My friend Aaron Miller, along with Nate Chan (who brought you some of the West Coast Blogotheque: Take-Away Shows), has started a really excellent blog that will chronicle bands coming through the SF Bay area, and featuring exclusive live audio, video, and images. They launched yesterday and already have excellent material from HTFAF namesake David Bazan, and Dolorean. You should check it out regularly and tell your friends to do the same. Head over now for some exclusive audio and video treats.
Archive for June, 2007
In anticipation of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga’s rapidly approaching July 10 release date — and upon realizing I hadn’t posted a show for you folks in a hot minute — I figured I would do so: and this one’s good. We find Spoon, on tour for Gimme Fiction, in their finest of forms — and with a wonderful sounding recording on top of all that. Did I mention how awesome the setlist was?
Spoon – Live at Webster Hall, New York New York 6.9.05
[mp3] Spoon – Metal School
[mp3] Spoon – The Beast and Dragon Adored
[mp3] Spoon – Me and the Bean
[mp3] Spoon – Lines in the Suit
[mp3] Spoon – Sister Jack
[mp3] Spoon – I Summon You
[mp3] Spoon – The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine
[mp3] Spoon – Something to Look Forward Too
[mp3] Spoon – Car Radio
[mp3] Spoon – Take a Walk
[mp3] Spoon – Paper Tiger
[mp3] Spoon – Someone Something
[mp3] Spoon – Vittorio E.
[mp3] Spoon – I Turn My Camera On
[mp3] Spoon – The Way We Get By
[mp3] Spoon – Everything Hits as Once
[mp3] Spoon – Fitted Shirt
[mp3] Spoon – The Delicate Place
[mp3] Spoon – My Mathematical Mind
[mp3] Spoon – Encore Break
[mp3] Spoon – The Agony of Lafitte
[mp3] Spoon – Anything You Want
[mp3] Spoon – Small Stakes
[mp3] Spoon – Lowdown
[Link] Spoon
Reminder: There are currently four active show downloads from Ben Gibbard, Bright Eyes, Spoon, and Undertow Orchestra. Check them all out while they are up. You may find links directly to your right and down a ways.
Stars — Broken Social Scene contributors, purveyors of all things French-Canadian, and generally talented people — will be releasing a new album on September 25, entitled In Our Bedroom After The War, on Arts & Crafts.
Besides being an easy contender for best album title of 2007, the lead single, The Night Starts Here is … well, a bit disappointing. Heavy synth-strings, thumping synth-bass, and Torquil/Amy-male/female trade-off vocals give off a weird feeling, similar to listening to a trance club remixed R&B ballad.
This is a bit worrying, because 2005’s Set Yourself on Fire was one of the year’s best records; then, earlier this year, the group released a less than staggering remix record … and now this. At any rate, I am giving them the benefit of the doubt and hoping that this wonderfully titled and designed record lines up in the content department as well.
We’ll keep our fingers crossed.
[mp3] Stars – Your Ex-Lover is Dead (Final Fantasy remix)
[mp3] Stars – The Night Starts Here
Do you like Broken Social Scene? Yeah!? Well what about dudes who watch porn in their bathrobe while eating cereal and post it on the internet? Of course you do, who doesn’t love that!? Okayokayokay, what about people who write songs that are really great but make you uncomfortable in their subject matter? Or guys who kinda look a little like Desmond from Lost? I see that hand (^^^)! Well I do too, which is why I am excited for the new Kevin Drew solo album to be released by Canada’s finest label, Arts and Crafts, this summer. The Broken Social Scene co-founder and ringleader likes making people saw “ew,” but in a good way, and this song is no exception: just wait ’til you hear what the TBFT thing stands for … HO-OH BOY ARE YOU GONNA BE SHOCKED!
Ok seriously though, it’s good … it’s not BSS, that’s true, but I don’t think anyone has achieved the greatness of BSS outside of the collective on their own, so don’t hold that against him.
[mp3] Kevin Drew – TBTF
[mp3] Broken Social Scene – Swimmers
[mp3] Broken Social Scene – Major Label Debut
[mp3] Broken Social Scene – KC Accidental
In, what may be the best news of my life, David Cross and J Mascis square off before your very eyes in Guitar Hero for some lame AOL video podcast. It’s amazing. Dinosaur Jr was one of those bands that got me into guitar, so seeing this brings a tear of joy to my eye. I have never played Guitar Hero: Am I missing the boat? Should I start? Will my real life guitar skills help me at all? I won’t tell you who wins. Watch for yourself…
David Cross vs. J Mascis – Gtr. Hero Champion!
[mp3] Dinosaur Jr – Little Fury Things
[mp3] Dinosaur Jr – Almost Ready
If you haven’t seen a John Vanderslice show, you probably aren’t a very happy person. They’re big events, held in tiny places, moved to parking lots, on top of cars, and anywhere else John can lead a crowd.
The good news is this can change for you this fall! JV is embarking on a pretty massive tour of North America this upcoming autumn. If you don’t believe me when I tell you that you need to attend, check out this excerpt from a DCist review of his D.C. show last year
Via: DCist
The man with the coolest name in contemporary rock music drew the largest crowd we’ve ever seen at the Rock and Roll Hotel last night. Keep in mind that it was a Wednesday. John Vanderslice also completely demolished the “fourth wall” between the audience and the stage, handing out Mrs. Field’s cookies, inviting a gaggle of fans to the stage for a sing-along of “Me and My 424,” and descending from the stage to play his final song surrounded by the audience, almost a cappella and with the lights turned low, spooky-séance-style. Did we mention that he corralled opener St. Vincent and the R’n’R’s sound guy, Dan, up to the stage for a few numbers? Witnessing this collaborative approach confirmed what DCist Kyle learned last year: John Vanderslice really is the nicest guy in indie rock.
John Vanderslice Tour Dates
9/6 Los Angeles CA @ Troubadour
9/7 San Diego CA @ The Casbah
9/8 Phoenix AZ @ Modified
9/9 Tucson AZ @ Plush
9/11 Austin TX @ The Parish
9/12 Norman OK @ The Opolis
9/14 Dallas TX @ The Loft
9/15 Baton Rouge LA @ Spanish Moon
9/17 Orlando FL @ The Social
9/18 St. Augustine FL @ Café Eleven
9/19 Tallahassee FL @ Club Downunder
9/20 Atlanta GA @ The Earl
9/21 Chapel Hill NC @ Duke Coffeehouse
9/24 Philadelphia PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
9/26 New York NY @ Bowery Ballroom
9/27 Cambridge MA @ The Middle East
9/28 Cambridge MA @ The Middle East
10/1 Toronto ON @ Horseshoe Tavern
10/2 Ann Arbor MI @ The Blind Pig
10/3 Cleveland OH @ The Grog Shop
10/4 Athens OH @ Ohio University, Baker Theatre
10/5 Bloomington IN @ The John Waldron Art’s Center
10/6 Chicago IL @ The Empty Bottle
10/9 Omaha NE @ The Waiting Room
10/12 Provo UT @ Velour
10/11 Denver CO @ The Hi-Dive
10/13 Salt Lake City UT @ Kilby Court
10/15 Vancouver BC @ The Red Room
10/18 Portland OR @ The Doug Fir
10/20 San Francisco CA @ The Independent
[mp3] John Vanderslice – Kookaburra
[mp3] John Vanderslice – Me and My 424
Pre-order JV’s new album, Emerald City (due out 7/24), from Barsuk.
“If they stay in the closet, they’re going to make a lot more money. I go to the same gym as Anderson Cooper. When I look at him lifting those five-pound weights, it makes me think, ‘He’s just trying to live his life and be all that he can be.’ But he still goes to the gayest gym in New York.” – Rufus Wainwright
Two things awesome about this:
Rufus saying AC 360 is gay and Rufus backhandedly commenting on his pansiness while at the gym (5 pound weights?! Come on Cooper!).
[mp3] Menomena – Gay A
[mp3] Rufus Wainwright – 14th Street
When Spoon talks, I listen. It’s really that simple, ya know? But for some reason when I got their newest track The Underdog in my inbox a few weeks back, I put it off until about three days ago — which is how long it has taken me to comprehend how wonderful it is, so I may properly tell you.
This may very well be the best summer-song you’ll hear all summer long (that rhymes!) It’s just great really, the horns, the strummy guitars, the shakers, Britt Daniel’s signature raspy wonderfulness, it’s all there. Put it on your iPod, add it to your summer mixes, and go.
[mp3] Spoon – The Underdog
[mp3] Spoon – Jonathan Fisk (Demo)
Ryan Adam’s Easy Tiger was released today on Lost Highway. As I told you a while back, I was a longtime Ryan Adams hater. This all changed when I finally broke down and bought the amazing Heartbreaker: it was like becoming best friends with someone you had known but sort of ignored for the last seven years. The regret that ensued was … well, heartbreaking (Hey-oh!).
So here we are in 2007 and Ryan is a bit more polished, a lot more polarizing, and still posing with a cigarette on his album covers. The record starts off on an awkward note with Adams fumbling his way through what sounds like a Neil Young karaoke track. The tone of Adam’s voice changes so drastically from track to track that it sometimes feels like you’re listening to a mixtape: despite how it sounds this is actually not a bad thing at all. Two, a duet with Sheryl Crow, will probably be on your favorite lite-rock, drive-time radio show in the next few weeks, and quite frankly I won’t miss it. Everybody Knows is a slightly more raw, folky track with a killer narrative about unrequited love (what else?). Halloweenhead moves things along pretty nicely if not confusingly: besides the awful metaphor (“Head full of tricks and treats, I got a halloweenhead”) the song is a mostly enjoyable second single.
This is where things really pick up: the rest of the album is mostly filled with more sparsely arranged folk-pop gems full of New York, lost love, bittersweet moments, great harmonies, fantastic backing from The Cardinals and other generally enjoyable things you have come to expect from the Ry-man. Oh My God, Whatever, etc. is a wonderfully catchy strum-and-sing that finds a complacent and apathetic Adams hearing some suggestive sounds from the next hotel room; Tears of Gold is a pedal-steel drenched country number; The Sun Also Sets, while enjoyable, is not as good as its awesome title allusion — a mostly rehashed melody and a boring piano part keep it from “taking off.” Off Broadway is a Simon & Garfunkel-esque folk number about seeing an old lover on Broadway that will stick in your mind for days. Pearls on a String is a welcome surprise: a bluegrass number full of mandolin and excellent harmonies; and I Taught Myself How to Grow Old, the closer, sees Adams dusting off the old harmonica and penning some of his finest lyrics for what may very well be the album’s best track (you’ll have to buy it and decide for
yourself).
If I were a boring review site that gave pretentious and uninteresting reviews to every record I heard this one would probably come in at around a 7.1345 or something like that: completely worth buying but definitely not his best work. However, I am not: I am a mostly unpretentious blogger who writes uninteresting reviews about half of the records I hear who lets you give a listen and decide for yourself.
[mp3] Ryan Adams – Oh My God, Whatever, etc.
[mp3] Ryan Adams – Pearls On a String
Fionn Regan recently signed to the wonderful Nashville-based record label Lost Highway for the release of his amazing record, The End of History, in the United States. Upon reading this, I immediately began searching for the Fionn post I had made months ago … only to discover I never got around to making such a post. This is a terrible, terrible mistake.
Fionn writes amazing songs: There aren’t too terribly many of those left, and he doesn’t mind many rules when doing so. Put a Penny in the Slot is a four minute talking folk number, featuring the occasional beautiful female backing vocal, a wonderful narrative, and one of my favorite moments of the record when Fionn, in his most desperate of tones, says “I can’t keep from crying, I wish you were mine.” It amazes me though, upon every listen, what Regan is able to do with four barely picked chords, his talking voice, and a beautifully realized narrative.
Fionn has this uncanny ability (that is only found in the genuinely great songwriters of our time) to blend simple and sparse instrumentation with imagery so rich and full you forget you’re not listening to a symphony. When he sings “If you happen to read this, Rose was born. Child actor-ess, On the fifth day of the snow.” on Be Good or Be Gone, my heart hurts a little, stinging with the realization that I will never write such an effortlessly great song.
[mp3] Fionn Regan – Be Good or Be Gone
[mp3] Fionn Regan – Put a Penny In the Slot
[mp3] Fionn Regan – The Underwood Typewriter
The End of History is available in the US on July 10 via Lost Highway, and available now overseas via Bella Union. According to his website, Fionn will be “spending much of the summer playing shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Nashville etc.” When those dates are finalized you can see them, along with his already scheduled international dates, here.
