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February 28, 2005
Long Time Since
The Impossibles - This Is Fucking Tragic
The fourth installment (1, 2, and 3) in my unsolicited history of Rory Phillips' and Gabe Hascall's songwriting careers. The Impossibles, from Austin TX, was the band that started it all for them: playing mostly ska at first, it slowly mutated into more of a Weezer-ish/hard punk hybrid by the end of their run.
This is one of the first Impossibles songs I ever heard, from their final studio album, 2000's "Return", and I think it perfectly illustrates the intra-song dynamic that the band had cultivated at that point, with the soft verses/explosive choruses. The Impossibles used a vocal arrangement that's similar to Black Eyes or the Blood Brothers, with Gabe handling most of the softer, more traditional 'singing' parts, and Rory taking on the screamier portions (as I mentioned before, Rory has a great rock scream). 'This is Fucking Tragic' starts with pal-muted guitar, and Gabe intoning "we've come to feel so cold", then later on transitions to one of the hair-ripping, teeth-gnashing, heart-on-sleeve choruses that they did so well.
The Impossibles were an unappreciated band in their time, working in a genre (guitar-heavy emo(!)) that's become less and less well-regarded (with good reason, given some of the current practitioners) in the past five years. It's too bad that their Live DVD has gone out-of-print, because it's an excellent record of the band's passion for their music and insane live energy (plus the commentary track is hilarious). Anyway. You can buy "Return" directly from the record label (only $10).
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM | Comments (3)
February 25, 2005
from Sunlight to Sunshine
Beulah - Battle Cry of the West (live on Netherlands Radio)
This is the prettiest song in Beulah's discography, and that's saying a lot. Miles Kurosky wrote some fantastic songs during the course of Beulah, but this one really distills their whole aesthetic into one nice little package- some tight harmonies, chiming guitar notes on the chorus, and a melody that's almost aggressively cheerful.
I know I've posted about Beulah before, but somehow I suspect that not many people know who they are, or if they do know, they haven't listened to their music before. This is a live version (the studio one is even more dramatic and overwhelming) that Miles and Bill Swan (I think) performed on the radio when they were in Holland. 'Battle Cry of the West' is a B-side on the 'Popular Mechanics for Lovers' single, which (PMfL) was taken from Beulah's great "The Coast Is Never Clear" LP. You can buy the CD single here (there's one left), and the LP here.
Here's some more of Dan's exciting adventures:
Eldoret Half-Marathon
From some inexplicable reason, I ran in the Eldoret Half-Marathon. The race, called by some "the crown jewel of the Rift Valley road racing circuit," now widely known as "self-dignity's last stand," took place on Feb. 2nd.
If you ever run in a decent sized road race in the US, you will probably see a handful of guys that clearly look like they are in a different class than the rest of the field. They are stoic, confident, decked out in full sponsor gear covering a gazelle-like physiognomy. The Eldoret Half-Marathon had about 300 runners, and as I judged it, 299 of them fit this description at the starting line. Guess who didn't.
I have never had such an utterly cold feeling of despair in my gut as I did before this race. I wasn't sure how fast I could run, but what I was certain of was no matter how fast that was, I would still be coming in last, by a lot. In fact, my only faint hope for this not happening lay in the late arrival of a runner who was racing in a pair of Haggar slacks that hung loose around his belly in a manner that suggested that he had not eaten for several days.
I ran a recklessly uncontrolled 5:30 opening mile...which put me in dead last place by about 20 meters. The rest of the race wasn't much better.
Let's just say that I had been banking on the abject humiliation of being in last (or almost last) to energize me to at least a respectable finish. What I did not anticipate was that other runners were even more energized by an even more powerful motivation: namely, abject humiliation at being beaten by me. Whenever I actually started working my way up to a runner, the roar of the crowd along the streets would begin to grow. They would frantically scream "Kwenda mzungu, KWENDA!" [Trans: Go foreign infidel, GO!]. As the cheers crescendoed and I drew alongside "my victim", he would unleash this panicked kick that would put him a good 20 meters ahead of me. I would work my way up to him, he would kick again. This process would repeat until he had no more kicks left. As I finally slid past him, the crowd would begin howling in laughter at the Kenyan who got beat by the neo-colonialist invader. Rather than face an entire town pouring it's ridicule down on him for the remainder of the race, he would then slink into the crowd and drop out. It was like I was wearing a sign on my back that said, "If you can read this, you'd better find a new line of work." Honestly, it probably is good advice. But you can imagine this got to be pretty frustrating for me.
To abbreviate the account, by the end, there were about 110 finishers, I came in 104. Among (a few) others, I beat the guy in the Haggar pants, a kid who raced in his school uniform, and a dude sporting an "NFL Gameday '98" t-shirt. Don't let that fool you. The short (and honest) story is that I probably ran the best race I biologically could, and I still got my clock absolutely cleaned. But I hope that the experience will make for a good article or something of the sort in the future.
The search for the thief continues, with the "elite" university investigative team doing their level best.
Dan
PS: to those on Peace Corps Ben's email list, I was amused by the stark contrast of our situations. While he left his Krygyz university because of human rights abuses committed there, I may be actively funding them on mine. Hmmm...
Read installments one, two, three, four, five, or six of Dan's correspondence.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM | Comments (2)
February 23, 2005
Mercy Savage
Portishead - Humming (Live at Roseland Ballroom)
[Sorry for the late update. Snow + a lunch meeting have made for a long day. But that's neither here nor there.]
Portishead were one of my favorite bands, back in the halcyon days of the late 90s. And it's not that I ever stopped liking them, but they just sort of disappeared (they are like Radiohead to the Nth degree when it comes to lag-time between albums), and there was no news about what they were doing. 8 years since their last studio album, people. That is a long goddamn time.
Then, just last month, comes news that Portishead are playing live shows for a tsunami victims benefit, in Bristol UK, and are going to start working on their third LP, to be released later this year. It'll be interesting to see how this new material turns out, if it'll have the same hip-hop/jazzy/spy movie soundtrack feel that the old songs do.
'Humming', the studio track, is from their second LP, "Portishead", released in 1997. This version though is taken from the incomparable live disc, "PNYC", which came out in '98, if I remember correctly. It starts out with what sounds like a theremin and violins, and some carefully placed horn accents. Two full minutes in, the beats start. And then the scratching. Beth Gibbons unleashes her utterly gorgeous voice, sounding almost confessional. At about the 4:40 mark, there's a swell of strings and horns, and Beth questions her resolve- then goes on to quiver, "it's been so long/that I can't be sure/and it's been so wrong right now/so wrong".
At one point, I was convinced that there was no better band on the planet than Portishead. So it's an understatement when I say that I am looking forward to their new album. You can purchase "PNYC" from the kind folks over at l'Amazon.
Posted by matt at 09:02 PM | Comments (4)
Without Which
Rahzel - If Your Mother Only Knew
This is just insane. Rahzel (a sometimes member of the Roots) is arguably the world's best beatboxer (Bjork was smart enough to snag him for her voice-only "Medulla" album), and he proves it here. He sings a quick hook (the title of the song) and accompanies himself with deep bass hits, echoed snaps, and scratches. Fair enough, right? But he actually does both at the same time: sings over his own beats. When I heard this for the first time, I thought it was simply unbelievable (my amazement could be expressed in scientific instant message notation: wtf x 10^10). Listen to it and shriek with delight!
This little cut is live, so I don't think you can actually purchase it anywhere (update: Jamie brought this up in the comments- "i actually have the track in question as a vinyl b-side to a roots bootleg. it's a little-known trivia piece that those kids first cooked up elvis' "little less conversation" 'boot before it was remixed again and made huge by junkie-xl-- for whatever all that's worth. anyway, it's purchase-able, but it's gonna be f@#*ing hard to find....."), but check out some of Rahzel's other stuff here. P.S. This UK site has a CD (or something) with bonus tracks that include 'If Your Mother Only Knew', and it's available for 3 pounds (so like $10, maybe).
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM | Comments (4)
February 22, 2005
Seems Impossible
Norfolk and Western - Terrified
Some (2) of you may wonder how it is that I crank out this mp3blog day after endless day. Well. Let me tell you about a little secret: templates. Take it away! (i.e. fill in the blanks-)
This song is like a <simile featuring a woolly mammoth, a husband pillow, and creaky deck stairs>. Can you believe that? It's just so, so <excessive adverb/adjective usage>, it makes me <ludicrous anatomical consequences> when I listen to it. <Self-deprecating allusion>, although hey, who hasn't? I recommend <Subjunctive clause, supported by 19 unnecessary commas>. Woo.
But I kid. Norfolk & Western are just about as good as it gets in the world of carefully-arranged snowbound indie rock. Adam Seltzer's voice is gentle and comforting, almost boyish (in all vocal respects, he reminds me of Sufjan Stevens), and in conjunction with Rachel Blumberg's (ex-Decemberist) equally mellifluous voice, Norfolk & Western's harmonies achieve a degree of subtlety that you usually don't hear in the traditional boy-girl sing-alongs.
The musical element that I am most excited about in this song: that refractive electric + pedal steel guitar phrase that sounds like an angry wind-up toy trying to devour itself. And that initial line sets up the whole thing, "terrified by the plane ride home/to your mother's house in Galveston"; coupled with "her photo on the dresser glared at me", the lyrics just make 'Terrified' a classic.
Norfolk & Western are releasing a new album soon, entitled "If You Were Born Overseas". I'm excited. Ok. This song is from their v. pretty 'Dusk in Cold Parlours' LP, which you can purchase from the fine people here.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
February 21, 2005
QED
David Bowie - Starman
There's not much I can say about this song. I've been listening to it a lot, and it's good for a Monday morning. If you've never heard it before (doubtful), give it a listen. Even if you think you haven't heard it, you'll probably recognize it. Its appeal is universal.
You can buy the album that this is from, Ziggy Stardust, in almost any record store, anywhere. (Also, I think this one of the songs that Seu Jorge covers in 'Life Aquatic')
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
February 18, 2005
Radar Brothers - Sisters This
Radar Brothers - Sisters
This song is almost like driving up the Eastern Shore of Virginia/Maryland, which is gorgeous, expansive, and sparsely populated; each shop and restaurant along the route is a discrete glimpse into the life of the town you're traveling through. It's utterly pastoral. However, this song is actually like driving along the Eastern Shore after you've manslaughtered someone at a gas station. Jim Putnam's lyrics paint a disturbing picture, and it begins with this little line: "They've been missing for a week/from here the weapon looks clean/too bad the older sisters are taking it home".
It's just a piano shuffle, some layered percussion, and a churning guitar that comes by every once in a while, corrosive and pretty. 'Sisters' builds to a sweet crescendo, sort of a resigned and detached conclusion. the Radar Brothers are releasing their new album, Fallen Leaf Pages, on March 22nd, on Merge. 'Sisters', on the other hand, is from their last album, 'And the Surrounding Mountains'.
Now here's more from Dan in the field:
As I climbed the 5000 meters of Mount Kenya this past weekend, fearless cat burglars climbed the 1 meter through the East German's [ed. note: her name is Suz] window. After slashing through a fence, they pried open her window, cut through a security bar, and went on a rampage in her house. They destroyed a bunch of stuff inside, turned over furniture, and stole anything they could get their hands on, down to a loaf of bread. In so doing, they took 6 months of my research, my laptop, a heart rate monitor, and my Dec. 2000 issue of Jugs magazine. Maybe most disturbing is that later, a picture of me was found ritualistically buried in the backyard.
We found out on the 14th, when we were half-way up the mountain. Suz and I were climbing with a Polish fellow (Mariusz) and our hired porter, Reuben (quick aside: as were were hiking @ 4000 m one day, Mariusz deliriously pondered, "wouldn't it be great if backpacks had legs? Then it could walk right up the mountain." I told him, "Mine does. It's name is Reuben.")
On our way back to Eldoret, Suz had her wallet stolen at the Nakuru bus park. Then the bus we were taking broke down. This at least gave me time to think about how to deal with our situation at the university. 1) I could count on the nobility of the African, and the competence of local security to see that justice is done. In other words do nothing. Or 2) I could use my locally limitless budget and throw money to the people like meat to a pack of hungry dogs. Basically, have the person who vandalized her home hunted down by the same kind of person that he is.
In a few years, I will probably regret what I did. I came back announcing a 100,000 shilling (1300 dollars) reward for the person who did this (and the stuff, as proof) brought to me however they wanted to bring him. 100000 shillings is about 5-6 years wages for the average Kenyan. For scale, a doctor makes about 30000 shillings a year here.
As soon as word of the reward leaked out (yesterday), well, the reaction was stunning, if not surprising. The area has pretty much begun to tear itself apart looking for the person. The notoriously lazy security force is now dragging the unsavory characters of the area down to the basement of the administration building for...well...less than delicate conversations. There is a local "Dennis the Menace" type kid they talked to yesterday. Imagine an episode of the cartoon. Now imagine Mr. Wilson taking Dennis down to a wet basement and threatening to throw him in a boys home for the rest of his life if he doesn't talk.
Roommates are selling out roommates, family is turning in family. Whoever it is that actually took the stuff is now being hunted by 6,000 people like he's a lost lottery ticket. A couple students who run these little shops have shut down completely to hunt for this person for a few days. Basically, the place has decended into a small amount of chaos. Was doing this right? Not sure, but it seems to be frighteningly effective.
But in any case, campus is not a particularly safe place for me anymore. The person who is being hunted now has a somehwat high motivation for really doing something to me. So in a few days, I may be leaving for a different part of the country, unless he is caught. Hope everything is going less "M"-like back home.
Read installments one, two, three, four, or five of Dan's correspondence.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
February 17, 2005
Shameless Fraternal Promotion
the Do Nots - Screw Your Mom (rough demo)
All right all right. So this is my little brother's band. His name is Sean, and he's 17. He plays rhythm guitar in the Do Nots (previously known as: the Gothic Pop Tarts, FX-44, the Leotards, the Fain, Anadyne, et al.), who hail from my hometown of Pottstown, PA. The Do Nots are currently recording a demo EP, and this is one of the tracks that made the cut.
Nick (the lead singer) has a solid voice- I can hear strains of Blink 182's Tom Delonge and Hot Hot Heat's Steve Bays in his slightly nasal delivery. The emo-force is strong with Nick. What surprised me (I had never heard a full-band version of any of their songs) were the guitar hooks and the breakdowns. While it could stand to be a little tighter (it is a rough demo though), this is a solid little number. Excellent use of tremolo in some of the ancillary verse riffs.
A quick fact about Sean: he's an excellent soccer player and a great little brother. Please stop by the band's website to check out their weird little bio. They'll appreciate it.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM | Comments (2)
February 16, 2005
Glaciers aren't ready for people
Jessica Bailiff - Swallowed
For those of you who have been reading this humble little mp3blog from the beginning (when it was mostly about experimental dentistry), you might remember a post I did about Luomo, and driving on I-95 in an unforgiving blizzard. Well, this song by Jessica Bailiff was on one of the other tapes I had in the car with me that night, and I must have played it about 17 times in a row, it fit the situation so perfectly. 'Swallowed' is soft and coy; acoustic guitar strums and Jessica's voice are the two most prominent elements, but there's also a harmonica (or something like that) that sounds off like a beacon every couple seconds. Bailiff's voice is just incapacitatingly pretty.
If a song can have an appropriate natural accompaniment, then a raging snowstorm (observed from someplace warm) is the right choice for this track. It's soothing and languid, and it connotes being wrapped up in a blanket, slowly falling asleep, staring out of the window. 'Swallowed' is from Jessica's 2002 self-titled album on Kranky, which you can buy here.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
February 15, 2005
Flint, FBD
Sloan - Everything You've Done Wrong
It's like a huge, sweet cake, covered in chocolate icing and delivered right to your jail cell (there's an industrial strength file baked right in, a-ha). Handclaps + sidelong horn blasts + bouncy and intermittent basslines all make me happy. Sloan writes very hook-dense songs, and tracks like this are liberally spread throughout their entire discography, which always made it a mystery to me as to why they're not just insanely popular. With the current rash of high-profile Canadian bands, it makes me think that if they had formed ten years later than they did, Sloan and tracks like 'Everything You've Done Wrong' would be in heavy rotation on Saturn commercials, teen dramas, and semi-autobiographical independent films (in all fairness though, Sofia Coppola (so pretty!) did put this song on the soundtrack to 'Virgin Suicides').
'Everything You've Done Wrong' is from the One Chord to Another LP, which seems to be out of print(?). You can buy it here, used and new. One thing though- once you start listening to this song, it's very difficult to stop.
p.s. Here's a Kills track (the B-side to their UK single) that Joe from Insound sent me (thanks, Joe!): the Kills - Run Home Slow
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
February 14, 2005
Fax yourself to China, do this now
Shannon Wright - Black Little Stray
The main guitar parts in this song sound as if they were crafted to simulate what it would be like to sail a small boat upon a stormy, crunchy peanut butter sea. Thick, roiling, and vicious. Shannon Wright's voice is a smattering of calm (smoothness) in an otherwise rambunctious song. You can purchase 'Over the Sun', the LP that this song comes from, right here. Don't let my lack of poorly-worded similes stop you from listening to this track, because it's a beast (not to be missed).
I'd like to (try to) write more about 'Black Little Stray', but I need to cram about 76 man-hours of paperwork labor into a mere 13 hour day tomorrow. Wish me luck.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
February 11, 2005
Quick and Mushy
Currituck Co. - Don't the Road Look Rough and Rocky
As Kevin Barker (who performs as Currituck Co.) describes this song on his website: "large acoustic guitar/drums improv". The drums are played by Otto Hauser, of Espers. You may or may not know Currituck Co. from the 'Golden Apples of the Sun' compilation, which was selected by Devendra Banhart- the blistering acoustic guitar track, 'Tropic of Cancer' (which is also on Currituck's 'Ghost Man on First' album) was, for me, the standout of that entire comp. Well, Kevin has definitely outdone himself here- this 10+ minute track never wanes in intensity, and the little storms and impossible patterns that he kicks up on guitar are just...indescribable. It's best to just sort of let it wash over you. This song is one long, troubled night.
Currituck Co. has been busy of late. There are two albums (actually 3 discs) coming out this March- one, which this song is taken from, is "Ghost Man on Second", a double album released by Troubleman Unlimited on March 8th. Then, some time later in March, "Sleepwalks in the Garden of the Deadroom" is coming out on Track & Field in the UK. You can listen to other tracks from both albums on the Currituck Co. website (linked up top). One awesomely interesting fact about Kevin Barker: he will teach you any of his songs. For a small price, he'll record a VHS tape with an 1) an introduction to fingerpicking, 2) a performance of the requested song, 3) in-depth instruction on how to play the song, and 4) guitar tablature of the song. So nice. Do yourself some good and buy one of his albums.
Here are some more of Dan's adventures:
My brother visited a few weeks ago, so we headed for Maasai Mara to stare at a bunch of animals. To that end, I hired a slightly more expensive tour guide company due to their trustworthy reputation, their reliable fleet of vehicles.
Perhaps we should have expected it, but as soon as our Toyota Landcruiser hit the Kenyan equivalent of Death Valley, it sputtered and wheezed to a halt. My brother and our driver (Peter) were elbow deep into the bowels of the engine compartment, discussing the removal of so-called "unnecessary" parts like the starter, in an effort to blindly amputate whatever mechanical problem that had hit us. But Pete's meaty hamhock-like paws were too large to properly extract the parts from the engine compartment. I (and they) looked down at my...more deft hands, properly sized for mechanical work as well as cleaning the inside of artillary shells. It seemed that the worst was about to come to pass.
But then out of a swirl of dust came two tiny adolescent Maasai pixies, with naive, cherubic faces and tiny hands. My brother and I shot each a conspiratorial glance. Unfortunately, David's glance was meant to convey that we had a perfect picture opportunity on our hands. Mine was to suggest that we could put them to work under the Landcruiser wheel well.
Well, David's particular brand of curiosity-driven humanism overwhelmed my particular brand of need-based humanism. We took their pictures, whereupon of course they immediately demanded money. Peter, who in the meantime had worked the starter loose, overheard this and said that he would take care of the financial details. So after getting their help push-starting the car (something we would be doing over and over for the next 4 days), David and me piled in and drove off. Peter dropped something out his window.
As we left the Maasai children in the road, I asked Peter how much he had given them. He said, "oh...no money, just something small. Don't worry about it." And don't look back, apparently. I looked back. Out the window I saw one of the children quizzically looking at an empty plastic bottle of water Peter had been drinking from.
Our Monkey Experience
One of the nice things about staying at a game park (or Kenya at large, actually) is the curious animals that come around your door. One night, a vervet monkey began to nose around our balcony. My reaction: frantically search for some piece of fruit so that I might entice it to play with me, while concurrently desensitizing it to the danger of man. My brother's reaction: flee as quickly as possible to the far corner of our room, murmuring facts about primates and cross-species disease transmission rates under his breath.
I found a passion fruit, and my brother found the courage to take some pictures of me playing with Patient Zero (albeit from his barricaded perch in the far corner of the room, using every X of the 10X zoom on his camera).
In one particularly well-composed shot, David captured the monkey consuming my donated passion fruit. What I saw: a monkey competently snacking on a tropical delicacy. What David saw: razor-sharp teeth tearing through tough fruit rind like it was creme brule, stuffing the dripping innards into it's rabid maw. I am afraid that for David, there was only difference in location, not in kind, between this fleshy fruit and his fleshy hand.
All in all, Maasai Mara was pretty nice, but I wish these animals would do more things. We pay a lot of money to go there, the least they could do is stay fit. They (like the squirrels of the William and Mary campus) are (in my opinion obese, spend all day just lounging around, and kind of shrug when you approach them. It's hard to resist the temptation to throw things at the lions to make the MOVE! Inquired about the possibility of going for early morning runs in the park. I was advised against it.
Read installments one, two, three, or four of Dan's correspondence.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
February 10, 2005
Harmonic Percolator
Shellac - the Dog and Pony Show
I think my old roommate said it best when he described Shellac's sound as 'some kind of three-legged animal, lurching back and forth'. It would have to be an extremely heavy animal with lots of extraneous horns and spikes to really represent Shellac. This band is very minimalistic: drums, guitar, bass, vocals. But you'll probably never hear anything as comfortably abrasive and as huge-sounding as 'Dog and Pony Show'.
This is actually a live track, recorded on 4-20-02 at the All Tomorrow's Parties Festival, in Cambers Sands UK, courtesy of Transmission 3000 (which has tons of great live shows archived). 'Dog and Pony Show' was first released on the At Action Park LP, which is just insane, beginning to end. Also of great interest: this essay that Steve Albini (lead singer and guitarist for Shellac, and before that, Rapeman and Big Black) wrote, entitled 'the Problem with Music', but more commonly known as 'some of your friends are probably already this fucked'. It draws on Albini's experiences as a producer and artist to describe some of the behind-the-scenes details involved in record contracts (it's pretty engrossing).
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
February 09, 2005
Built a House Inside
Exploding Hearts - Throwaway Style
So even though almost everyone has heard this song (or maybe that's just me making assumptions about this website's audience), I wanted to post it, since 1) it's fantastic, 2) it reminds me of humid basement parties in the middle of the summer with tons of people dancing around, drinking cheap beer and sweating profusely (let's hear it for sweat!), and 3) everyone should be reminded once in a while how great this band was.
'Throwaway Style' is effortlessly catchy, and considering that, the Buzzcocks are probably the closest musical reference (or maybe Magazine, esp. 'Shot by Both Sides'). This is a song that will pop into your head unexpectedly when you wake up in the morning, even if you haven't listened to it in 3 - 6 months. There is something so wholesome and at the same time otherworldly about it: when Adam Baby sings "I know our love is over/unless you come over/make it all right/stay the night", it's a sentiment that could have been ripped straight from a Spector girl-group ballad. (I'm articulating this poorly, but you'll hear what I mean).
For those who don't know, 3 of the 4 members of the Exploding Hearts were tragically killed in a van accident in late July, 2003. You can buy their debut album, Guitar Romantic, from their record label, here.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM | Comments (1)
February 08, 2005
Kabuki Olympics
Paperface - the Facts
This is the only song I've ever heard that manages to successfully combine some of the icy, pop feel of the Junior Boys, the slow-moving tenderness of a Casiotone for the Painfully Alone track, and the melodic indie-IDM of, say, Menomena or Postal Service. Not to make this into a weird RIYL list, but 'the Facts' is a song that has a lot going on in it: clean, confidently-struck piano chords (with an organ hiding somewhere there in the background), deep heart-restarting beats, fluttering percussive clicks, and excellent double-tracked vocals (which get all smeared out and distorted at the end of the song- so nice). Check out the moment when the beats drop out entirely and it's just piano + 'I don't play country music anyway'. Hot.
The chorus is a sweetly cynical trick, alternating between 'life ain't always beautiful' and 'life can't always be beautiful'. It's got a nice school-of-hard-knocks feel to it, like a message from the older one-half of a December-May romance to the younger half.
You can buy Paperface's new album, The Legend of Harley Knowles, here, and check out some more of their music over at their website.
(thanks to Lauren for sending me this track)
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
February 07, 2005
I'm in mourning
Recoys - Shake Off Your Nerve
Speaking as I was (or writing as I was) of bands in the Walkmen family tree, the Recoys were the band that nurtured the talents of Hamilton Leithauser (W-men lead singer and Recoys frontman), and Pete Bauer (bass). 'Shake Off Your Nerve' is definitely proto-'Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone', viz. replace the harmonica in this song with an organ, and you've got yourselves a Walkmen track (which actually, 'Blizzard of '96', and 'That's the Punchline' were both written as Recoys songs).
'Shake Off Your Nerve' rocks as hard as anything the Walkmen have released, with a real galloping drumbeat and a sheer wall of harmonica lament (+ weird semi-barbershop back-up vocals) to accompany Hamilton's swagger and shout (who has never sounded more like Mick Jagger than he does in this song). 'I did a dance in the beam of your flashlight there/out on the grass/under millions of stars' is one of the more evocative lines that Leithauser has ever written, and that, along with parts of the chorus ('C'mon kids/lets show off your haircut') make this song essential. (for some people)
Quick note: I might be a little distracted this week by my sorrow for the Eagles and by my insatiable hatred of the New England Patriots (how is this team at all likable? It's not. Tom Brady is a scruffy douchebag (did anyone see his interview with Bradshaw? It was bizarre to say the least) and Boston cares only about baseball- most of the people who count themselves as Pats fans now only realized last week that they still had a football team in Massachusetts. Deion Branch: please die).
Posted by matt at 11:35 AM
February 04, 2005
Drugbees
Spoon - Revenge!
A few disconnected claims:
Jim Eno's drums have never sounded so brutally elemental as they do on this song. Spoon do more with just guitar, vocals, and drums than most bands can do with a whole host of instruments and production techniques. Razor-thin songs that beg to be played over and over again. No other musical act is able to be quite this parsimonious and still be this successful and compelling. Britt Daniel and Jim Eno have constructed a band that sounds like a bully.
This track is from the UK edition of 'A Series of Sneaks', the band's second album. You can order the US version by following the aforeposted link, but it looks like the UK version is woefully out of print. Anyway- one thing to keep in mind: Spoon's new album, Gimme Fiction, is coming out on May 10th. Unstoppable.
And now, a few words from Dan:
Kenya and my personal psychological hang-ups do not mix well. You may or may not know, but I have had alifelong problem with hand-shaking. The barest thought of the remote possibility of shaking someone's hand causes me to break out in a profuse nervous sweat, making the experience of hand-shaking that much more unpleasant (and clammy). Anyway, shortly after landing in Nairobi, I finally got to the page in my travel guide that said in Kenya, people shake hands almost constantly. Every time you see someone, you are expected to shake their hand. Every time you walk in a room, you shake the hand of everyone in that room. Every time you leave a room, you go through the same procedure. During conversations, you often grasp the hand of the person you are speaking with (in what extracontextually appears to be a homoerotic manner), for the duration of the conversation. So basically, Kenyais the worst possible place in the world for someone with my particular psychological peccadillo. For the past month, I have been trying to think of excuses for not shaking hands, such that I don't grievously insult others. For example, saying "Sorry, I just washed them" was determined NOT to be an appropriate option. It got to the point where in my spare time I was running cost-benefit analyses and casual feasibility studies on intentionally breaking one or more of my right fingers. While this still is an option, I have also learned to cope. Now I enter myself into a nearly zen-like state of non-thought whenever I sense the possibility of hand-shaking approaching. This seems to do the trick. Some of the time.
Also on a related note, most Kenyans seem to be really circumspect in regards to hand care. Most all here are really well-manicured and go to great lengths to keep their hands in good shape. This again does not mesh with my personal stylings. In this case, the habit of going at my fingertips like a weevil. More than once I have been told, "umm, what happened to your hand...err...hands?" Which really has no good answer.
Read installments one, two, or three of Dan's correspondence.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM | Comments (1)
February 03, 2005
You heard it! You can't unhear it!
20 go to 10 - 10 Start Program
This track, from another sadly defunct band (in a way- I'll get to that in a minute), is a pacemaker, simulated by an acoustic guitar. It's the work of Rory Phillips, the man responsible for this song, and 50% responsible for this song. The 20 go to 10 was the name of the solo project that Rory formed directly after the Impossibles broke up- except he never really did anything with it except to record '10 Start Program' (for non-pogramming people out there: the name of the band and the name of this song both are derived from commands in Basic). Now's he got the new band (the aforeposted Nineteen Ninety-Now), and he's producing records in Austin. That's the end of the biography paragraph.
Like a lot of the stuff that Rory writes, this has a definite power-pop feel. However, this song is set apart from others of its ilk by the nervous and jittery verses, with all that palm-muted acoustic guitar abuse. It reminds me, at least in terms of dynamics, of the quick one-two crunch that Jonny Greenwood uses to introduce the chorus in Radiohead's 'Creep'. Maybe not quite as iconic, but it definitely makes '10 Start Program' stand out. The sound is actually more akin to a fiercely-strummed washboard than a guitar. But don't let that stand in your way. The chorus is a wave of guitars and cymbals, afterall.
One of the lines in this song that I think is just priceless (maybe because of my own semi-hermetic tendencies): 'beaten back we move like snails we crawl/into our homes and then become a part of them'.
Unfortunately, I can't link to any site for the band, or any place you can buy their music. Enjoy it for what it is- a loose artifact.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM | Comments (2)
February 02, 2005
Answering Machine Monologues
The Wind-Up Bird - Sorry That I've Become This Monster (pts. 1 and 2)
Joe Grimm and Jeff Smith are the two people directly responsible for this music, but the real catalyst, in fact, was the breakup of Grimm and his longtime girlfriend, who left a message on his answering machine that said, 'Sorry that I've become this monster. I love you a lot'. Those two sentences are the titles of each side-long movement on the Wind-Up Bird's second album, 'Whips'. I don't think I need to tell you ahead of time, but this song is heartbreaking.
'Sorry' starts off with a simple, delayed guitar phrase and some soft, weathered drones in the background. Then a more forthright violin asserts itself, carrying everything through until the track transitions into 'That I've', which depends more on laptop wake and foam. The whole lather eases towards crescendo, gently, with tremolo-picked guitar and violin darting in and out at will.
I know it's a long track (10 mins. all told), but it's worth it. One of the most gorgeous drone pieces I've ever heard. You can buy 'Whips' here, and check out an interview with Joe Grimm over at Stylus magazine.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM
February 01, 2005
Dead Before Sunset
the Kills - Jewel Thief
Here's a weird one for you: VV sounds like she's singing over top of a guitar accompaniment sampled from Harry Smith's American Anthology of Folk Music, minus the wire-tap drums in the background. But then, for the huge chorus, all pretense at replicating a circa 1931 Mississippi porchside sing-along disappears. VV's voice takes on a husky, slanderous tone, as she slams the jewel thief (supported by the male singer, Hotel) with accusations of equine greed: 'you've got a million horses at your door/you've got a feeling that you'll need a million more'. The whole thing is vaguely debauched and has a nice Prohibition feel to it. (also, this song reminds me, there's an amazing story by Aimee Bender called 'The Ring', in her collection 'The Girl in the Flammable Skirt', which is about a jewel thief and his wife. Seek it out if you can)
the Kills are about to release a new LP, entitled 'No Wow', on March 8th (you can preorder it here), and, judging by 'At the Back of the Shell', (which Matt Fluxblog posted a few weeks ago) it's going to be very, very good. 'Jewel Thief', however, is from the 'Fried My Little Brains' single, which you can buy right here.
Posted by matt at 08:00 AM