voice. His addled, gravelly ramblings swerve around all manner of accompaniment, from genre-standard guitar and flute, to creepy minor key proto-synth organ numbers that anticipate Dario Argento's flim-score work with Goblin (seriously). Given all of that, "Laughing til Tomorrow" is really tame--downright pretty, even.

Humanitarian crises in developing nations and seismic shocks are tragedies. On a smaller scale, the fact that The Left Banke's small but legendary discography is out of print is also a tragedy. Their 1967 debut album on Smash Records, Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina, is a literal masterpiece of pop perfection. The two title tracks, which were the band's only chart hits, were and are monolithic in their impact on smartly orchestrated pop songs. "She May Call You up Tonight" is just as good. We can all do our part to see that There's Gonna Be a Storm, the one-disc anthology of the band's whole body of work, gets a good reissue. Maybe write your congressional representative or something. I dunno.

Posted by matt at 12:08 PM | TrackBack

March 28, 2005

Radiohead - Arpeggi

This is a new Radiohead song that premiered last night at the Ether Festival, in London. It's called 'Arpeggi', and was performed by Jonny Greenwood (on the Ondes Martenot), Thom Yorke, and the Nazareth Orchestra. It's pretty gorgeous. Reactions that I've seen to this song compare it to the works of: Glass, Reich, Riley, et al., which should give you a good idea of what to expect. One can only help that 'Arpeggi' will find its way onto the new album (which they're recording right now). If you want to see some of the lyrics, head on over to the always excellent At Ease, which has the scoop.

Posted by Kevin at 10:40 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

A Public Health Crisis

Dear Readers:

I am writing you this morning to alert you to the existence of a grave threat to our nation's health and well-being. Even in this age of technological innovation and economic prosperity, there are still far too many people suffering from the dread disease of never having heard Lungs of a Giant, known clinically as NoLOAGitis. The real tragedy of this disease is that there are literally billions of people who have it, yet remain undiagnosed. Symptoms include not dancing enough, dangerously low levels of catchy as hell avant-rock, and insufficient joy.

The best treatment for NoLOAGitis is to see Lungs of a Giant live. I got an awesome LOAG booster shot on Saturday night at Magnetic Field...

Actually, if it's all the same to you, I think I'll put the medical thing on hold for a minute. So yeah, LOAG were awesome and don't let them tell you otherwise. "Computer Rod" (aka "the hot new jam") was predictably awesome, and the old chestnuts were thoroughly roasted on an open fire. All in all, it was vintage LOAG. Glee abounded. You should've been there.

The bill was ably supported by Of The Between's primal post-punk thump, and by The Collisions from Boston who go out of their way to put the "power" in power pop.

Don't let NoLOAGitis debilitate you or your loved ones. Make plans today to see a LOAG show, or get some music from their website. Also, don't try to call in sick for work saying you have NoLOAGitis. Trust me, it's bad news.

Sincerely,
Dr. g. ideas.

Posted by matt at 11:14 AM | TrackBack

March 25, 2005

Cold Lamping

I don't go to many hip hop shows. Last night's Perceptionists show at the Bowery Ballroom alternately reminded me why that is, and chastened me for not going to more.

Edan the DJ made a respectable showing on the decks to start things off. Before the next billed act, there were a couple of sub-par MCs, one of whom was this Irish guy who dropped an a capella verse that could've been from Bono's "A Very Hip-Hop Christmas" benefit for Argentine debt-relief. I'm sorry, but Irish hip-hop=House of Pain. It will evermore be thus.

On C-Rayz Walz and 4 Pyramid: meh. But there was a nice surprise before the main event when EDO G, a legend of Boston hip-hop, made a quick cameo.

Then there were The Perceptionists. Sweet, sweet perceptionists. No less than Mr. Lif, Akrobatik, and DJ Fakts One repping hard for Boston (Fakts was wearing an emeffing Spankees hat, but it didn't seem to affect his beats, so I let it slide). I love Lif, and this was my first time seeing him, so that was huge. He was so sick live. He didn't fall back on his sometimes deliberate (but spry) cadence that he sometimes uses on record. Instead, he was spitting almost like a dancehall caller. Anyway, it was hot. Also, Lif and Ak managed to namecheck Hellraiser, The Re-Animator, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and fucking Tranzor Z, for god's sake. Oh, and Aesop Rock made an appearance, so that was awesome.

As is customary at Lif shows, the night ended with a group freestyle. I'll say this: almost everybody who gave a lackluster performance earlier in the evening made up for it with a strong showing in the cipher.

So yeah, if we could've cut the fat out of the middle, the whole show would've been hot. As it was, the C-Rayz set kind of dragged the whole thing down a couple of notches. Nonetheless, I can't wait to pick up the Perceptionists record. Also, it was a nice night out with my tru kru of Boston ex-pats.

Posted by matt at 10:28 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 24, 2005

Oneida's the Wedding

From what I've heard of this album, it's going to be so deliriously good. Jagjaguwar talks about how "Oneida came up with the idea for The Wedding in early 2001, and immediately began building the largest music box on the east coast of the United States. Built of plywood, salvaged marine pilings, industrial motor parts and over seventy saw blades, the hand-cranked behemoth was assembled in the warehouse loading dock that’s also home to the Vale of Tears, Oneida’s own recording studio. By hammering nails and spikes into the cylindrical pilings at carefully mapped intervals, and rotating the pilings through thickets of variably-tensioned saw blades, Oneida created and recorded unearthly tones and melodies; these were subsequently used as the basis for a series of melancholy, yearning songs that now see the light of day as The Wedding".

The songs 'Charlemagne' and 'the Eiger' are unbelievably pretty- seek them out if you can. Also, the band is playing a (very) few dates in the next month, so go out and see them play their new dark Rococo pop.

04/01 Brookline, MA - Brookline Community Center for the Arts
04/02 Portland, ME - Space Gallery
04/16 New York, NY - Knitting Factory w/Magnolia Electric Co.

Posted by Kevin at 11:18 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Parlez Vous Rock?

It's a world gone mad, folks. The EU economy is on a steady decline, but passing reforms is politically impossible ahead of Germany's and France's national referendums on the EU constitutional treaty. The US Dollar buys more today than it did everywhere else in the world this time last week, but much less here at home. Also, I just saw a commercial where a monkey dressed like a doctor delievered a human baby in the backseat of a new Toyota.

How to get by in these fractious times? By listening to loud(=good) rock and roll music, obvs. But where to do that? Friends, believe me when I tell you that all the hott roxx this weekend are at Mangetic Field. Tomorrow (Friday) night will see the powerhouse rock stylings of Throw Rag, hot off the heels of their sold out Irving Plaza Webster Hall (d'oh!) show with Queens of the Stone Age, and the triumphant return of Brooklyn's own Brought Low.

Now, most weekends, The Brought Low would be the clear highlight of whatever was going on. But when you add a Lungs of a Giant, the excitement in this boy's heart reaches a fever pitch. If you don't know LOAG, I encourage you to come get acquainted on Saturday (and to browse the greenideas music archive for a heapin' helpin' of LOAGy goodness). The show also features the debut of Of the Between, and the MF return of Boston's The Collisions. Most importantly however, LOAG will unveil the awesome power of the computer rod.

It's all happening this weekend, and it's all at Magnetic Field. Check it out, won't you?

Posted by matt at 11:41 AM | TrackBack

March 22, 2005

Kompaktvolk/WSB/NS

For those of you whose mouths water at the sight of a used Pop Ambient 200X CD, you'll be happy to know that Kompakt has opened up their own mp3 store, located right here. Nice things about this: you can download tracks that were previously available only on vinyl, and you can download absolutely everything from their back catalogue (you can also preview tracks before buying them). Bad thing about this: it's obscenely expensive. Worth it for those hard-to-find or previously format-difficult tracks, but overall it's a little pricey.

Second item- William Bowers, of Pitchfork and Magnet fame, has a blog called (what else) Puritan Blister. It's got a lot of (good) mp3s, and, obviously, a lot of Bowers' prose (also good). He's always been, in my opinion, one of the strongest writers on P-fork, stylistically speaking (check out his review featuring the excellent portmanteau 'godka'). If that's not your speed, then check out Nick Sylvester's (who's another great prose stylist) fantastic fake-interview-centric blog, Riff Central (also feat. mp3s). Hilarious. 

Posted by Kevin at 10:15 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Music for the Nice People:
Pop Pop Rockin' Edition

I'm in a great mood today. That's why, this week, I'm officially taking a break from all things experimental and challenging, and charting a course for poppier shores. To wit, here are a couple of shiny pop confections to get you tapping your toes and... whatever else you do when you hear catchy songs.

Ken Stringfellow is like some kind of pop music machine. It's like, you flip a switch, and he just churns out one perfect song after another. It's almost unnerving... almost. "You Drew" is the lead track from last year's excellent Soft Commands (I tried to pick a song from 2001's Touched, which is even better, but I literally couldn't choose just one track from that olympian collection of poppy goodness). What's the best thing about this song? Is it the insane hook? Is it Stringfellow's Flying Wallendas vocal agility? Hell if I know. What I do know is that the half-life of this song is such that, if you listen to it, it will be in your head for about 75 years after you're dead.

Who likes Erlend Oye? This guy. Me. That's who. I've been listening incessantly to his electro-pop stuff (Unrest, and his stellar DJ Kicks comp) these last couple of weeks. "I'd Rather Dance with You" from the last Kings of Convenience full-length, Riot on an Empty Street, isn't electro-pop at all, but it might as well be. Did you know that you could make a disco song using only acoustic instruments and a couple of Norwegians? Neither did I, but this song proves it's possible. Possible and awesome. When the inevitable Riot remix album comes out, I dearly hope that whoever gets this track has the good sense to not do a damn thing to it or to demolish it beyond recognition.

Posted by matt at 11:15 AM | TrackBack

March 21, 2005

Belle & Sebastian & Old Wounds

As mentioned earlier, Belle & Sebastian have been working on compiling all their Jeepster-era singles and EPs into one conveniently bite-sized package, and now that package has a name and a release date: "Push Barman to Open Old Wounds", out on Matador on May 24th. Contrary to my previous and spurious reporting, the compilation will not be a vinyl-only release, but will be unleashed in deluxe CD and vinyl formats, as well as a standard jewel case 2CD edition. Check out the tracklisting on this beast:

CD1
Dog On Wheels
The State I Am In
String Bean Jean
Belle and Sebastian
Lazy Line Painter Jane
You Made Me Forget My Dreams
A Century Of Elvis
Photo Jenny
A Century Of Fakers
Le Pastie De La Bourgeoisie
Beautiful
Put The Book Back On The Shelf

CD2
This Is Just A Modern Rock Song
I Know Where The Summer Goes
The Gate
Slow Graffiti
Legal Man
Judy Is A Dickslap
Winter Wooskie
Jonathan David
Take Your Carriage Clock And Shove It
The Loneliness Of The Middle Distance Runner
I'm Waking Up To Us
I Love My Car
Marx & Engels

It's a shame that they decided to go with the purely chronological arrangement, as it would have been fun to hear a band-sequenced collection of non-album material, particularly since some of these songs are 10 years old (or older, maybe). Regardless, it'll be nice to have them all in one place.

Posted by Kevin at 10:29 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Boston Comes to You

I don't know about you guys, but when I hear that Lovers are going on tour with Soltero, my first response is to say: "yippie!" These two powerhouses of Boston indiedom will be hitting the road in May for a tour of the eastern seaboard as well as many places to the west of the eastern seaboard. The dates are all set, but I'm not going to give them to you yet. You might be saying: "What?! Fuck you, man! You may be a strikingly handsome man, and a brilliant writer to boot, but that's some shit right there." Settle down, friend. The dates are set, but the venues aren't necessarily so. Rest assured that I'll be all over this like flies on fly food.

In case you don't know Soltero, here's what the critics are saying:

"[Soltero are] like what would happen if Pavement had applied themselves"
-Matt Henry, Northeast Performer

As far as Lovers go, try this one on for size:

"Holy jumping Jesus! We love Lovers so fucking hard"
-Matt Henry, greenideas

If you want to know what critics who aren't me are saying, you'll have to find that out on your own. What do you need other critics for, anyway? Just a minute ago you were talking about how handsome I am and how I'm a great writer. It's always hot and cold with you isn't it?

Posted by matt at 02:25 PM | TrackBack

Review: The Decemberists - Picaresque

Mein gott in himmel. I love The Decemberists. I am truly, madly, and deeply in love with every note they've been so gracious as to commit to magnetic tape. I'm very happy to report that that already consuming affection is only intensified by Picaresque (buy it). It's like every other Decemberists record, but moreso. Join me on the lazy river of elaboration, won't you?

A picaresque novel is one that features a sort of roguish anti-hero embarking on a series of (mis)adventures and living by his/her wits alone. So, the obvious question that presents itself is: why did it take the band this long to use that term as an album title? On previous outings, Meloy & Co. have given us tales of lamenting legionnaires, whoring mothers, gypsy uncles, and lascivious mail clerks, to name but a few. Sure enough, Picaresque continues in that grand storytelling tradition with a vengeful mariner, a broke barrowboy, and a couple of serious threats to homeland security. Essentially, this is all to say that there aren't really any serious stylistic deviations from earlier efforts, at least as far as the writing goes.

So what about the music? I'm happy to report that not much has changed there either. Basically, if you've liked everything else they've done, you're going to freaking love Picaresque. Of course, such a non-review is cheating, so here's what's actually going on: The Decemberists have proven over and over again that they're equally adept at bombast and balladry. Epic rockers give way to equally epic, intimate idylls. Then there's usually a mazurka, and the whole thing starts again. This record is no different, save for the fact that everything is kicked up a notch or two (1 notch = 3.5 kilosmidgens).   

All of that said, there aren't any songs on this record that I find as deeply affecting on a personal level as I found "Red Right Ankle" from Her Majesty, The Decemberists (buy it), which is one of the best songs ever written and has yet to not break my heart in the best possible way on every listen. But somehow, that stops mattering when the harmonies kick in during the chorus to "We Both Go Down Together." By the time "The Bagman's Gambit" reaches its narrative and sonic apex, I'm like a bored housewife with a tattered, Fabio-adorned romance novel, with all of the gross things that implies. I simply can't believe it's not butter.

In short, it's a Decemberists record through and through. Longtime devotees should rejoice in every note, and newcomers will cast off the ugly, dried husks of their former pre-Decemberists-fan lives and look forward to a glorious hyper-literate tomorrow.

[Ed note: I'm forever indebted to rachis for getting this joint to me while I was in Miami. Props upon props. To the band: I'll buy a legit copy tomorrow, I promise.]

Posted by matt at 12:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 15, 2005

Jane: not the women's magazine

Some news from Paw Tracks, the Animal Collective-run label: Jane (Noah Lennox/Panda Bear and Scott Mou), who last year released a CD-R called "Paradise", are finally putting out their debut (in May), entitled "Berserker". If any of you were lucky enough to get your sweaty hands on Hisham Bharoocha's excellent "They Keep Me Smiling" comp. last year (available from Uunited Acoustic Recording), then you'll have heard the (probable) title track of this upcoming dark groove juggernaut. This is what Noah himself had to say about it (paraphrased): " ...of course we like all kinds of other stuff too but its the dance that gets us going on jane...we liked all the mechanical robo dance jams from detroit and chicago and germany but we wanted to do something with less 0s and 1s and more souls. mostly it was about hanging out together and talking and playing music that was about talking together and hanging out and thinking and feeling and having fun and dancing most of all."

This record is bound to be amazing- given Panda Bear's voice + Scott Mou's hot-a-tot DJing skills, there's almost no way "Berserker" can be less than fantastic.

Posted by Kevin at 08:00 AM | TrackBack

March 14, 2005

Music for the Nice People:
Beach Bumming Edition

Hey, gang. Given the heaps of praise I was piling on Van Dyke Parks the other day and my being here at the beach, it only seemed appropriate to share one of Mr. Parks's and Brian Wilson's better collaborations with you guys. "Cabinessence" was originally intended to be part of Wilson's ill-fated magnum opus, Smile. That project never saw the light of day until last year, but some of the songs made it onto various Beach Boys records through the years. This version of "Cabinessence," from 1969's 20/20, beats the hell out of the recently recorded one.

Speaking of The Beach Boys, Christian Fennesz, the Austrian laptop virtuoso, made a whole record that paid homage to the Wilson clan. Before that, though, he did this interpretation of "Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)" on his Plays EP. It's clearly very far from a cover, though. What it is is all kinds of awesome. It was around this period in his career that Fennesz really came into his own by pioneering the use of melody in laptop composition, and that is wholly evident on this track.

Enjoy this stuff, and I'll see you tomorrow.

Posted by matt at 08:54 PM | TrackBack

March 13, 2005

Mustard Gas & Roses

I love it when people we write about here get in touch with us. So I was just tickled when Tim from Sweet Billy Pilgrim dropped me a note to let me know that he's got his very own weblog. If you recall, SBP made a contribution to the outstanding album of David Sylvian remixes (which I wrote about here). Go check out the blog, and avail yourself of the bounty of downloadable goodies.

Posted by matt at 10:18 PM | TrackBack

March 11, 2005

Reviews from the Vault: Van Dyke Parks - Song Cycle

It's hard enough to keep up with all of the great new music coming out these days. When you add the responsibility of having to learn about all of the hott jamz of yesteryear, the whole thing can seem a little unwieldy. Kev and I are here to help. We'll periodically be posting reviews of some great old records that you may not have heard. Starting... now.

Van Dyke Parks is probably best known for collaborating with Brian Wilson on a lot of the later Beach Boys projects, including Smile (Indeed, he even showed up on the version of that record that was just released). He's also been sort of a gun for hire, creating string arrangements for such diverse acts as Ry Cooder, Rufus Wainwright, The Divinyls (no, really), and tons more (ask me sometime why Jim O'Rourke is today's Van Dyke Parks). But above all, he deserves credit for his small but brilliant body of early solo recordings.

Song Cycle was released in 1968, and had the dubious distinction of being the worst selling record in Warner Bros.'s history until that point. In fact, WB offered a promotion where you could get the record for a dollar if you bought any of their other releases. As is so often the case, however, Song Cycle's commercial fortunes were not remotely indicative of the product's aesthetic value. Indeed, listening to it today, it nearly defies explanation how forward thinking Parks's opus was. It's really no wonder that nobody wanted to hear it back then.

Stylistically, Song Cycle is a seamless tapestry of a wide variety of seemingly incommensurable elements. Most of the album is covered in heavy reverb, which doesn't make it as "psychedelic" as it does just generally dream-like. That blanket of echo binds together Tin Pan Alley pop, Light Opera, traditional American folk, tape compositions, and  Debussey-style impressionism into a beautifully coherent whole.

The theme of the record is very much an exploration of the American experience (unsurprisingly, its follow-up, Discover America, which incorporated the traditional music of Trinidad, covered similar thematic ground). "Vine Street," which begins the record, is as lyrical a portrait of youth as any that the romantic poets could've constructed. "Palm Desert" compares the Golden Age of Hollywood with the Old West. The juxtaposition of country and city life in "All Golden" is a lucidly dreaming critique of progress and urbanization.

There have been maybe a small handful of albums in the history of recording that brim this full with ideas, both musical and social. Personally, I can honestly say that there aren't more than one or two other records that I find so purely exhilarating to listen to. This record is a genuine, unqualified masterpiece. If you're not familiar with it, by all means make every effort to become so. Even if it turns out to not be your thing, it's a record that must be engaged by anyone who cares at all about the power of expression in song. Van Dyke Parks is an American genius, and his contributions to the country's aesthetic heritage must be recognized.

Posted by matt at 10:31 AM | TrackBack

A Shout and some Murmurs

Jon from Slatch (a great site) has started up a new venture, and it's very cool indeed: Tiny Showcase has small-run (and small-sized) prints for sale for about the price of a CD. All original artwork (they'll be accepting submissions from the public soon) and printed on some insanely nice paper, these pieces are definitely worthy of your attention. Stop by if you get the chance- check out Jon's fantastic 'Mr. Doggie gets a job' and Shea'la Finch's badass 'Blue Mussel'.

And now for some music gossip-

Thom Yorke stopped by the Radiohead message board and announced that they've started working again. Hopefully that means 'working on a new release', and not just, you know, hanging out on the farm, putting up some fences, working out, jogging in the countryside, etc. [via the always excellent Greenplastic]

Goldkixx evidently did some hard-journalism or has some nice connections, because they found out both the title and release date for Sunset Rubdown's (Spencer from Wolf Parade) forthcoming Global Symphonic release: "Snake's Got A Leg", out on June 21st 14th.

Finally, Belle & Sebastian are preparing a compilation of all their old Jeepster singles, to be released in the near future (they're finishing the artwork now, apparently). No tracklist or release date is available, or even what label it's being released on (maybe Jeepster?). Stuart Murdoch mentioned in his diary that it'll most likely be a triple-LP (i.e. vinyl only). Also, according to an interview this past summer with Chris Geddes (keyboards), the band hopes to compile all their radio sessions and release those sometime around when the singles comp. is available. B&S are on a roll.

Posted by Kevin at 09:04 AM | TrackBack

March 10, 2005

Lungs of a Giant -- The greenideas Interview

I have this thing where I totally love Lungs of a Giant. That's why I was very excited to sit down and talk with them last Sunday at Magnetic Field. We talked music, politics, psychology, and at some point the sentence "he gave us his best wishes in exploiting his little doodle" is uttered.

See how it all went down after the jump.

greenideas: Okay, just so you guys know, I'm not going to go easy on you here. I'm totally gonna go   all Barbara Walters and try to get you to cry.

Greg Harrsion: [Putting on his best, most sensitive interviewer voice] "When your father touched  you..."

Erin Finnerty: [Laughs] Eeeewww

g: So, since this is my first interview, I thought I'd just get this out of the way: If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?

Chris Belz: One of those Obi-Wan trees.

GH: Ginko, you mean?

g: The smelly ones?

EF: [Laughs]

CB: No, Obi-Wan.

EF: I'm gonna say birch. I don't know why.

Paul Watling: I don't know, uh... the uh... Apple!

EF: Oh, I like that. I was thinking Norwegian furniture when I answered.

PW: Yeah, we're totally an apple tree.

g: So Arbor Day is coming up on April 29th. What are your plans?

CB: I'll be in a library.

EF: I'll be in a library, but then I'll plant a tree.

GH: I'm going to climb a tree!

g: Your logo/mascot was designed by James Kochalka of Sketchbook Diaries and American Elf. How did that come about?

GH: We were covering "Monkey vs. Robot" at the time.

CB: That's right. He's got this really good song called "Monkey vs. Robot" that [W]FMU was playing on their Saturday morning children's show.

GH: So we started covering it, and I wrote him a letter telling him that we were covering it, and that we hear him all the time on FMU. And I asked for, like, a doodle that we could put on flyers or something, so he sent back that little guy, like, an inch square on a postcard.

EF: [Laughs] Then you exploited it.

GH: (Smarmily) "Oh yeah, we hang with James all the time." Then we made a t-shirt out of it. Yeah, he gave us his best wishes in exploiting his little doodle.

PW: I think we've made, what, 18 dollars off of those things?

GH: And James hasn't seen a dime of it! But I subscribe to American Elf.

CB: I do too.

PW: I use [Chris's] password. I hope James doesn't hear about that.

g: Does the little guy have a name?

PW: Nubby?

GH: Nubby. At the time, there were six Lungs, and he's got six nubs: two for arms and two on his head. But now I guess we can just go with the four on his head.

g: If I told you that I love you, how would that make you feel?

GH: Sweaty.

EF: If I said "warm & fuzzy," I wouldn't be sure if it was that or the liquor.

g: If I had nickel for every time I heard that...

CB: I would feel attended to.

g: It's cool. I'm gonna be a little coy--play my cards close to my chest. So, is there a consensus with you guys, do you have a favorite LOAG song?

EF: We're pretty fickle. It's always the new song.

GH: What's everybody's favorite ever?

PW: I do miss playing "Texecution Bloos"

GH: Well that was our radio single, in that it was played on the radio one time.

[Chuckles abound]

g: So can you walk me through the songwriting process?

GH: That's a Paul question.

CB: A riff walks in...

PW: Three riffs walk into a bar...

PW: I usually come in with an idea. Sometimes it's pretty fleshed-out, and sometimes it's not. And either way, it's gotta go through the [Paul whistles, and gestures towards everyone in the band], and come out with what it is. Otherwise it wouldn't be a LOAG song. But I usually get the ball rolling.

g: You guys play with what used to be Nimbus and is now Dentist/Dentista all the time. How did you guys get to know them?

GH: Yeah. I went to school in Scranton, PA. And my old band--I think we played with them maybe once. They were, like, the other band in Scranton. There's, like, four thousand punk bands with two-word names, like "Ignorant Abundance" [everybody laughs].

EF: Plus Eileen [from D/D] is smokin' hot.

GH: Then we moved back here, and they played a couple of times around here, and I made these guys go see them. I was like "these guys are awesome." Then they moved to Brooklyn, and we asked them out. They said "yes."

EF: They became our boyfriend/girlfriend band.

CB: Then we started getting gigs at The Charleston, and we were like "Ooh ooh, we know some bands we want to play with!"

PW: Yeah, we always had such a good time playing together, we eventually ended up hanging out, drinking, watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force at their place. Then we stayed for non-sexual breakfast.

g: Are there any other bands you guys really like playing with?

PW: The Sick Passengers.

EF: Oh yeah, The Sick Passengers. We're going Round 2 with The Collisions here on the 26th, they were fun.

PW: We're really crotchety when it comes to other bands. At least I am.

[Ed note: LOAG asked me to make a tiny addendum here, so here's Chris: "I only remembered after we left: we do so love a friend of ours who makes lovely modern cowgirl music named Lys Guillorn who plays in CT and NYC every so often (and has a few shows in March/April)"]

g: Do you have any best/worst show/road stories?

CB: Connecticut, with the mosquitos.

PW: Yeah, we played at a friend's wedding in Connecticut. They wanted to have a non-traditional wedding. The mosquitos were so bad, and it was such a weird vibe with the, like, avant-art-rock, that we just ran for the beach when we finished playing.

GH: At the end, all of our arms were covered in blood. You'd be playing, and you'd see three mosquitos on your arm and you'd be like [swatting & growling].

PW: The least-attended show was that show at Galapagos at Midnight on a Wednesday. I think, like, Erin and Jim and Chris Stubbs were there. It was a learning experience though. It's like, you don't need people to rock. When you rock for the three people in the crowd, that's cool.

GH: Yeah, if Jim and Erin and Chris Stubbs show up, they paid their five dollars!

EF: Yeah, before I was in the band, I went to every single show. I think I missed maybe two in the last five year history.

g: So was it a dream come true for you to actually get to be in the band?

EF: Pretty close to it. Actually, the timing was kind of hilarious. I was hanging out with these guys, like, constantly, and I think I made some semi-drunk proposal to Ted about being in the band, and he made some hilarious comment about only having one hen in the henhouse [ed note: Hannah Cabell was in the band at the time]. But then I moved back home after grad school, I started looking into buying a house. And of course after I decided to buy a house, I'm going to settle down in central New Jersey, Greg's like "You wanna be in the band?" And I'm like "Alright, your timing's a little off, I have to work full time and have a house and everything, but sure. What the fuck, I'll do it." But it's awesome. I love it.

GH: Yeah, and Erin saved us.

EF: It's great, of course it led to my relationship with Dentist/Dentista [ed note: Erin now sings back-up vox in D/D]. So my life completely changed. My boyfriend hates me. It's great.

g: So Chris, you're studying psychology. Do you ever play band therapist like in that Metallica movie?

CB: Yes. Not as often with this band, but just this morning I was giving Ted from Dentist/Dentista some pointers on getting more communication going--

EF: [laughs]

CB: --and, like, making the roles of the band members explicit.

EF: With us, it's natural. Like we have kind of naturally defined roles.

GH: Plus we're all flawless, which helps.

[Everybody laughs at Greg's humorousness]

g: So who's the craziest in the band?

CB: Hmm... Paul. Paul is the weak link.

g: Not like I have to ask after that, but who's the funny one?

EF: I don't know. I'm the zany cheerleader always eatin' food. [to Paul] What's your role in the band, Papa Bear?

PW: My role in the band is... [wagging his finger] stern disciplinarian.

g: My roommate wants to know what you think about tax policy, as I'm sure all the voters out there do. How do you feel about the Bush administration’s push away from payroll-based tax towards a consumption-based tax? Would you say that the proportion of the tax burden that would be shouldered by low-income workers under such a proposal would be unfair?

CB: We should be eating the rich. Not the other way around.

GH: I heard something on NPR about it, but I couldn't spit it out as my own.

PW: The only thing I would wonder is about which one would be easier for rich people to weasel out of. I mean, they both have their loopholes.

EF: No, I'm gonna say LOAG is against consumption-based tax!

g: Beautiful. Who do you think would win in a fight, Richard Nixon or Mao Tse-Tung?

CB: I think I've got to go with Mao Tse-Tung. Nixon had those jowls.

g: Mao was pretty jowly, too.

GH: I think Mao was proabably more fit--that whole worker thing.

g: What about the 1978 Boston Red Sox vs. Socialism?

GH: Was Yaz on that team.

g: Yeah, and Pudge Fisk.

CB: Well, Socialism has a chip on its shoulder.

GH: But so do the Red Sox. I think I'd have to go with the Red Sox.

PW: Never underestimate the power of mutton chops.

[Exeunt, flourish]

Go see Lungs of a Giant at Magnetic Field on Saturday, March 26th. Also, go see them at other places at other times.

Posted by matt at 10:42 AM | TrackBack

March 07, 2005

Know your Pernice

Man, I am a bad, bad Pernice Bros. fanatic. I haven't mentioned anything about them in months--not even to say how awesome the live album and DVD are. Well, it's high time to make up for that.

For starters, the new studio full-length has, not just a title, but a bona fide release date! Discover a Lovelier You will hit stores June 14th, thanks to the good people at Ashmont Records. Before that, though, you can catch a Joe Pernice solo live show--that is, if you live in London, Toronto, or New York. Luckily, I live in at least one of those places. so god knows I'll be there. Here are the dates:

April 4 - Borderline, London
April 30 - Mercury Lounge, NYC
May 5 - Horseshoe, Toronto

Also, here's a little chestnut from Ashmont honcho, Joyce Linehan that comes via the Pernice Bros. e-mail list:

OK, here's what happened - Joe was in LA working on the new record. He and the genius known as Ric Menck were dining at Art's Delicatessen in Studio City. Joe spied Ed Asner, who was headed to the cash register at the same time as Joe and Ric.  As they all approached, the cashier said, "I'm a big fan of your music." Joe turned to Asner and said, "you play music?" Then Joe realized the cashier was talking to him, not Asner.

Hi-larious! Lastly, a couple of words on Nobody's Listening/Nobody's Watching, the live album and DVD. Okay, for starters, they're awesome. The DVD is probably less awesome if you're not a rabid fan, since tour footage isn't always the most exhilarating thing to watch for non-diehards. As it happens, I am a rabid fan, so I'm just guessing. Anyway, the music videos are pretty hot. As for the CD, it's really, really good. I've seen The Pernice Bros. a good five or six times (including the shows at which the live album recordings were made), and they've never managed to disappoint. The fantastic performances from those two nights at the Mercury Lounge are lovingly and faithfully reproduced in all of their poppy brilliance. So very highly recommended.

Gah, so good!

Posted by matt at 03:11 PM | TrackBack

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

Well whaddya know? Just days after I publicly inquired as to just what the hell was going on with the next installment of Sufjan Stevens's 50 States project, Pitchfork has got the goods. I'll let you scoot on over there to see the whole deal, but the important thing is that Illinois should be out on July 5th.

Since that seemed to work pretty well, here's an open letter to my Fairy Godmother:

Dear Fairy Godmother:
When can I expect to receive a large sum of money, a full-length collaboration between Phil Elv(e)rum and Jim O'Rourke, and a date with Mary-Louise Parker? Just wondering.
Luv,
-matt

It's just a matter of time now...

Posted by matt at 11:40 AM | TrackBack

The Joy and The Pain

The Joy is mine, since I went to see Me You Duo, P.G. Six, and Six Organs of Admittance at Tonic last Friday. The Pain is yours if you didn't (Unfortunately, it's a little bit mine, too, since I got a little too drunk and had to take off not that long into the Six Organs set).

Me You Duo (for the night anyway) was Tim Barnes and Chris Corsano, both on drums and percussion. Their kits were set up on the floor of the club, and they played them with characteristic proficiency and zeal. If you like great drumming, then you would've loved this since that's pretty much all it was. I happen to like great drumming (especially compared to not-so-great drumming), so it was a-pretty-pretty good.

P.G. Six were effing great. Tim Barnes, with whom Pat Gubler plays in Tower Recordings, was back behind the kit pulling double duty for the night. Despite the preponderance of TR-affiliates onstage (a two-man preponderance, but a preponderance nonetheless), there was little free-folking going on. Indeed, the set didn't even include much if any of the band's characteristic anglophile psych-folk stylings. Rather, they seemed to be mining similar territory as early Songs:Ohia (e.g. The Lioness, Ghost Tropic), but doing so to considerable effect. I love the hell out of S:O, so you won't hear me complaining. Still, it was a little surprising to not hear one note of recorder.

What little I saw of Six Organs of Admittance was great. The only time I'd seen Six Organs before, it was Ben Chasny solo, performing his Fahey-/Basho-style acoustic picking. On Friday, however, he had a full band. Actually, they were doing kind of similar stuff to what P.G. Six had just done. But, as I said, the spirits had taken ahold of me by then so I had to split soon after they started.

At any rate, it was obviously the cool show to see that night as evidenced by the fact that Thurston and Kim were in attendance. As it happened, Kim Gordon made me spill whiskey on myself and didn't say 'excuse me,'  so I fully intend to illegally download the next Sonic Youth record... oh, I can't do that, if for no other reason than it'd be taking food off of Jim O'Rourke's table.

Special thanks for the evening go to Sal's Pizza of Court St. for the delicious slices that somewhat ameliorated my unfortunate condition and to my Brita filter for the big glass of water when I got home.

Posted by matt at 10:11 AM | TrackBack

March 03, 2005

Thursday Music - Wintry Mix Edition

Let's be honest. We love winter. We don't get all sweaty and gross all the time, and we look fucking hot in sweaters. But winter has officially gone too far this year. In an effort to appease the mighty Zephyr and get this whole Spring show on the road, we've got three little chestnuts called "The Blizzard of 'XX." They're all good songs from New York bands, and they were all recorded within a year of each other. Apparently there was some kind of weird zeitgeist in the city at the time.

The Walkmen made a song called "The Blizzard of '96" and put it on their debut long-player, Everyone who Pretended to Like Me is Gone. The whole record is coated in a super-dry reverb, which gives the whole thing a really unique sepia-toned daguerrotype feel to it. This song is probably the best example of that.

Remember Nada Surf? They had that song "Popular." It was on MTV, and we're sure they'll be really happy that we're pointing that out (again). Anyway, they've subsequently made some really solid pop songs, of which "The Blizzard of '77" is one. It was on the This is Next Year comp that came out back in 2000 which showcased a lot of the bands that were going to be part of the Brooklyn World Domination campaign that began in 2001 (Interpol, Les Savy Fav, Enon, The Walkmen, and so, so many more).

Ida's "Blizzard of '78" is from The Braille Night, the Amnesiac to Will You Find Me's Kid A. Both records came from the same sessions, and both were really, really good, but WYFM was way better. This song is the clear standout from TBN and worked like a charm on mixtapes, back when we used to want mixtapes to work like charms.

Posted by matt at 02:17 PM | TrackBack

March 02, 2005

And You Don't Stop

Has it been too long since you've listened to Madvillainy? If so, go ahead and put it on right now. It's still pretty hott. We promise.

Posted by matt at 03:50 PM | TrackBack

Things to do that Involve Rocking Out

Oh yes. In the next couple of days, there are some happenings happening, events even.

Tomorrow night at Royal Oak (594 Union Ave. Wmsburg), Dentist/Dentista (formerly Nimbus) will be electro-rocking the proverbial house. While we'll definitely miss Liz Kennedy on bass, we're all kinds of psyched to see the new Nimbus/Lungs of a Giant hybrid line-up which features one whole member of LOAG and one whole significant other of a whole member of LOAG. Also, Dentist/Dentista now has a real live drummer on a real live drum kit in addition to a real live drummer on a synth drum kit. It's going to be a monster of a show. We can't wait.

On Friday we are so going to see Me You Duo, Six Organs of Admittance, and P.G. Six at Tonic. We've gone on at some length about Six Organs in the past, so we'll just mention (for those who don't already know) that P.G. Six is Pat Gubler from Tower Recordings, and Me You Duo is Tim Barnes (also occasionally of Tower Recordings) and Chris Corsano (of pretty much everything). We've been waiting for fucking ever to see this show, and we're sure you all were too, even if you didn't really know it. We expect it to be revelatory.

Also, speaking as we were of LOAG, you can expect the interview we promised to show up some time next week. All that's left to do now is learn how to conduct an interview, and then to conduct the interview.

Posted by matt at 10:57 AM | TrackBack

An Open Letter to Sufjan Stevens

Dear Mr. Stevens:

Long-time listener, first-time open letter writer. Last night, I was listing to Greetings from Michigan for the first time in a while, and while I was totally into it, I started despairing of ever hearing the next album in your 50 states project. Don't get me wrong, I loved Seven Swans, but that came out, like, a year ago, and it wasn't even part of the whole America dealie. I've really enjoyed the song about the 50 states project whenever I've heard it live, and the thing you do with the national anthem is hell of solid. But you need to get your head in the game here, dogg.

Maybe it's time to reevaluate your timetable for this whole thing. I mean, there are something like 50 states (give or take), so if you put out two records a year (ambitious by any standard, but especially if you want them to all be as awesome as Michigan) you're looking at a solid 25 year investment. My point is just that it's prolly time to get this show on the road.

Also, I love you.

XXOO
-MH

Posted by matt at 09:32 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 01, 2005

Liars update and Aleksandar Hemon

Aleksandar Hemon, author of the story collection "The Question of Bruno" and the novel "Nowhere Man", has a new story out in the February 28th issue of the New Yorker (pg. 70, people), called 'The Conductor'. As with many of Hemon's stories, this one assumes an almost autobiographical tone, relating the narrator's struggle to write poetry (well) and his interactions with a writer's circle in his native Sarajevo (and also his encounter with one of the authors from said circle, post-war, in the States). Hemon is one of my favorite writers, and the comparisons to Nabokov that get thrown around in regard to Hemon's style are well warranted. With sentences like this: "his eyebrows looked like little hirsute comets", it's difficult to believe that the man spoke no English when he came to the country in 1992. Read 'The Conductor' if you get the chance.

And Liars finally updated their news section with some reports of the new album that has been forthcoming since a few months ago. Here's what Aaron Hemphill (guitarist, sometimes drummer) had to say: "It's been a while since there has been any news....We finished recording again. For a fun game, scroll down the news section and see how many times we've "finished recording again"! There's no way I'm even going to guess if/when Mute will release it, so pretend I never said anything. Thanks alot to all the great people we spent time with in Italy. More tour dates soon."

Sounds like it could be a long wait for the follow-up to They Were Wrong...

Posted by Kevin at 11:23 PM | TrackBack

(Homestar) Running with the Wolves

Granted, it took exactly no time at all for last night's snow to get really gross. Nonetheless, today is a freakin' sweet day to be in New York City. Here's why:

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Matt Sweeney are doing a one-day whirlwind tour of the city's record stores to promote their Superwolf album and to gear up for their proper US tour. Here's the itinerary:

1:00 - Sound Fix (110 Bedford Ave, Wmsburg)
3:00 - Kim's Mediaopolis (2906 B'way)
5:00 - Bulit by Wendy (7 Centre Market Place)
7:00 - Mondo Kim's (6 St. Mark's Place)
9:00 - Other Music (15 E. 4th St.)

Of course, if you're like us, you're not going to be able to make all of these shows, because you'll be taking a break at around 6PM to see none other than The Brothers Chaps, creators of Homestarrunner.com at NYU's Shorin Performance Center, in the Kimmel Building's 8th floor. It's $3 if you go to NYU and $4 if you don't.

Posted by matt at 10:09 AM | TrackBack

February 28, 2005

Other things

Wolf Parade have a nice, new, candy-colored website up, and have made a few announcements. 1) They're nominated for two MIMIs (Montreal International Music Initiative awards), and (more importantly) 2) the second self-titled EP has been re-pressed and is currently in stock over at Cheap Thrills. That EP includes the songs 'Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts', 'Grounds for Divorce', 'It's a Curse', etc., and represents the best of Wolf Parade's current studio output. If you're inclined to buy it, I would recommend getting it quickly, since it'll be sold out soon (gone in 2 weeks last time). 

Posted by Kevin at 12:45 PM | TrackBack

Girly Redux

[Disclaimer: Some of what follows is too sappy for even us to read, and we wrote it. Consider yourself warned]

While it's true that we're usually total cynics, looking down with Olympian disdain at what is commonly called "human feeling," we've got a soft spot a mile wide when it comes to Ida. And the fervor with which they attacked that weakness last night should become the stuff of legend.

The whole deal was way too much fun. Mascott, who played first, were just too cute. At that point in the show (you know, the beginning), the crowd was way more oldster than hipster, and that was clearly reflected in Mascott's gorgeous, and oh so sanguine (in a good way) Adult Contemporary stylings. Just to be clear, we don't remotely intend such a classification as any kind of slight (they really were great), but you know what they say about shoes or whatever.

Antietam left us a little cold, so we used their set as an opportunity to catch up on some phone calls.

But then there was Ida. We won't go into too much detail, suffice it to say that they were fantastic. We've been waiting for f-ing ever to see them, and it was everything we'd always dreamed it would be. The songs were great, their musicianship was impeccable, and they were so cute as to defy reason.

As a rule, we usually find Karla Schickele's songs to be growers, but her songwriting contributions to Heart Like a River, "What Can I Do?" and "Honeyslide," are early standouts. That was definitely reflected in the live versions last night. It was almost eerie how well they recreated "Honeyslide"s string coda with just a violin, harmonium, and acoustic guitar. God, that was awesome.

Is it possible that by some kind of operant conditioning, we're just wired to always get chills when we hear Liz Mitchell sing?

We'd be remiss if we didn't say how fantastic their new percussionist/multi-instrumentalist is. Hot damn, she (as we will continue to call her until we can find some info, although we think her name is Ruth) was absolutely stellar--an ideal rhythmic complement to the ubiquitous gossamer melodies.

As it turned out, we were flying solo last night, as everyone we knew had "better" Oscar-related things to do. That was probably just as well though, considering we would most likely have embarrassed the hell out of anybody having the misfortune of being associated with us. Rest assured, if we can get all misty while standing next to Alan Licht, we can mos def get that way standing next to you.

We know how painful all of this sap must be to read, so we'll cut it out, but last night's show was just great. Elbows were rubbed, knobs were... hobbed(?), and the music was just oh so brilliant in every sense of the word. You should've been there.

Posted by matt at 10:37 AM | TrackBack

February 27, 2005

Stealing Wilco Lyrics

Gang Gang Dance, everyone's favorite percussion-loving gypsycore noise group, is set to release "God's Money", their second LP, on April 5th. Social Registry (which is one of the best small labels going) is doing the actual releasing and distributing. The album has nine tracks, all of which are titled as such: God's Money I, God's Money II, God's Money III,... up to God's Money IX. Bound to be a party album. Really though, when I saw Gang Gang Dance back in November, they put on a hell of a show- long, fragmented jams and dovetailed drones all shored up against Lizzi Bougatsos' otherworldy vocals. Lots of energy. This record will be intense, no doubt.

Posted by Kevin at 08:55 PM | TrackBack

February 25, 2005

Since U Been Kuh-Razy

Proclamation: henceforth, this blog will be a space in which we document our slow progression into addle-mindedness. "But w-why?" you may ask. Fair question, sparky. The answer involves  a Lovecraftian descent into otherwordly terror and madness, starting... NOW:

Has anybody else noticed that the new Kelly Clarkson single is really good? No, seriously.

Note: Actually, somebody has noticed. A friend pointed us towards Ted Leo's website, since he makes a pretty awesome Homestar Runner reference, but we saw while we were there that he's having similar psychic trauma regarding the VH-1 top 20 mainstay.

Additional Note: We realize that this post could've been enlivened by a photo of the undeniably photogenic Ms. Clarkson, but we are sick and tired of people who get to this site by Google image-searching for pictures of photogenic pop singers.

Posted by matt at 09:51 AM | TrackBack

February 24, 2005

Music for the Nice People:
Please, Please, Please Let Me Get what I Want Edition

Okay. We admit it: we definitely don't like The Smiths/Morrissey as much as some people. Flouting Piagetian psychology, that was a developmental milestone that we somehow missed out on (maybe because we were way too busy noodle-dancing to that Vermont band, you know the one--sad but true). However, we've worked hard to right our youthful indiscretions, and we've done so with the expert help of a whole slew of the Church of the Mozzer's latter-day acolytes. Today, we're going to go ahead and highlight some of the good work that a few of those folks have done.

(By the way, does anybody know where to find that little thing Darnielle wrote about Morrissey? We wanted to list a couple of good Smiths-related paeans along with the one linked above, and the mighty JD's was pretty awesome, obvs. Anyway, let us know.)

Schneider TM - "The Light 3000": It's no secret that German people love Morrissey. Schneider TM are German. This laptop-driven cover of "There is a Light that Never Goes Out" is the inexorable conclusion of that syllogism. It's also very, very good. We'll leave you to debate whether it's better than Erlend Oye's similar reworking on his DJ Kicks record.

Trash Can Sinatras - "I Know it's Over": Um, it's no secret that Scottish people love Morrissey... Yeah. Anyway, if anybody can get at the mopey heart of this tune, it's these sad bastards right here.

Colin Meloy - "Sister I'm a Poet": Indie-rock's poet-laureate loves Morrissey so much, he made a whole EP's worth of Morrissey covers! This is one of them! Additional exclamation!

Cass McCombs - "Subtraction": Whaddya know, this one's not a cover. However, for our purposes here, it serves as another fine example of the kind of rabid Smiths-worship embodied in all of the above selections. This isn't to say that McCombs is ripping anybody off, but the influence is undeniable. It's also a Really Good Song. Listen, won't you?

Okay, bye!

Posted by matt at 02:38 PM | TrackBack

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory

It's probably no overstatement to say that Jim O'Rourke is the best person ever. We know we've gone on, and on (and on, and on) about this folky business lately, and that we've done so at the expense of talking about Mr. O'Rourke and his multifarious projects. Well, that's partly because we're just waiting on some freakin' news on the new Drag City record that he's "been working on" for over two years now. At any rate, today we're going to give him the attention he deserves.

Last night's show at Tonic was so good as to defy all sense and logic. He started off the set with two chestnuts from the Halfway to a Threeway EP, mostly because they were the only songs he could remember. At any rate, when we heard the opening strains of "Fuzzy Sun," we couldn't possibly have been more psyched. We've seen him a few times lately, but it's always been as part of some ensemble doing various shades of improv. Getting to see him work through a few of his honest-to-god pop songs was a real treat. Of course, it was a Jim O'Rourke show, so you had to know that things that start out poppy weren't going to stay that way. An all-star cast of downtown improvisers (Tim Barnes and Chris Corsano, to name but two) popped up on stage one by one to construct a nice 35-minute noise coda to a tune from Insignificance.

This brings us to a bit of an aside that we were mulling over during the improv section of last night's show. We gave it some serious thought, and we came to this conclusion: fuck genres. We realize that this isn't anything that scores of mealymouthed aesthetic pluralists haven't said over and over again, but when the course of the freakout surged through more or less equal parts Ornette Coleman, Spiritualized, Elvin Jones, and Lightning Bolt, it just seemed like it didn't really matter whether it was Jazz or noise improv or avant-psych-metal-whatever. It was just fucking great, and it demanded to be experienced on a purely phenomenal level with all of the filters shut right the hell off.

We'd been thinking the same thing earlier yesterday when we were listening to this old Stockhausen record (Mantra for piano & tape) we picked up used at Other Music. Obviously, it's difficult to imagine a more oppressively Teutonic 20th Century composer than Stockhausen, but there are moments in the piece that really bring to mind jazzier composers (Anthony Braxton, Roscoe Mitchell), and we will be god damned if there aren't parts that swing, ferchrissakes. What do you call that? We're asking.

Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh right. Jim O'Rourke is awesome. After the noise thing, he brought it back to "Prelude to a 110 or 220/Women of the World," and then it was pretty much over. And by "pretty much," we mean totally. It was awesome. Did you seriously read all of that?

Posted by matt at 10:43 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 23, 2005

ROHS Choose Darkness

Robbers on High Street, whose hot little album I just reviewed last week (and which deserved better than a 6.0 from the tools over at P-fork), are currently (taped last week) having a good time (speculation on my part) playing as Carson Daly's house band for his late-night TV spectacle of idiocy talk show. Here's a quick sample of the exchange that Carson and guitarist Steven Mercado shared at the beginning of last night's show-

Carson: So you guys are going on tour soon, right?

Steven: Yeah, with Cake and Gomez.

Carson: Good bands.

Steven: Yeah.

Carson: Watch out for those guys in Cake, they like to party.

Steven: Good.

Carson: (stares into camera for a tense 30 seconds, no emotion on his face. Audience members squirm in their seats. Babies start crying.) Moving on then.

When Carson has to operate off the cue cards/TelePrompter, it is not a pretty sight. He small talks like a computer science major's first A.I. software project. Anyway, Robbers on High Street are touring now, with Ambulance LTD- check their site for the dates.

Also of note: I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness' 12" is finally out, on Artikal Records (you can stream both of the tracks over at the site). Kind of different from the sound they had on the EP last year, less guitar, more New Order-ish programmed beats and atmospherics. Which isn't a bad thing. They're touring now (check their site for dates) and working on some new material for a full-length. Good stuff.

Posted by Kevin at 07:45 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

February 22, 2005

greenideas Goes Girly

Those of you who've been with us at greenideas for a while have probably noticed that, among other things, we are insufferable softies. While we do enjoy grating experimental noise records and the "F" word, we also love Ida. When we were knee-high to a harmonium and still wearing shirts with special heart-pockets sewed into the sleeves, we loved the hell out of Tales of Brave Ida, and we haven't given up on them since. That's saying something considering they haven't put out a proper full-length (we're not counting the remix record), or really played out much at all, since 2001's The Braille Night.

So this is really a red-letter week for Ida (and for us), since their new album (their first for Polyvinyl, the shameless emo-factory), Heart Like a River comes out today, and they'll be celebrating its release with a show at Tonic on Sunday before going on a nationwide tour.

We're just tickled (we're going to go ahead and go full-on lame for the remainder of this post). Although we've seen various members of Ida playing solo, we've still never seen the full band. You have no idea how psyched we are for this. Now if we could just get Low to be, like, Secret Name-good again, we'd be all set.

If you'll excuse us, we're going to go put on a sweater, drink some herbal tea, and cry while watching Oprah or something.

Posted by matt at 01:03 PM | TrackBack

February 18, 2005

So, a Guy Walks into a Record Store

As Dick Vitale would say: serendipity, baby! We popped into Other Music last night to pick up the new LCD Soundsystem and Damon & Naomi (reviews TK), and they had a new collection of David Sylvian remixes (that's remixes of David Sylvian) that we had no idea was coming out. The source material is Sylvian's fantastic (and criminally overlooked) Blemish. That record featured, not just Sylvian's own programming and torch-song croon, but guest spots from none other than Derek f-ing Bailey and Fennesz. Seriously, why don't you have that record? Like Yoplait, man, it is so good.

Anyway, the remix album features re-imaginings by Sweet Billy Pilgrim, Yoshihiro Hanno, Ryoji Ikeda, and a few others. What's interesting is that, while the original versions were mostly backed by slow-scraping free-form electronics, these techno-oriented remixers turn the whole album on its ear, often putting the songs into more acoustic settings. Many of the new versions feature live strings, piano, and clarinet.

You should really go out and get this, but get the original first. Tell your friends to get it, too. There oughtta be a law against records that good going so unnoticed.

Posted by matt at 11:07 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

February 16, 2005

Things For Happy Ears: Harrison Ford Frantic Edition

(Apologies to Mos Def. It's not biting, it's an homage.)

We're super busy at work today, so this might be all you hear from us today (unless Kevin has anything he wants to share with the class). That said, we certainly couldn't leave you sitting there cold, naked, and with nothing to listen to. So please put these things in your ears with all deliberate speed:

"Festival," by Swedish psych-prog wunderkinds, Dungen, is the first track from their stellar debut, Ta Det Lugnt, to really go full-on psychedelic (the first two being pretty straight-ahead garage numbers). As such, it was the first song to really grab our attention on our first couple spins of this disc. We'd initially thought that all of the hype around this record was just from a bunch of overzealous record-store types determined not to carry the stigma of missing out on the next Trad Gras Och Stenar. But we will be summarily damned if the hype is not almost entirely justified.

Hey look at this: it's Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's & Matt Sweeney's "My Home is the Sea"! This is the lead-off track from the BPB & Matt Sweeney collaborative LP, Superwolf. It's a slow-burner, to be sure, but now that we've had a couple of months to get into it, we're hooked. All that said, you should have exactly no trouble getting into this song right away. Sweeney flexes his Neil Young chops pretty hard, while the Bonnie one finds yet another way to make a song about sex and death new again.

Kevin already put a track from this record up on Molars a while back. Maybe you didn't get that one. Maybe you'd like to get this one now.

We've opined on Superwolf before here and here. Kev's Molars post is here.

Posted by matt at 10:38 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 15, 2005

Review: Mu - Out of Breach (Manchester's Revenge)

Here at greenideas, we feel duty-bound to warn our readers of a grave injustice being perpetrated on the record-buying public. Contrary to appearances, Out of Breach, the new Mu record, is not a dance record. Due to it's makers' Manchester pedigrees, many unsuspecting listeners will, at great personal peril, mistake this new collection of frankenbeats as a pret-a-danser club record. That's the kind of rookie mistake that's bound to leave you missing body parts--parts that you need.

On the one hand, Out of Breach is a continuation of the apocalyptic disco meltdown of 2003's Afro Finger & Gel. However, the new record sees the Divine Ms. Mu and husband/beat-maker/sonic terrorist, Maurice Fulton, sharpening their focus considerably. Whereas AF & G was all over the map, with jackbooted industrial stomps turning on a dime into straight-ahead club tracks, Out of Breach is pretty consistent as a creative reimagining of history in which Cibo Matto recorded Planet Rock in Hell. Also, sometimes, there's a timpani.

The record really doesn't waste much time at the beginning before declaring its intent to eat your children. Sure enough, on "Haters," the opener, Mu (nee Mutsumi Kanamori) provides a laundry list of people she intends to kill. That pretty much sets the tone for the unrelenting hatefuck that is Out of Breach. Okay, there are a couple of spots where Mu stops barking, and Fulton cools off the beats; There's one genuine ambient spot somewhere in there, and one or two quick strolls down memory lane into Mille Plateaux territory. But once you catch your breath long enough to recognize your surroundings, Mu's got you by the throat again.

One song is about Michael Jackson, and one is about Paris Hilton. We thought you should know that.

Lest there be any confusion, everything we've said up to this point was meant as an inducement for you to buy this record. Just be warned: this is the least dance-y record that you'll ever want to dance your fucking ass off to. But be careful, this one's a monster.

Posted by matt at 11:08 AM | TrackBack

February 14, 2005

Review: Robbers on High Street, "Tree City"

A few people (myself included) have compared this band to Spoon, and that's accurate, to a certain extent. Britt Daniel possesses a very distinctive back-of-the-throat kind of voice, and Ben Trokan (ROHS' lead singer) has a similar set of pipes- a coincidence that usually leads music critics to declare some band "the new ______" (for examples of this, see both Coldplay and Muse's debut LPs, where Chris Martin's and Matt Bellamy's (respectively) falsetto voices led the British music press to anoint both bands, at different times, as the new Radiohead). In this case, that would be a mistake: Robbers on High Street are very much not the next Spoon, they're something new and different.

One of the hallmarks of Britt Daniel's songwriting, at least on 'Series of Sneaks' and 'Kill the Moonlight', is that it's very parsimonious- each track is simple, pared down to some hard, minimal essence. Robbers on High Street are a little more expansive in their approach- piano, guitar, drums, bass, and vocals are on almost every track here, and Peter Katis (the producer for 'Tree City', also Interpol's 'Bright Lights' and 'Antics') adds some nice flourishes. This album is just viciously catchy- the melodies on 'Spanish Teeth', 'Amanda Green', 'Descender', 'Love Underground' (the standout), and 'Bring on the Terror', are as good as anything I've heard in the past six months, and the other tracks on the record are just as compelling. A lot of this record has an 'old pop' feel to it: classic progressions, piano balladry, sweet background vocals oohs and ahhs. Anyway, it's an excellent debut album, and hopefully Robbers on High Street will continue to expand upon the sound they've established on 'Tree City'.

If you want to check out some songs from the album, you can stream 3 tracks from the band's website (Spanish Teeth, Japanese Girls, and Montefiore). If you dig those tracks, you can pre-order Tree City (which is released on Feb. 22nd) from Insound right here for $13 (and get a free copy of the band's kick-ass EP, Fine Lines, to boot). Not bad at all.

Posted by Kevin at 09:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 10, 2005

Losing a Legend

Jimmy Smith, master of the Hammond B-3 organ, passed away on Tuesday at the age of 79.

Check out "Sometimes I'm Happy" from Smith's 1959 Blue Note album, Softly as a Summer Breeze, and you'll hear why that's such a tragedy.

Posted by matt at 10:42 AM | TrackBack

Hott Traxxx: Scary Electro Edition

Okay, so we left that sappy stuff up there on the mp3 sidebar for a little too long. Rest assured, it ends here! Today we're focusing on the darker side of electro.

Patrick Wolf's "The Childcatcher," is from his Tomlab debut LP, Lycanthrophy. We kind of hated this record when it came out (like, fucking forever ago), but we gave it another shot recently, and have subsequently come to like it quite a bit. It took a while for the bratty Brit vox to grow on us, but we're totally there now. Plus this track gives us another chance to flex our recorder obsession.

God damn, we want the new Mu record so freaking bad. In acknowledgement of this, here's "Let's Get Sick" from their fan-f-ing-tastic 2003 long-player, Afro Finger & Gel. Actually, considering how dark some of the other stuff on this record is, this is almost a straight-up club track. Oh well, themes are for pussies.

Studying for the LSAT, however, is totally not for pussies and that's what we're going to be doing all day. Starting... now.

Posted by matt at 09:53 AM | TrackBack

February 09, 2005

One Thing is Scary, One Thing is Loud

A couple of quickies:

Quickie #1: A quick persual of the Lion's Gate Horror site shows that the distributor has finally set a date for the American release of Undead, last year's Aussie horror monolith. Stateside audiences can see the funny-talkin' zombie action starting July 1st.

This is just one more in a slew of genre releases from Lion's Gate (Saw, Open Water, The Grudge, High Tension, holy fuck!), which is quickly establishing itself as the new face of horror in the American film market--much like New Line was back in the day.

Quickie #2: The other thing is that The Brought Low will be demolishing the stage at CBGB on Saturday night, or at least destroy whatever's left of the place after Richmond, VA's RPG is done with it. We've seen The Brought Low about half a dozen times now, and they've still never managed to not blow us away (literally and figuratively) with their white trash gospel virtuosity. Still, if you're planning on going, you should consider getting earplugs surgically implanted beforehand. Our first ever time doing live sound professionally was for a TBL/RPG show, and they rolled up to the small club with full Marshall stacks. We could've maybe quit right then.

Posted by matt at 12:05 PM | TrackBack

February 07, 2005

Can't Catch a Break

Of all the dumb fucking luck. Tonic, the already financially embattled music venue, took another massive hit this weekend when a sewer line ruptured and flooded the club's basement. In addition to forcing the cancellation of their subtonic lounge events (and thus cutting of a sorely needed source of revenue), the incident put the venue an extra $20K in the hole. Seriously, damn.

You can still help by going to see some of the benefit shows that keep popping up on the calendar (one of which involves the unmistakable human frailty of Yoko Ono), and/or by making a contribution via credit card or PayPal.

It's not a benefit, but you should strongly consider going tonight to see the premieres of some new Alvin Lucier compositions for cello and oscillator, and also clarinet and oscillator. We're huge Lucier fans, so we'll most definitely be there to get our art on. 

Posted by matt at 09:55 AM | TrackBack

February 04, 2005

we love to entertain

Real quick: for those of you who are as obsessed with Wolf Parade as I am (all 9 of you), Said the Gramophone just posted two of the tracks from the CBC session WP did a little while ago. Both are, naturally, amazing. Spencer sings the first one (he sings 'Grounds for Divorce', if you know that one), and Dan ('It's a Curse' singer) sings the Untitled one. I'm doing my best to turn this into a Wolf Parade fansite (if you couldn't tell), probably to greenideas Matt's extreme and violent chagrin.

[I've been in a board meeting all day = all cleverness and creativity that might have been in my body has been drained by answering questions posed by men in tweed sports jackets, brown leather shoes, and bald heads.] So, my Super Bowl pick will be short and sweet (in the style of my younger brother's emails):

Patriots fans are mouth-breathing jackasses. The Eagles have talent and passion. With any luck, Tom Brady will consume 73 lbs. of rancid Dunkin Donuts blueberry buttermilk glazed baking dough and vomit out all 6,000 ft. of his digestive tract. However, if that doesn't happen (and I have a source on the inside that tells me it will), you can rest assured that McNabb, Owens, Westbrook, Dawkins, Kearse, Trotter and co. will take care of Mr. America and the 'Titletown' puds.

Eagles- 34 Patriots- 21.

Posted by Kevin at 05:04 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Popcorn Button

Last week, the opinion we gave of the Matt Sweeney's and BPB's Superwolf was somewhat lukewarm. If we may be allowed, we'd like to heat it up a little.

The album's closer, "Blood Embrasse," is brilliantly dismal. We've been listening to it incessantly, like a kind of compulsive psychic self-mutilation. It's just that... good?

Posted by matt at 02:16 PM | TrackBack

February 03, 2005

Stewart Lupton, Child Balladeer

So this is probably only noteworthy if you know who Stewart Lupton is: he was the lead singer for Jonathan Fire*Eater, the viciously talented band that spawned the Walkmen upon its dissolution. Anyway, people have been wondering, online, in print, and maybe aloud, where Lupton is and what he's been up to. He formed a new band, the Child Ballads, based out of D.C. Here's what the man himself said (you can click through to read the rest of his extremely entertaining and informative comment, (bottom of the page)):

from the desk of stewart lupton / the childballads

thank you to everyone who remembers. your generosity is heartening indeed. i would like to tell you about a band called the childballads that i play in. we are a three piece, myself , ms. betsy wright and mr hugh macintosh. i sing alot and play a very old acoustic guitar on some of the numbers. ms. betsy wright, whose beauty is rivaled only by her talent, is a vibe polyglot. she speaks so many vibes, plays the wurlitzer, farfisa (yes i know but i was there too) and the viola. in addition, she sings. beautifully. our voices / bodies are particularly well suited to eachother. sometimes we weave it together and sometimes we let it unravel (the singing). someguy at this show once said we had a art folk royal trux vibe at times and , although that was probably my favourite description (head still swelling) betsy's voice is a silver dagger like joan baez when she wants it that way, and i do what i do with the pipes moses gave me.

Posted by Kevin at 10:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

February 02, 2005

Not-so-Jealous Lovers

If there's one thing we love around here at greenideas, it's when awesome things happen to our friends. That's why we're pleased as punch to let you know about a small tour that Lovers are doing with none other than the lovely and talented Mirah. Here are the dates:

Feb 9 - Boston, MA @ tt the bears with Thalia
Zedek, Williard Grant Conspiracy, Seakonk

Feb 12 - Providence, RI w/ MIrah, the Weeds

Feb 13 - Provincetown, MA @ New Art
Cinemas & Lounge w/ Mirah, Triple M Threat,
the Weeds

Feb 14 - Byfield, MA @ Yellow School for the
Arts w/ Mirah, Tiger Saw, the Weeds

Feb 15 - Colgate University w/ Mirah, the
Weeds

Feb 16 - Pittsburgh, PA w/ Mirah, the Weeds

If you live near any of these places, get on out and see this fantastic bill. If you don't, do what we're doing: cross your fingers till they're purple and hope they'll add some more dates.

Posted by matt at 12:45 PM | TrackBack

Label Profile: Locust Music

We're initiating a new feature here today on greenideas. If you haven't noticed, we talk a lot about records we love. What we haven't done so much is credit the labels whose considerable efforts and tastes go into putting those records on our turntables (or what have you). That ends here!

Since this is the first such profile that we're doing, we wanted to start with the label that consistently puts out the music that we're most excited about. For our money, you really can't beat Chicago's Locust Music for overall quality and variety of output.

First, let's talk variety. For such a relatively young label (it was founded in late 2000), Locust has already put out a pretty healthy discography that runs the gamut from various shades of electronic experimentation to free-folk revivalists to heavy psych, with some acts notably incorporating strains from each of these genres and all points in between.

Take, for instance, the work that the good people at Locust put into both the Met Life series, in which electronic artists (such as Matmos, and greenideas fave Keith Fullerton Whitman) were asked to create responses to field recordings taken in/around their home environments; and the Wooden Guitar series, which has the luminaries of the post-Fahey/Basho acoustic scene (e.g. Jack Rose, Sir Richard Bishop, etc.) pushing insistently on the boundaries of American Primitive (or whatever you want to call it). 

It's also worth mentioning that, in addition to doing the leg work of finding the new stuff that you need to be listening to, Locust has a pretty extensive library of reissues. Getting Ilhan Mimaroglu's works back in circulation should be sufficient to get the label canonized, but they've also breathed new life into the oeuvres of Tod Dockstader, Henry Flynt, and Allen Ginsberg, to name but a few.

Surely by now the reader has guessed that there's some extra-special reason that we're rhapsodizing at such length about the delightful folks at Locust. Indeed, the reader is right on the money. As it happens, our official pick for the #1 record of 2004, Espers's self-titled debut long-player, was a Locust release. And if you liked it as much as we did, then boy is there plenty more where that came from. The label is also home to some stellar releases by some of the latter band's psychic siblings, such as Josephine Foster & The Supposed, as well as the domestic releases of the Cyann & Ben records.

By way of wrapping this up, we'd just like to thank the people of Locust Music for doing such a spectacular job and, with just a tinge of selfishness, wish them the best in continuing to put out such great records from the past and from the now. Also, as if we didn't give just you enough reasons to blow all of your scratch catching up with the Locust catalog, we just want to personally invite you to sample some of this label's stellar discography and support the great work they're doing.

 

Posted by matt at 11:55 AM | TrackBack

BFF? Please?

After reading Pitchfork's feature on Six Organs of Admittance, we're pretty sure that Ben Chasny should be our new best friend. We can see it now: we're skipping down the street, arm in arm with Chasny being all, "schlemiezel, schlamozzel, hossenfeffer incorporated!" Doin' it our way!

Whaddya say, Ben?

Posted by matt at 09:58 AM | TrackBack

February 01, 2005

Kitchen Gossip

Some music news snippets:

*According to good sources, the Double, who released the excellent 'Palm Fronds' on Catsup Plate Records last year, are signing to Matador Records, and will be releasing a new LP some time in the fall. Since their drummer's hand has healed by now, the new album will probably be markedly different from the electronic swirls and soft beats of songs like 'Blanket on the Beach' (which was on Molars).

*Good news for people who like the Animal Collective: as mentioned on P-fork, they're recording soon. But- even better- for those of you who caught them live on their most recent tour, you'll be glad to know that their amazing cover of Stevie Wonder's 'I Just Called to Say I Love You' is being recorded as part of a longer song. Also, apparently, they're going to try to have some live tracks available from their website, in the near future.

*Robbers on High Street's debut LP, 'Tree City', which comes out on 2/22 (not 2/8, like I said last month), is pretty goddamn great. I'll have a review up soon and maybe some mp3s on Molars, but for the time being, head on over to the Catbirdseat (January 28th post) to listen to a few tracks from the album ('Spanish Teeth' is a favorite).

Posted by Kevin at 11:01 PM | TrackBack

Homegrown Mope

Hey kids, greenideas matt here. I got the new iLife over the weekend so I could play with GarageBand 2.0, and, well, i've been playing with it. This is what happened.

For the record, it's not perfect. There are definitely some issues with sloppy timing (one spot is particularly cringeworthy), and I'm not too thrilled with the vox in some parts. I'll fix that stuff later when I can stand to hear the song again. At the very least, it's a good song and the idea is there.

I was so close to putting in the recorder part I just came up with, but fortunately for you, the voices of my better angels prevailed.

Posted by matt at 10:01 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

ALL CAPS! REALLY FREAKING IMPORTANT!

The NYC downtown music scene is in grave danger of losing one of its most important venues (if not the most important). If Tonic doesn't raise $100,000 in the next few weeks, it will close its doors forever. Please, people, we cannot let this happen. Go to the website, check out the list of benefit shows and go to as many of them as you possibly can. If it's within your means, please consider making a contribution as well. Tonic is too important to this city's aesthetic life to let it disappear without a fight.

Also, please make as many people aware of this as you possibly can. Thanks.

-matt

Posted by matt at 02:37 PM | TrackBack

Pitchdork

Idiots.

Why not look at an opinion on the new Magnolia Electric Co. record that isn't wrong?

Posted by matt at 11:37 AM | TrackBack

January 31, 2005

New Mount Eerie Albums

The always excellent Tiny Mixtapes is reporting today that Phil Elvrum is gearing up for a huge year, with 3 albums on the way. 'No Flashlight: Songs of the Fulfilled Night' is the main, proper, sure-to-be-awesome follow-up to 'Mt. Eerie' (the LP), 'Singers' is an album of studio sing-alongs (e.g. 'I Can't Belive You Actually Died', which is on 'Singers' in the form of an alternate take), and '11 Old Songs' is, um, just that- tunes that Elvrum's been playing out on the road for the past couple years, but that he 'couldn't bring himself to record (in a big production kind of way)'.

No tracklistings or release dates have been published yet, but it'll be interesting to see how many songs made the cut from live incarnation (from the Microphones Live in Japan album, and from the Mt. Eerie Live in Copenhagen 3-LP set) to full-blown studio track. Also interesting: Elvrum's label, P.W. Elverum & Sun, is reissuing the '2 new songs of Mt. Eerie' record (which has the songs 'Fuck the World', and 'Do Not Be Afraid') on a white 12", and in a limited edition of 600. Collectors: start Fed-Exing those checks to Phil- they're only taking orders through snail-mail.

Posted by Kevin at 04:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 28, 2005

Asleep at the Switch

If we may be allowed to appropriate the exclamation of every Irish cop in film history, Saints preserve us! We somehow fell disastrously behind on this week's stellar spate of record releases. If it hadn't been for our embarrassingly urgent need to get our paws on the new Bright Eyes records, we would've totally overlooked the following:

Bill Fay Group: Tomorrow Tomorrow and Tomorrow (scroll down a bit) - After the tragically dismal sales of his first two full-lengths, Bill Fay (who we love very much) made a quiet retreat from the business of making records, saying that "It wasn't me who left the music, it was the music business that left me." Far from being another attempt at stardom, this record is a true labor of love, representing the efforts of a small group of dedicated musicians getting together in service of the songs. That said, we wish it were better. The heavy use of early synthesizers serves to disconnect this record from the rest of Fay's small but strong discography. Worse yet, they make the whole affair sound hopelessly dated. Sadly, our first few spins of this disc revealed a closer aesthetic kinship to Christopher Cross than to, say, Nick Drake. Nonetheless, we want very badly to like it, so we'll keep giving it as many chances as it takes and report back.

Six Organs of Admittance: School of the Flower - Ben Chasny is back and... pretty much the same as ever. But make no mistake: that is a Very Good Thing. Personally, we haven't yet been able to get enough of Chasny's insidiously infectious blend of dark ragas, noise collages/freakouts, and Takoma/Revenant-inflected folk lamentations. Neither do we intend to anytime soon. Now if somebody could just tell us if that Tonic show with P.G. Six is still happening...

M83: Before the Dawn Heals Us - Once again, M83 provides a shining example of what French electro-rock should be. Instead of smarty-pants "Vee are French, and rock ees dead, no?" affectations (you know who we mean), these fresh young fellows have embraced their rock roots to create life out of silicon. They definitely have the chops to put paid to every mealy-mouthed assertion that there's nothing "authentic" to electronically-produced music. Between M83, Cyann & Ben, and the firebrand UMP leader, Nicolas Sarkozy, we think it's high time to fall in love with the French all over again.

Matt Sweeney & Bonnie 'Prince' Billy: Superwolf - Sweeney writes the tunes and Bonnie makes up the words. Um, it's good. It's not as great as such a triple-dog-dare collaboration could've been, but it's definitely successful enough to warrant a round two. These two have been working together for a long time now to considerable effect, so we should expect plenty more where this came from.

I'm Wide Awake, it's Morning is still very, very good. God help us, we even like the stupid intro now. If this were Cuckoo's Nest we'd think it was about time for the Chief to do a pillow job on us.   

Posted by matt at 10:31 AM | TrackBack

January 27, 2005

Excellent News, Dear Readers!

Boy are you psyched! You thought you were psyched before when you found out that Slow Dazzle will be making their Magnetic Field debut tomorrow evening, but you haven't heard anything yet! Recent communiques reveal that, in addition to the core line-up of Tim Bracy and Shannon McArdle (of The Mendoza Line) and PLH (formerly of Elk City), both ML drummer Sean Fogarty and Shannon's brother Philip McArdle will be there to round out the sound. Since the show costs a whole $free, if you're doing the accounting math, that's three Mendoza Liners for the price of none. Now that's what we call value!

And let's not forget that PLH will being doing double duty tomorrow night by playing bass in Slow Dazzle as well as kicking the evening off right with his very own PLH's Exotic Profiles. It seems to us like that's the kind of behavior that you (yes, you) really ought to reward by coming out to see the show.

(Ed Note: We'd originally said that the wrong McArdle would be joining the band for this show. It's fixed now. Sorry, Philip.)

Posted by matt at 12:02 PM | TrackBack

January 26, 2005

"Ya growns up and ya growns up and ya growns up!"

It's true! Dear god, it's all true.

Sad bastards, rejoice! For your King has returned unto thee!

I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, one of two new releases from pop-indie megastar (it's a relative scale, darlings) Bright Eyes, is as good as you'd hoped/feared it would be. Yes, it's a much more mature outing and blah blah blah... But mostly it's just really good.

The primary reason that we can call I'm Wide Awake a home run compared to Lifted's solid base hit is that, instead of being all about how hard it is to be Bright Eyes, the overnight sensation, the new record is very much about how hard it is to be Conor Oberst, the guy. As such, it's also about how hard it is to be pretty much anybody. The absence of forced diffidence towards the hated rock critic is a welcome one, particularly when that hole is filled with--what's the expression... oh yeah: human feeling.

Even the requisite self-indulgent skit that has become boilerplate as the opening to most Bright Eyes records is a (relatively) lean 1:10, and almost manages not to annoy. Lest the importance of this fact go underestimated, we can assure the esteemed reader that, if past released are any indication, it really is no mean feat for Oberst to reign in his penchant for obtuse "cred-building" rambling intros.

Inviting Emmylou Harris to take up the background vocal chores was at once pretty gutsy and also maybe a little cheap. As others have said, it's clearly an attempt to legitimize this recording as being just plain folk, in the traditionally traditional sense, and not some sort of hyphenated mess. And indeed, it does have the effect of making the folk more folksy. So, as we said, the move was gusty, since it amounts to a clear setting of a goal--one that could easily be missed and missed badly. But, one could argue that Oberst was trying to trade on somebody else's ready-made (and richly deserved) credentials. We're not inclined to lodge that complaint, but it's there.

We want to quibble about how, this time around, Oberst does a lot of New York namechecking. We want to, but it happened that we were writing something that did kind of the same thing on our way to buy this record. Grrr.

As you well know, there is another new Bright Eyes full-length which shows Oberst flexing his pop muscles, while Mike Mogis works his programming chops. As regards this record, we can offer only a resounding "meh."

Posted by matt at 12:13 PM | TrackBack

January 25, 2005

A Theme Develops...

Last week, we posted an mp3 with a lyrical schtick based on a literal construal of the role of the heart in matters romantic. We're keeping that cardiological theme going with "Hearts don't Break" by Ida, one of our all-time favorite sweet-folk mainstays. Also (and we swear to god that we intend no pun here), we're feeling especially sanguine this week, which usually means lots of Ida in and around greenideas HQ.

Also, Psapp has done us the favor of singing a song called "Leaving in Coffins." Now, if you're anything like us, you're starting to get a little antsy waiting for a new full-length from Ms. John Soda. If indeed you are, then Psapp's mix of the latter's Morr Music Lap-Pop chanteusery with Eltro's quirky exotica crooning should make short work of your cravings and leave you purring contentedly in no time.

Enjoy!

Posted by matt at 01:13 PM | TrackBack

For the Love of Colin

So did you get to see Colin Meloy at one of his few recent solo shows? We did! And we don't mind telling you that it was everything we'd hoped for and oh-so-much more.

As regards the song selection, the evening resembled a kind of parfait with Meloy pulling pretty evenly from each of his records with The Decemberists (including the forthcoming Picaresque) and throwing in a couple of Morrissey covers from his tour-only EP, Colin Meloy Sings Morrissey for good measure.

We were fortunate enough to get to sit at the cool table with the band's resident illustrator and her parents (who are unbelieveably sweet, by the way--thanks again for the drinks). Being up there, we had a great vantage point for the show, but we had an even better view of when the girl who, earlier in the show, was publicly shamed for shouting for "Grace Cathedral Pier" managed to set her hair on fire at the precise moment when Meloy started playing the song she had been trying to call out for.

We should say that, as great as the show was and as much fun as we had, the feeling that sticks with us most after having spent a solid couple of hours watching indie-rock's hyper-literate poet-laureate is guilt over ending the last sentence in a preposition (and possibly over-hyphenating this one). So, if you'll excuse us, we're going to go lock ourselves in a closet with a Strunk & White's...

Posted by matt at 10:35 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

January 24, 2005

Won't Be Fooled Again?

(Note: this post has undergone a slight edit; only because the way it was written before was so bad as to be painful to read. It's much better now. Good night, and may god bless -Ed.)

Okay, we admit it: we (=matt) really like Bright Eyes. We've on board since way back in the day, when it was actually age-appropriate for us to indulge in such embarrassingly over-emotive mope-mongering. It just happens that we've still not outgrown it.

Don't get us wrong. Every time he shows up on cover of the Arts section, or looks all doe-eyed on yet another magazine cover, we have the same knee-jerk response as you do, and we swear that this time it'll be different--we won't get sucked in again, and we won't get the new album(s) or ep(s).

What happens next is kind of a blur, but somehow, we always end up getting all into that stuff again, like, full on Michael Corleone style.

We're only telling you all this as a kind of pre-emptive plea for clemency for when/if, in the next couple of days, we end up gushing about one of the new  records that comes out tomorrow. Please look on us with more pity than scorn.

Posted by matt at 11:33 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

January 21, 2005

Go See a Show!

You guys like to go see shows, right? Well you're in luck, because we've got a great one coming up this very Sunday, at Magnetic Field in Brooklawwwn NYC, USA.

Coming straight from rubbing elbows with the Hush Records all-stars (Chad Crouch, Norfolk & Western's Adam Selzer, and ex-Decemberist, Rachel Blumberg), Jeff London will serve up the kind of folk-pop that, frankly, you need more of in your life (especially if, like us, you're going to go for the Portland trifecta this weekend+Monday, by going to see The Places tonight, our boy Jeff on Sunday, and Colin Meloy on Monday).

When you add the talents of one Matt Keating and Drive Til Morning, the whole affair becomes almost too much for mortal hearts to bear. If you feel like you can handle that much awesome, chiggedy-check out the MF Calendar, and we'll see you intrepid souls there!

Also, just to give you advance warning, next Friday (1/28) will see the likes of Slow Dazzle bathing the Field in the holy light of rock, along with PLH's Exotic Profiles. In case you hadn't heard, Slow Dazzle is a Mendoza Line side-project, featuring none other than TIm Bracy and Shannon McArdle, the legendary jangle-rock power couple. Be warned, however, since the powers of this band are so great that it's even been a source of controversy. Welcome to the jungle.

Posted by matt at 11:14 AM | TrackBack

Review: Magnolia Electric Co. - Trials & Errors

After hearing the first couple minutes of Trials & Errors, the new Magnolia Electric Co. live album, the seasoned Songs:Ohia fan will very likely search the record sleeve for a collar by which to grab and shake the record and ask "Who are you, and what've you done with Jason Molina?!" The downright bouncy southern-rock guitars that introduce "The Dark Don't Hide It" seem so far removed from what we may think of as traditional Molina fare that we can't immediately rule out foul play.

Indeed, Molina's apparent break with his own aesthetic tradition was pretty clearly the impetus behind his adoption of Magnolia Electric Co. as his new nom de rock (either that, or it was the result of a class action suit on behalf of record store owners whose "S" racks had collapsed under the weight of Songs:Ohia's sprawling discography). However, after the initial shock subsides, said break reveals itself to be only apparent. Sure enough, beneath the "Sweet Home Alabama" (or maybe just "Alabama") facade beats the same broken heart that pumped life through each and every Song:Ohia.

Whatever lukewarm sentiment remained in us after the first couple of tracks was completely obliterated by the time we get to "Such Pretty Eyes for a Snake." That song's narrator is debating whether or not to "go upstairs" with someone, but the conflict is resolved when Molina howls, amid Heavy-Brand Drumming (tm), "I learned how to make my living out of making mistakes / and besides, you've got such pretty eyes for a snake." Vintage, baby.

Our favorite thing about Molina's songwriting is the way he can turn on a dime from the intensely personal to the universal--from the emotional to the downright mystical. The way "Ring the Bell" transitions into "Cross the Road, Molina" by moving from a meditation on personal failure to the invocation of a "Wolf's-headed conjurer" makes us want to reach for our 12-sided die to roll a saving throw against dying from an awesome overdose.

Also, we can't help but love how Molina calls the sound-guy "the real star of the show." Bands, take note: always show love to the sound-person.

At any rate, by the time the record ends, and the show is over (we should add: the complete, uncut show), whatever psychic tension you thought you may have picked up on at the beginning will have disappeared completely. Magnolia Electric Co., while occasionally more rawk-based than Songs:Ohia, is still Molina through and through. We expect to hear the gust of a collective sigh of relief from everybody any second now...

Posted by matt at 10:37 AM | TrackBack

January 20, 2005

Props Upon Props

Enough about us! We've got some very talented, hard-working friends who have recently gotten some serious interweb love, and we want to take a second to recognize that recognition.

First up, the impossibly talented (and devilishly handsome) Martha-coolie "Young" Jon Dixon was at the recording of Glenn Branca's Symphony No. 13, and he told the Boston Phoenix all about it!

Also, Dusted just profiled New York's own Wet Ink Musics, about whom we've also written (We should note that the article left out any mention of the human dynamo who is the driving force behind that organization, but we digress). Coincidentally, the author of that piece was also a classmate of both halves of the greenideas brain-trust, even taking a Wittgenstein seminar with greenideas matt.

Anyway, congratulations to Jon and to Wet Ink, and we look forward to bigger and better things in the future.

Posted by matt at 11:43 AM | TrackBack

Secrets & Lies

Frankly we're feeling a little hurt today. Greg Weeks came out with a whole new full-length and didn't tell us! We even looked at his website not too long ago, just 'cause we had a feeling that such a thing might've been in the works. See, our trick knee was acting up, and that usually means that an awesome record is coming out... or that there's gonna be weather. (Before anybody says anything about it, we now know that if we were more diligent about reading the "new" and "improved" Pitchfork, we'd have seen the review on Monday.)

Rather than mining the same acid-folk reserves as his day-job band, Espers, Blood is Trouble is a true follow-up to Weeks's fan-f-ing-tastic Slightly West EP. If you enjoyed the latter's organ-soaked dreamy melancholia, then get ready to fall in love all over again. Weeks doesn't tinker much with the model established on his frustratingly short solo debut, so all you mope-junkies (read: greenideas matt) can quiet the bugs under your skin. Expect plenty of gorgeously layered harmonies and 125% of your RDA of groaning synthesizers. Also, expect the whole thing to be really awesome.   

Great as the record is, however, we did manage to stop listening to it just long enough to make it over to Tonic to see Loren Connors present his score to the 1928 silent film, The Passion of Joan of Arc. It was nice, but there were only a couple of parts that made us really feel like the percussion guitar work was really a "score" to the film.

We found ourselves much less interested in the sound-art as we were in the film, which we suppose is to Connors's credit. Also, the score didn't really move that much, which was nice, since it had the subliminal effect of keeping the emotional intensity of the film pretty constant, instead of shifting from scene to scene.

For the record, we're huge fans of Loren Connors. The record he did with David Grubbs is one of the most beautiful things we've heard, maybe ever.

Um, that was a bit of a non-sequitur, considering this post was supposed to be about Greg Weeks, but that's alright. It's all art. If anybody is tired of hearing about Espers-related stuff, then... well, you haven't heard the record, so nevermind. We will nonetheless back off a little bit, before we turn into an Espers fansite. 

Posted by matt at 10:36 AM | TrackBack

January 18, 2005

Mp3s: Back and Better than Ever

It's a new year, and we're oh so ready to get back to the business of providing you with the finest musics on either side of The Fertile Crescent.

This time around, we've got "Ventricle" from Boston's own Ponies in the Surf. In this track, we find that the MacGregor siblings have assembled a hopelessly addictive bit of pop confection. It's something like if Belle & Sebastian were to cover Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters's duet from The Jerk. By the by, when we say "addictive," we mean it. When we first heard this little gem, we listened to it no fewer than seven times consecutively. For reals, y'all.

The other joint that's blowin' up our sidebar is "Someone Else" by Guv'ner. It's a good song from a record that meant a whole lot to us back in our collegiate days, but we include it here as kind of an inside joke between us and a positively Seinfeldian confluence of cosmic circumstances. Don't ask.

Also, for the record, greenideas turned one year old yesterday. We'll mos def be celebrating with special posts all week long.

Posted by matt at 10:57 AM | TrackBack

January 14, 2005

Op-Ed: An Affair to Remember

A while back, when the last Ali Roberts solo record came out, we played it for a friend of ours who we thought was going to be totally psyched about it. Instead, she fired back with "don't you ever get tired of listening to stuff like this?" (which, if you're not familiar, means soft but weird folky stuff). At the time we were flatly nonplussed. But it's really a question we can't help but occasionally return to.

To answer it, we'll appropriate some words of wisdom from Springfield's own Rev. Lovejoy: "The short answer is 'yes' with an 'if.' The long answer is 'no' with a 'but.'"

It's almost never the case that we don't feel like listening to something weird and mopey. However, there are times when, out of nowehere, we'll feel a primal compulsion to turn off the Banhart or Newsom or Bill Fay or whatever, and put on something that, you know, rocks really f-ing hard. This gets us to the actual point of this post. The one record that we always reach for when this condition grips us is Wonderful Rainbow.

We were totally in love with that noise/metal golem when it erupted onto the scene a few years back, and we're happy to say that it really hasn't aged a day since. Listening to it yesterday still filled us with the very same witch's brew of glee and directionless adolescent aggression that it did when it first grabbed us by the throat. Sure, it's probably a "smart" record, and you could get away with thinking too hard about it if you really wanted to. But the real joy in the Brians' masterpiece is that the visceral response it wrenches out of you is not at all unlike what it felt like to be a 12 year old pyromaniac (we're guessing).

Seriously though. Remember that record?  That shit was awesome.

Posted by matt at 10:05 AM | TrackBack

January 12, 2005

Sub Pop tells me secrets

It's been a while since Wolf Parade signed to Sub Pop, and there really hasn't been any news yet on when we can expect the release of their debut LP, so I decided to perform some journalism and just email Sub Pop for the info. Here's what they said: the album's being mixed this week, so it's almost done. They're hoping to have it out by June or July, and the tracklisting includes about 5 re-recorded songs from Wolf Parade's two self-released EPs (which is good, since those discs are in short supply). Sub Pop is super-excited about the record (or at least the one dude who wrote back to me is), which bodes well. If I had to put money on it, I'd say that, barring some sort of massive PR disaster (e.g. Dan Wolf Parade being found in an alley, sodomizing headless mannequins) their debut stands a chance of being as big a seller for Sub Pop as Arcade Fire's was for Merge. Anyway, mark your calendars- it'll be good. 

Posted by Kevin at 09:27 AM | TrackBack

January 07, 2005

Put Some Freak in your Folk

Okay, guys. We ask for so precious little of you around here, so we hope we're not putting you out too much by asking you to go out right now and get* the new Diane Cluck CD-R, Oh Vanille/Ova Nil. We'll be here when you get back...

DId you get it? Good. So you already know that Cluck has effectively created an entire universe out of thin air--one that pulsates with the raw power of unabashed emotion. You also know that it sounds damn good. Cluck has a superhumanly expressive voice, and her spidery nylon-string picking carries her honey-sweet warbles along with a quicksilver melodicism.

Aren't you glad you have this record?

Seriously though, It's certainly no secret that we're crazy about the whole free-/freak-folk thing around here, so the above is said very much in that context. It would be fair to say that if you're not into that whole scene, then this record might not be your thing. If that's the case, then please get into that whole scene and make this record be your thing.

But if your antlers are already jewelled, your guitar is already wooden, or your mender is already... milk-eyed(?), then by all means get this record right now.

On a side note, since we're here and talking about freak-folk, we'll just mention that the Espers record (review) oh so narrowly beat out The Milk-Eyed Mender as our favorite record of 2004. Just in case anybody was curious.

(*)If you live in New York, this entails getting on over to Other Music, and grabbing it. If you don't, then you can still get it from OM's website, or as this site suggests, you can e-mail Diane Cluck directly.

Posted by matt at 11:03 AM | TrackBack

January 05, 2005

Glad Tidings (Updated)

Happy new year, everybody! We're already five days into the new year, so you've all no doubt gone back on all of your highfalutin resolutions. Don't worry, we can't judge since we're right there with you. It wasn't more than a couple of minutes after midnight on Saturday  before we had already sniffing glue and turning tricks again (having sex for money is a hard habit to break).

However, if any of you had resolved to see Colin Meloy play solo (with Amy Annelle from The Places) at The Fez this month, then that's one resolution you can actually keep (that is, if you get your tickets right now). The poet-laureate of indie-rock has graciously added a show on Monday, January 24. Now that we've got our tix, it's okay to encourage you to show some hustle and get on that shit right away.

Also, if you do end up going to the show, you have to join me in clamoring loudly for Meloy's version of "Bridges and Balloons."

(Thanks to Gothamist for letting us know about this)

Update: Well, that didn't take long. The show looks like it's sold out again. Hope you all got your tix.

Posted by matt at 10:29 AM | TrackBack

December 20, 2004

Rock, American Style

Well gang, it's been a lot of work, but we've just now wrapped up an extensive multi-year study of greenideas' readership and your interests. What we found was pretty interesting, and well worth the trillions of dollars of government subsidies that went into it (thank you, Matthew Lesko!). It turns out that maybe some of you out there like to listen to rock 'n' roll music. Well friends, if that's true of you, then we've got great news! That news concerns the existence of a great two-headed beast, with one head called "Lungs of a Giant," and the other called "Nimbus" (if it's okay with everybody, we're just going to call that beast metaphor a failed experiment and abandon it forthwith).

Both of these bands are absolutely top-drawer, and both were in perfect form when they laid waste to their home turf of Magnetic Field last Saturday night with softball-sized hailstones of awesomeness. LOAG and Nimbus both have the uncanny ability to outdo themselves every damn time we see them. Saturday was certainly no exception. Also, we promise that we're not just saying all of this because of the big ol' crush we have on LOAG's bassist (and pretty much everybody else in both bands).

Get on over to their respective websites (linked above) and snag all the mp3s. Then buy everything they have for sale and mark your calendars with the dates of their upcoming shows. Also, keep your peepers glued to this here weblog, since we'll be featuring interviews with both bands in the New Year.

Speaking of the new year, we know a certain blog that's got a birthday coming up...

 

Posted by matt at 12:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Misery Under the Mistletoe

Here it is, gang. We've got a lot of catchin up to do, so the (pen-?)ultimate installment of greenideas' official Holiday Depression Mix 2004 is a big 'un. For some reason, today's batch of downers has a lot of 60s/early 70s tunes. Make of that what you will.

A case in point is "Though You Are Far Away," From Colin Blunstone's mind-blowingly great solo debut, One Year. The whole record is packed to the brim with lush strings, Olympian melodicism, and, of course, Blunstone's gorgeously expressive tenor. Also, if we're not mistaken, a careful listen to Manitoba's (/Caribou's--fuck a bunch of "Handsome" Dick, by the way) last full-length, Up in Flames, reveals that Dan Snaith sampled heavily from this very track.

Reaching all the way back to 1965, we've got the version of Paul Simon's "Kathy's Song" from The Paul Simon Songbook, which is now in print for the first time in the US. It features solo recordings of many songs that would go on to be hits for Simon & Garfunkel (and some that, you know, wouldn't). This particular song is special to us since it's one of the first songs we remember getting sad to. If that's not an important milestone in a boy's life, we don't know what is. Baseball glove, shmaseball glove.

We've already mentioned Bill Fay's "Brighton Beach" elsewhere, so we'll just say again that, on top of being revolutionary at the time, it still stands up as a masterpiece of sad, sad psych.

Another band we've already repeatedly rhapsodized about is Lovers. This song, "Winter Takes a Lover," is easily one of our absolute favorite songs of all time. It's nie impossible for us to hear it without getting chills. Absolutely brilliant.

"Angel in the Snow" is a Marine Research b-side that's definitely an oldie but a goodie. It's less depressing than it is wistful, but that's kind what we're all about this time of year.

Lastly, we've got "Flicker" from The One AM Radio's The Hum of the Electric Air! (which, for the record, we like a lot better than this year's A Name Writ in Water). If you're into that whole Dntel, Her Space Holiday, etc. kind of thing, then this is right up your alley. Indietronica indeed!

So, if everyone is good and downloads all of this today and tomorrow, maybe we'll put up a couple more tracks on Wednesday. Deal?

Also, be sure to check out Gothamist's round-up of what some other NY-area music blogs are suggesting for holiday ear candy.

Posted by matt at 11:12 AM | TrackBack

December 15, 2004

Lupus Lazuli

Since I haven't mentioned Wolf Parade in at least 2 days, they're about due for another post. Two quick news items that can be gleaned from this article in Eye weekly: their debut LP is coming out in the Spring of 2005 (which was what everyone expected), and Dan (lead singer) has a slight Pynchon obsession. Maybe that means we can expect at least a few songs to feature integrals and references to banana breakfasts. One can only hope. No news yet on whether the LP will feature re-recorded songs from the two EPs or brand new studio-written tracks, but, with any luck, Sub Pop will announce something in the near future.

Posted by Kevin at 11:22 PM | TrackBack

Midnight Confessions

Say you're cruising through your file-sharing service of choice, seeking out the cheesiest (=best) 80s soft-rock, adult-contemporary hits. You're pulling down all the Phil Collins solo stuff, Dan HIll duets, all your Peter Cetera, etc. Obviously, while you're evaluating your quarry, post-download, you have to laugh loudly enough that anybody who's eavesdropping will realize that you're clearly listening to "Another Day in Paradise" for kitsch value. Except, maybe you're not. Maybe you're, like, really into it. Does that make you some kind of sicko? We're asking because this happened to a friend of ours. You don't know him. His name is John... Betherson... -ton. John Bethersonton.

Seriously, though. We really do love that stuff to an unhealthy degree (which is presumably any degree, but who's to say really?). We're so into it, in fact, that we're totally working on pressuring (publicly now, we guess) our performing/songwriting buddy to do "Can't We Try" when we practice next. Some unsuspecting bar in New York is going to be in for a nasty pleasant surprise someday soon.

Anybody else notice that we've mentioned Dan Hill twice this week? That's probably more times than anybody's mentioned him since 1986! Cumulatively!

Um, also, if everybody could just go ahead and forget we just said all that, that'd be really great.

Posted by matt at 10:05 AM | TrackBack

December 14, 2004

Tweemo

Stuart Murdoch, lead singer of the hot-a-tot Belle & Sebastian, announced some exciting (and terrifying!) news in his online diary the other day. Check out this crazy text:

"We're toying with the idea of a concept lp which celebrates the lives of not only great philosophers, but great mathematicians too! A combined honours! We spent some time the other morning (when we ought to have been playing) naming our favourite mathematicians through the ages. Amongst some of the more recognisable names, like Pythagoras and Fermat, the rhythm section (Bob and Richard) volunteered Johnny Ball (from BBC's Think Of A Number) and Carol Vordemann (from Countdown of course).

It was the Philosophers turn today. Hegel, Kierkegaard, Descartes, Plato. We're thinking about calling the lp Immanual Can! with reference to the great German moralist. I started to explain how the history of philosophy was like a river, and how the earlier philosophers weren't wrong, they were just further upstream, but it was basically the same river that we were seeing. At this point Stevie pointed out that if life was a river then we were 'up shit creek without a paddle'. That seemed a pretty good cue to pick up our instruments and do some work."

'Immanual Can!' is maybe second only to LCD Soundsystem's abandoned LP title, 'Eclectic Warrior', in its simultaneous cringeworthiness/enjoyability. If they're looking for puns on philosophers' names, I can suggest: 'Red, red Quine', or 'Sartre Me Up!'. Maybe the tracks will be numbered according to the Fibonacci sequence. That would almost be too nerdy. Almost. I really hope they follow through on this, since it would be akin to, say, Blur putting out an album that revolved around the 'Heroes of Lexicography'. No word yet on whether or not Trevor Horn is producing again (hopefully!). This whole thing is pretty weird (and great, don't get me wrong), even for B&S.

Posted by Kevin at 11:28 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

December 13, 2004

Sad Sad Sad

Time's running out on the holiday season, so we're stepping up the pace on the posting of our Holiday Depression tunes. This week, we've got three bona fide tear-jerkers.

"Circle," from French synth-psych-ers Cyann & Ben's fan-f-ing-tastic sophomore effort, Happy Like an Autumn Tree, is almost punishing in its intensity. Unlike a lot of the songs that have made and will make their way into this mix, this one's got some real muscle. It's also gorgeous.

Next up is "Known Diamond" from Ken Stringfellow's last one, Soft Commands. Having been in such legendary pop bands as REM, The Posies, and fucking Big Star, Stringfellow has a pedigree that, at most, very few could even come close to duplicating. On this track, however, the sound is less jangle and more mid-80s adult contemporary. Could this song have been written 20 years ago by Dan Hill? Maybe, but probably not. The point is that despite an almost overwhelming melodramatic streak, this song radiates sincerity. It's also really good.

Mirah is building quite a career out of breaking our hearts. As such, it's really no surprise that, "Nobody Has to Stay," the lead-off track from this year's C'Mon Miracle, is both heart-rendingly beautiful and heart-rendingly, you know, heart-rending. The thick, almost Books-y strings that anchor this track lend it an emotional gravity that is only intensified by the plaintive yet gossamer strains of Mirah's own voice.

Man, these are some good goddam songs. You'd really better like them, else there might be something seriously wrong with you.

Posted by matt at 10:25 AM | TrackBack

December 08, 2004

The Hardest Working Band in Showbusiness (Updated)

Holy crap! We have to say in all honesty, and without a trace of hyperbole, that there is no better live show out there than Calexico. Last night, we totally went to sleep with a prayer on our lips asking God to grant us a womb for to bear Joey Burns's progeny.

The set was a nice tour through the band's catalog, slightly focusing on last year's Feast of Wire, but also digging deep into several EPs and import singles. The latter certainly appealed to us as the collector scum that we are. When they busted out Love's "Alone Again Or", from the eponymous German EP, we most definitely had the look of that one guy from Guffman who was, you know, waaay too into it.

Also, we're definitely going to have to devote some more attention to Cordero, Calexico's girly indie-rock counterparts, who more than ably kicked off last night's festivities.

On a more personal note, we want to extend a hearty 'fuck you' to every hipster asshole at the show last night who was too cool to dance. If "Crystal Frontier" does not set your ass to moving, then it might just be time to stop concentrating so hard on your ironic facial hair and turn your attention to becoming a normal human being. Christ, you people make us sick. [Deep breath] Okay, we're done.

Tonight, Calexico will be opening for Yo La Tengo in Hoboken. If anybody out there has tickets to that show, consider yourself extremely lucky for the rock you are about to receive. Also consider giving one of them to us.

So yeah. Go see Calexico if you have the chance (like you will if you live in, say, Philadelphia). Your sins will be burned away in a blinding white light of awesomess.

Update: Check out the trackbacks to see some really nice pictures of the show taken by Brooklynvegan.

Posted by matt at 10:26 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

December 06, 2004

More Holiday Mopery (Big Important Correction)

Okay. We're sorry for being a little later in getting to this than we'd anticipated, but we're nonetheless very excited to bring you the next batch of tracks for the greenideas Holiday Depression Mix, '04.

This time around, we've got "Turkey Song"  from the ridiculously great Heroin + Remixes by Stephan Mathieu and Ekkehard Ehlers. Truth be told, the next track on the record, "Supertramp," is a lot better (and much more of a bummer) than this one, but the obvious seasonal content of this particular composition is too strong to overlook. Plus, it just wouldn't be [winter holiday] without some Peanuts + Vince Guaraldi goodness, even if it is processed to sound like the festivities are taking place inside a fishtank that's very far away.

Also, Calexico misses you, and they want you to make it home so you can spend x-mas with them. That is, they do if the song "Gift X-Change" happens to be about you. This song is f-ing gorgeous. Joey Burns has never sounded more like Wille Nelson than on this track. That's a good thing, in case you were wondering.

Speaking of Calexico, we dearly hope that all of our friends out there in NYC have their tix for tomorrow night's show at the Bowery. There are still tickets available, but you oughtn't dally. Wouldn't you just feel awful if you missed out and then had to read us gushing about the show on Wednesday morning? Of course you would.

It'd be kind of like if you had a blog, and we had to read about the big Drag City X-mas show (also at the Bowery) on the morning after, since we'll be home for the holidays and thus very far away from Joanna Newsom and Bill Callahan. Unfortunately, we can't miss the holiday this year. We totally forgot Jesus's birthday last year, and he keeps finding excuses to make little digs about it. He's all, "Yeah, I guess you were pretty busy around the 25th. I was pretty busy when I died for your sins." Jesus lays a mean guilt trip.

BIG IMPORTANT CORRECTION(!!!): The Drag City X-mas dealie is not on X-mas day. In fact, it's two nights: the 18th and 19th. It looks like Joanna Newsom and (smog) are swapping headlining duties. Hells yeah, baby!

Posted by matt at 11:35 AM | TrackBack

December 05, 2004

Bandits! Procrustean!

Robbers on High Street, who were the subject of my very first mp3 posting/prose trainwreck on Molars, are releasing their debut LP, Tree City, some time in the next few months. This is the follow-up to their EP, Fine Lines, which was released last spring. Robbers on High Street are the East coast's answer to Spoon. That's not a suggestion or analysis, that is a statement of pure, unyielding fact. Apparently we felt threatened by Britt Daniel's spare production and back-of-the-throat singing. And ROHS sprung forth fully-formed, through metropolitogenesis, from New York, blah blah blah. Anyway, they're a good band, and whenever they or their label feels like releasing more info about the album, I promise I will deliver it to you, wrapped in fervor and hyperbolic praise.   

Posted by Kevin at 09:19 PM | TrackBack

December 03, 2004

Snip Snap Snorum

Terrestrial Tones, which is Avey Tare (from Animal Collective, who, let me say this, bears an uncanny resemblance to Craig Sheffer (Brad Pitt's older bro in 'A River Runs Through It')) and Eric Copeland (from Black Dice) are playing tonight at Tonic, along with Queens (Scott Mou, who's in: Jane (with Panda Bear) and 14K, and works at Other Music). Should be a good show- go to Tonic and tell them greenideas sent you, and be greeted with icy stares of condescension and shrieks of bewilderment.

Also, for those of you who love Bonnie Prince Billy as much as we do, 'Superwolf', his collaboration with Matt Sweeney, late of Zwan and later of Chavez, has leaked to your file-sharing network of choice. So, if you feel like stealing bread right off Will Oldham's plate, go right ahead and thieve the hell out of his new album.

Lastly, I've got some especially nice mp3s up at Molars this week, which I bought and paid for found on the street: Wolf Parade (song from the second EP), Young People, Panda Bear, Michael Mayer, Black Eyes, and others too good to mention here (secret songs!).

Posted by Kevin at 08:00 AM | TrackBack

November 29, 2004

A Moderate Bummer

Just in case anybody out there uses greenideas as their source for Pernice Bros. news, we've got a quick update that counts as a light to moderate disappointment. There had been some talk of "Pega Luna Manny," Joe Pernice's paean to the Red Sox slugger with savoir faire to spare, making it into the official Sox World Series DVD. Unfortunately, the top brass at Ashmont Records tells us that such will not be the case.

On the bright side, the DVD still purportedly includes footage of the Boston Red Sox winning the 2004 World Series of baseball.

Posted by matt at 11:41 AM | TrackBack

November 24, 2004

Weep for the Turkey

Is it just us or does holiday depression season start earlier and earlier every year? Now it seems like you're barely over your post-Halloween blues when good old fashioned Seasonal Affective Disorder kicks in. Well friends, we've got just the thing to help you get over/wallow in (your choice) the year-end emotional havoc.

Each week for the next month or so, we're going to be posting two or three tracks that will add up Voltron-style to form the greenideas Holiday Depression Mix 2004. (Note: order of posting will not necessarily reflect sequencing of the mix) (Additional note: well-adjusted types may enjoy this mix as well)

This week, we've got a couple of out-standing mopers;

First up, is Clearlake's "Trees in the City." This was unquestionably the theme-song to our own December bummer last year, so we'd be completely derelict in our mope-mongering duties if we didn't share it with you this holiday season. It's from the band's fan-freaking-tastic sophomore outing, Cedars, and we promise to refund the full cost of the download if it doesn't send you into a snow-filled closet to sulk.

Next is "November," the title track from Azure Ray's Saddle Creek debut EP that came out... god, fucking forever ago. Anyway, it's stuffed full of positively gorgeous hushed girly vocals and cello that could quite possibly be literally strung with heartstrings. At any rate, we're sure that it'll make you want to die in the best possible way.

That's it for this weeks installment. Check back next week when we'll probably have something from Stephan Mathieu & Ekkehard Ehlers ridiculously great Heroin + Remixes, and, you know, something else.

We'll also probably take tomorrow off (more because we intend to get Metal Gear: Solid 3 when we get off work tonight than because of the holiday), so happy Thanksgiving, guys. Enjoy the tryptophan and football and we'll see you back here on Friday.

p.s. Here's some recent news on Turkey's bid to join the EU.

Posted by matt at 12:00 PM | TrackBack

November 23, 2004

Sad Tidings

As many of you New Yorkers (and others) know, the urge to get the fuck out of Dodge for a couple of days can be nigh overwhelming. Well, this weekend, we found ourselves soundly whelmed and Fung Wah'd it up to Boston. Now after having gone all out, smoking like a chimney and drinking like a fish, we've been left in the lamentable condition of a sickly fish-chimney. Either that, or an early start to the Winter permacough is the toll for our weekend of wine, women, and song.

Worse, however, is that the trip marked what could be our last-ever trip to Disc Diggers, a venerable Davis Square institution that will be closing its doors for good on December 30th. Originally, their intention was to shift the inventory to the online wing of the business, but the evidence to be gleaned from the above link seems to weigh against that possibility. Although, we'd be remiss if we didn't entreat you to stop by the website and buy something if/when it's back up.

The demise of the Dig is indeed a tragedy. With a selection that managed to almost never disappoint (it's a favorite dumping ground for Boston-area critics' promo copies), and a staff that calls to mind a bizarre amalgam of Championship Vinyl and Cuckoo's Nest, it is an absolutely indispensable landmark on the Boston music scene, and we know we're in good and numerous company when we say that we will miss the absolute hell out of it.

So, Disc Diggers, thank you for ensuring that a sizeable proportion of our records will forever be emblazoned with that rallying cry of the record nerd on a budget, "FOR PROMOTIONAL USE ONLY."

Also, RIP, Terry Melcher.

Posted by matt at 11:32 AM | TrackBack

November 19, 2004

Support Your Local Rock Club

It's been an uncommonly good week for shows at Southpaw. Last Friday brought the legendary Giant Sand to our fair neighborhood. The early show the following night was Robyn Hitchcock, which was followed by an f-ing phenomenal show by Brooklyn's own Sufjan Stevens. Then last night, there was the unstoppable triple threat of Nmperign, David Grubbs, and Damon & Naomi w/ Kurihara (from Ghost). All we can say is... HOLY CRAP (but we'll nonetheless say more after the jump)

Speaking of Sufjan Stevens, we couldn't be happier to announce that his live shows now deliver on the promise of his records. Saturday's show was hands down the best show of his we've seen yet. Although, the most significant improvements weren't on Stevens's part (he was right where he needed to be). The awards for most improved definitely go to his supporting players for getting some much-needed self-confidence and to the sound engineer for figuring out how to eq a banjo.

As for last night's show, you couldn't ask for a better bill. Nmperign ventured out for an increasingly rare live performance and boy are we glad they did. If you don't know these guys (and you're a fan of free improv), do yourself a favor and track down something of theirs to listen to. Nmperign (pronounced "NIM-prine", as we were relieved to finally learn) is soprano saxophonist Bhob Rainey and trumpeter Greg Kelley. Their improv/sound-art stylings come off sounding eerily electro-acoustic (only, last night, there was no electro to be found), with Rainey's sax emitting what could easily be mistaken for pure sine waves and Kelly's mute + sheet metal robo rumblings.

Also, Rainey hooked us up with a copy of this outstanding found-sound opera thing he's working on. We don't want to say too much about it, lest we ruin any surprises, but when this thing eventually sees release, you are soooo going to want to pick up a copy. Like, for reals.

Another exceedingly pleasant surprise was that Nmperign played several songs with Damon & Naomi. Rainey and Kelly play some uncharacteristically trad (but nonetheleless very nice) horns on the forthcoming D&N record, and they played some of those tunes last night.

It was also really nice to finally see David Grubbs, since we've been a huge fan of his since way back when and we'd never seen him before last night. He did some really fantastic solo acoustic stuff, very much in the vein of his Drag City records. Very nice.

Lastly, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention how awesome Kurihara's guitar work was. Holy cripes, the sounds he was getting out of that thing were so unbelievably warm and... can we say uterine? Does that make sense? Anyway, it's not like Damon & Naomi need any help to break our hearts, but god damn if it doesn't help to have a supporting cast like Kurihara and Nmperign.

We're just tickled that it's finally paying off to live a couple of blocks away from a rock club, but we're also a little miffed that it happened as soon as it became likely that greenideas' Brooklyn HQ will be relocating to god knows where else on the Eastern seaboard.

For those of you keeping track at home, the emotions expressed in that last sentence were "tickled" and "miffed."

Posted by matt at 10:38 AM | TrackBack

November 18, 2004

Ferrum et Vino

All right! More from the Watercolored Redbeard (as pictured to your left), Sam Beam. Iron and Wine is releasing a single for 'Passing Afternoon', which will include the previously unreleased 'Communion Cups and Someone's Coat', and the partially released 'Dearest Forsaken'. As Sub Pop says, this should 'hold us over' until the new EP, 'Woman King', comes out on February 22. Damn. Sam Beam is on an almost Belle and Sebastianic streak here, what with the album/EP/album/EP sequence he's working. Although, hey, some of you might not think this new single can satiate your desire for Iron and Wine- if that's the case, then we would recommend turning to someone like, oh, Hayden- he's sort of the methadone to Beam's heroin. Ah, clumsy analogies. Anyway, the single is priced at $2.75, so go ahead and purchase that beast already, it's less than the cost of one of those mocha-bitch drinks at Starbucks. 

Posted by matt at 08:00 AM | TrackBack

November 17, 2004

Pernice Comes Alive!

O Lucky Day! Word has come down from on high that the Pernice Bros. live album/DVD is almost ready for consumption. Nobody's Watching/Nobody's Listening is a package deal containing a CD with material culled from two characteristically excellent shows at NYC's Mercury Lounge last year. The DVD component features footage from those same shows plus tons of other performances from Pernice history. The proverbial cherries on top are the videos for some of your favorite Pernice Bros. tracks.

Right now, you can preorder the pack for $11 (using the above link), but we guarantee that it's a steal at thrice the price! Also, buy a t-shirt while you're there.

As an added bonus, there's a very good chance that any footage from those Mercury Lounge shows will showcase greenideas matt's insane level of Pernice fandom, as he (ahem) enthusiastically takes in the proceedings from his favorite vantage point, pressed firmly against the stage.

Posted by matt at 01:38 PM | TrackBack

November 14, 2004

Seriously?

ODB? WTF!

We'll see you at the crossroads.

Posted by matt at 12:13 PM | TrackBack

Stayin' up late, talkin' 'bout emo

Hey, kids. It's greenideas matt here. As the time stamp on this post will indicate, it's pretty late. I just wanted to document the fucking phenomenal show I saw tonight. Please, if I don't say anything about it this week, make sure and bug me till I do.

Posted by matt at 04:10 AM | TrackBack

November 10, 2004

The new nihilism

No Things, whom we've discussed previously here and (with sound media) here, are set to release their first single, in CD format, on November 22nd, on the brand new Blast First Petite imprint. It's two tracks, people: Coward (the song we had up on Molars) b/w Trees. Should be fucking hot. Play it during Thanksgiving dinner and watch your overbearing and supremely-aggro Marine uncle's face melt off into the candied yams. Check out the full press-release for the cover art and luscious prose here.

Posted by matt at 09:42 PM | TrackBack

November 08, 2004

The Unmitigated Awesomeness of Bill Fay

One of the records that's currently up on our music sidebar is Bill Fay's From the Bottom of an Old Grandfather Clock. As a public service, we wanted to present a brief hagiography for this unsung hero of Brit-folk.

In the late 60s and early 70s, Fay was making some of the best records nobody's ever heard. Fortunately, his obscurity may be a thing of the past. Through the sheer force of kismet, he's more popular today than pretty much ever, thanks in large part to his cause being adopted by such luminaries as Jim O'Rourke and Wilco. Fay's song "Be Not So Fearful" is featured prominently in the Wilco movie, and the band has been known to cover it in concert. O'Rourke covered Fay's "Pictures of Adolph" (click through to vol. 2) as part of Thurston Moore's Protest Records project.

For the most part, though, the original recordings have been out of print for most of the last thirty years. Fay's two studio albums were reissued in the 90s, but those quickly went out of print as well. The new collection, the Bottom of an Old Grandfather Clock, consists mostly of previously unreleased demos and outtakes. While the sound quality of some of the demos is abyssmal, the collection is emanently listenable.

Fay's sound is characterized by seamless a seamless eclecticism that meanders from delicately maudlin British folk to Lennon/McCartney pop to reverb-soaked heavy psych that anticipates Spiritualized by a good twenty some years. It's baffling to think of how many of today's artists would have been influenced by Fay's music if only they'd heard it.

For anyone exhausted by the deluge of Friendster profiles that namecheck Nick Drake (we'd have to check, but we're pretty sure ours does, so don't get all defensive), run, don't walk, to your local purveyor of expensive imports and secure yourself a copy of this latest reissue. Do it before this one goes out of print, too.

If greenideas were Natalie Portman, and you were Zach Braff, we'd totally put oversized headphones on you and tell you to listen to Fay's "Brighton Beach." It'll change your life.

Posted by matt at 11:58 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Love the Lovers. Love Them!

Holy jumping Jesus! We love Lovers so fucking hard. Last night's show was a smashing success, with all three acts delivering top-drawer performances (and including a record low number of goof-ups by greenideas Matt). But we'll be thoroughly darned if Lovers/Carolyn Berk don't just make us feel genuinely squishy.

 

The good news for folks who weren't there last night, perhaps because they  live upstate, is that Lovers still have a few more dates left as they wrap up their huge US tour. Here are those last few dates, presented in glorious chronological order:

Nov 10 - New Paltz, NY - tba
Nov 11 - Burlington, VT - Radio Bean
Nov 12 - Poughkeepsie, NY - Vassar College
Nov 13 - Ithaca, NY - Cornell University

Should you be unable to attend any of these events, assuage your grief with some retail therapy and purchase one or both of Lovers greenideas-approved releases.

Posted by matt at 09:36 AM | TrackBack

November 05, 2004

Something less depressing, but still sort of bad

Well, greenideas HQ, as they say, has finally calmed down from the tectonic rage that has plagued us for the past couple of days. Now we're simmering.

Bad news though, on a extremely different scale than Tuesday: Black Dice is cancelling their tour, due to an illness in one of the band members' families. They were going to spend most of November on the road with Animal Collective, freaking the shit out of unsuspecting white-belt technology Abercrombots and hipsteroonies, but it looks like Gang Gang Dance (who are super-poppy goth-gypsy-core) will be filling in on noise duties. Hopefully everything with the Black Dice extended family will turn out well.

Speaking of which, Hisham Bharoocha, whom we last mentioned in this post, has apparently left Among Natives (which included Doug Shaw and Abby Portner (Animal Collective's Avey Tare's sister)) to join with Scott Mau (who's in Noah Lennox(Panda Bear)'s side-project 'Jane') to form the band 14K. Also, he's in Pixeltan. And does a lot of visual art. Dude is tearing shit up. Isn't it odd how striking a similarity the NYC out-rock/folk/noise scene bears to, say, the aristocratic families in War and Peace? Or are we the only ones who noticed that? Bah.

Posted by matt at 08:00 AM | TrackBack

October 26, 2004

Decemberists giddily consent to soundtrack Oxford English Dictionary

Pitchfork Media Group Inc. (PFM on the Nasdaq) announced yesterday that the Decemberists have finally attached a name to their new due-in-March LP: 'Picaresque'. We for two (what is the plural version of the phrase 'I for one'? Goddamn) can't wait for when people start pouring into the record stores and asking for 'that new Decemberists album, uh, what is it...Picturesque? Right. Dude. Hit me with that bitch.' We here at greenideas think that 'Roustabout in the Abbatoir', the planned 3rd single and purported 'Decemberists go techno' song, will hit top 10 on Billboard, no problem. Some portions of that last sentence are painfully false.

In other half-spurious news, Colin Meloy, lead singer and song-writing Decemberist, is possibly writing a musical with playwright Glen Berger, according to fan-site Meant for the Stage. Berger has won an Emmy or nine for his work on the PBS Kids show, Arthur, which, despite the titular indications, is not about an extremely rich and superhumanly alcoholic aardvark who hangs out with Liza Minelli and John Gielgud all day. But really, it so should be about that.

And finally, to justify that creative writing degree he has, Colin wrote a book about the Replacements' classic album, 'Let it Be', for the Continuum Books 33.3333333333 series. Check it out. Sup upon Meloy's thoughtful prose!

Posted by matt at 08:00 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

October 22, 2004

Do You WANT New Wave?

Drew Daniel(from Matmos)'s excellent side-project, Soft Pink Truth, is releasing a new album this Tuesday,