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Entries associated with the tag "Indie Rock":September 23rd - 5:02 p.m.
I was already feeling burnt out on rock lit by the time Continuum started publishing their 33 1/3 series, so it took me a long time to connect with it. Plus Loveless didn't change my life, and I'd like to never read another word about Pet Sounds. As the series has evolved, though, it's drawn me in--In the Aeroplane Over the Sea was an interesting case study on the relationship between artist and fan, and Paul's Boutique had some funny stories about the Beastie Boys being messed up on drugs. But the first one I was ever like, "Fuck yeah" about when I got it in the mail was Bob Gendron's entry on the Afghan Whigs' Gentlemen, an album I have listened to front to back more times than almost any other. I am simply a freak for that record. It's messy and conflicted and pretty much unfuckwithable as a whole. I am in fact almost completely ignorant of the rest of the Afghan Whigs discography, which may seem odd, but if I'm going to listen to the Whigs I don't see why I should do anything but go for the gold. Gendron is the only person I've met or have heard of who is as insane about Gentlemen as I am. His book is an obsessive making-of documentary fleshed out with large chunks of interview with the surprisingly forthcoming members of the band. He's not a complete fanboy, and rightly calls Greg Dulli out for his bad behavior and occasional misogyny. He also gets a little overheated sometimes, and the gimmick he uses to begin and finish the book are a little much, but I understand. It's fucking Gentlemen, dude. As with most 33 1/3 books, you have to be pretty into the band in order to really get into the book, but I'd recommend that even nonfans check it out just for the part where Dulli lays down the vocals for like half the record in one session while out of his mind on cocaine in an attempt to impress a stripper. Any dude who uses, "Angel, come closer / So the stink of your lies / Sinks into my memory," as a pickup line is some piece of work. More of Gendron's Whigs obsession is revealed in an interview here. September 17th - 10:58 a.m.
Attention non-agoraphobic indie-rock fans: Tonight, Wednesday night, Bike-In Cinema is teaming up with Drag City for an outdoor screening featuring Silver Jew, a new documentary about David Berman and his band the Silver Jews. It's at 1441 W. Cullerton in Pilsen, and it's free. We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen starts at 9 PM and Silver Jew starts at 10:30. BYO chair or blanket to sit on. August 22nd - 5:04 p.m.
Colleen Malone is a friend of mine and a friend of Chicago's independent music scene. This spring she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and she doesn't have insurance, so friends across the country have been coming up with ways to raise money to help offset her medical expenses. Tomorrow you have the opportunity to help her out in a way that will benefit you as well, assuming you like rock 'n' roll, Kinsella weirdness, and/or snacks. From the Friends of Colleen blog, a description of the benefit show going down Saturday night: The excellent lineup is now complete: SLICK CONDITIONS (a new band featuring Elliot Dicks, Leroy Bach, Ryan Rapsys, and Kurt Niesman), HEAD OF SKULLS! (playing new material from their upcoming full-length) and MAKE BELIEVE (sweaty as ever). August 4th - 5:43 p.m.
Just in case you thought Tim Kinsella had a lock on the title of Most Audience-Alienating Kinsella, here's a report from a recent Owen show in Seattle from the Stranger's Line Out blog: People yell out songs for him to play, and they are of course ignored. "These guys came from Utah and asked me to play like six songs, and I'm not going to play any of them," he shrugs. Someone yells out, "Fade to Black!" That sparks his attention. At the end of his set, Kinsella announces, "Okay, now I'm going to play every riff I know from 'Fade to Black.'" He knows most of the 7 minute Metallica epic, and goes from riff to riff for about three minutes, adding the occasional guitar solo with his mouth. When he's done with that he announces, "Now I'm going to play all the other Metallica riffs I know," and proceeds to toss out random sections of different songs. The crowd starts to get restless. Someone yells something at him, he responds, "Fuck you dude, I'm playing Metallica." After several minutes he walks off stage saying, "You don't want to hear this? These are the highest selling riffs of all time! I'll save them for an audience who cares." There is scattered applause. Outside I hear a girl tell her friends, "That was the shittiest performance I've ever seen, and I'm from Montana." July 24th - 2:35 p.m.
Good news for anyone in Chicago with (indie-) rock-star dreams who doesn't have the time, inclination, or talent to actually go through the hassle of getting a band together or writing songs: the supersized cover-band/roaming-party the Blue Ribbon Glee Club is looking for some fresh blood. Glee Clubber William Helmkamp writes: hey miles, and also: like i said, we're looking for guys & gals & a drummer. tattoos = bonus. read 'please kill me' = bonus. able to shotgun a beer = bonus. also, we practice on monday nights near union park. have anyone who's interested email us at: blueribbongc at gmail dot com.
June 24th - 7:39 p.m.
I just got back from an east-coast tour with Mannequin Men, which is why you haven't seen anything from me on the blog in a while. Our Baltimore show was far from our biggest crowd or best performance, but it was notable for a few reasons: we experienced falafel as a pizza topping for the first time, discovered exactly how bad an idea mixing falafel pizza and Sparks can be, and saw a band called the Battle Royale. They're a four-piece crew of 19-year-old kids from Minneapolis who combine sugary pop and electro beats at a chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter level of goodness, and they happen to be playing at the Bottle tonight (sorry for the late notice). Attendance is highly recommended. More to come. May 21st - 6:18 p.m.
When I got up today I had an interesting Facebook invitation waiting for me, with the subject line "Have You Seen the Trailer for the Movie Son of Rambow?" I have in fact seen that trailer, but a question like that doesn't seem like it justifies an event invitation. Turns out it wasn't actually a question--Have You Seen the Trailer for the Movie Son of Rambow? is the name of one of the bands playing the Girls Rock! Chicago Rock Lottery benefit show at the Abbey Pub on Thursday night. According to the GR!C Web site, "The Rock Lottery Benefit Show will feature seven bands comprised of local musicians who were grouped together through a random, lottery style drawing. Each band decided on a name at the drawing, and has just three weeks to prepare a set, including at least one original song." Given that the members of HYSTTFTMSOR are Jeremy Bolen and Bobby Burg (indie-rock men about town and bandmates in Chin Up Chin Up), Burg's girlfriend, and booking agent Mahmood Shaikh, I have to wonder if maybe they didn't game the selection system somehow. Of course I can't actually go so far as to vouch for HYSTTFTMSOR (or any of the other one-off bands playing the benefit), but I do know that helping raise money for a girls' rock camp is a good thing. I encourage you to go. If I don't make it myself, you can tell me whether Jehovah's Wetness lived up to their name. April 25th - 4:08 p.m.
No big surprise, but the new Bird Names record, Open Relationship, is a piece of weirdo pop brilliance that sounds pretty much unlike anything else happening right now, unless there's such a thing as a Chinese Os Mutantes I don't know about. It's so good that the powerful positive vibes surrounding its release cannot be contained in just one party, so the band is taking over Ronny's for two nights this weekend. They've packed both bills with quality openers. Tonight they're bringing out freak-funkers Killer Whales and tomorrow Emmett Kelly's Cairo Gang will be along for the ride. Both shows are highly damn recommended. March 10th - 3:38 p.m.
Looks like the folks in Animal Collective don't hold grudges against media outlets that give them negative reviews--they're at the top of an early partial list of performers at the Pitchfork Music Festival, which returns July 18-20. The rest of the lineup combines head-slappingly obvious choices (Vampire Weekend, No Age) with left-field radness (Extra Golden, Spiritualized) in the special way that's the Pitchfork fest's trademark. From the press release:
I'm really looking forward to watching human self-parody Flava Flav trying to reproduce the revolutionary It Takes a Nation and seeing how much it makes me die inside. January 10th - 3:12 p.m.
Three things worth noting about Coat Party: 1. They have the word "party" in their band name. 2. Their music sounds like it would be good to play at parties. 3. I bet they're really fun to party with. I've been listening to Paramore all day--searching for an experience that will justify the band's existence or something--and every few songs I have to click over to some Coat Party to clear the glossiness out of my ears. I have found the exact opposite of highly compressed studio emo, and it is a bunch of kids from Kansas yelling, "I have a mental condition / I shoot flames from my eyes / I can see the future / I know when you're going to die," all together now. Also worth thinking about: Does "Mental Condition," like Vampire Weekend's "A Punk," point toward a 2008 ska revival? What color on the Homeland Security terror rainbow does ska revival get? Orange? A special checkered thing? Hat tip to Palms Out Sounds, which says that Coat Party "needs to be watched." November 27th - 4:44 p.m.
Do-gooding indie rockers take note: starting today the folks at Merge Records are auctioning off signed posters from most of their current roster, including "Arcade Fire, Robert Pollard, M. Ward, Oakley Hall, Spoon, The Rosebuds, Superchunk, Portastatic, Destroyer and more!" They're going two at a time over at Merge's eBay store. The Arcade Fire joint was already up to $493 last time I checked. Since the proceeds are going to Oxfam America and the Food Band of Central and Eastern North Carolina, this represents one of those rare occasions where the collection compulsion could actually have a net positive effect on the world.
November 1st - 2:15 p.m.
Thrill Jockey's plans for its 15th anniversary have been slowly trickling out. A little while back the label announced Plum, a seven-inch box set of Thrill Jockey artists covering other Thrill Jockey artists. Now word's gotten out about the real party: two nights at Chicago's own Logan Square Auditorium on December 14 and 15. Seventeen acts are on the bill so far and surprise guests are guaranteed—there are some fairly strong hints of one-off collaborations and other hijinks—but exactly who's playing when or on what night is top secret, so if there's anyone in particular you have to see, you're going to have to show up early. The label also handed their entire back catalog over to Trey Tell Em—a duo that includes Gregg Gillis, aka Girl Talk—to create the Super Epic Thrill Jockey Mega Massive Mix, a blend of pretty much everything TJ's ever done. The Trans Am megamix available here bodes well for the project. When the full disc is released I could find myself in the perplexing position of actually enjoying something by Girl Talk, which makes me shudder just a little. Tickets are $50 for the weekend, and should be available through the Empty Bottle's site soon-ish. Here's the lineup so far: ADULT. October 29th - 4:45 p.m.
It's been a while since the Fake Fictions sent me demos for their upcoming second album, Krakatoa, which they probably would've finished by now if they hadn't lost a bunch of gear in a practice space fire. They're regrouped and regeared now, and have just started tracking in their new space with an old eight-track recorder (a Tascam 488 mk I, to be specific). Though the band—specifically front man Nick Ammerman—steadfastly refuse to record on a computer, they're not averse to documenting the process on one. Their making-of-Krakatoa blog is live in all its spunky DIY glory. The FFs generally function less on actual technical prowess and infrastructure and more on pure enthusiasm, and that includes their recording methods, resulting in some entertaining reading. Ammerman, for instance, recently discovered that there are a number of reasons why you shouldn't use a drum as a mike stand. Bonus material: Here's the band ripping jams in Rirkrit Tiravanija’s Untitled 1996 (Rehearsal Studio No. 6 Silent Version) at the MCA's "Sympathy for the Devil" exhibit. October 26th - 3:55 p.m.
I don't think this is what Sasha Frere-Jones was talking about.
Eternal Damon Locks, a professional-quality distributor of syncopated rhythms and lingering low end, posted the above video on his MySpace blog, followed by the following question: Is this an example of... I would like to add an option E along the lines of, "Probably a complicated and seemingly self-contradictory combination of all four, plus it's not even an original idea by any means." I would also like to be able to erase that video from my memory as easily as I can erase it from my browser history. October 9th - 3:13 p.m.
Last week Stereogum posted Drive XV, an album-length tribute to REM's Automatic for the People, an album that turned, shockingly, 15 damn years old on October 5th. Chicago's well-represented by Catfish Haven's gloom-folk take on "Monty Got a Raw Deal" and the Narrator's bonus track, "Try Not to Breathe", which actually sounds like it could be a missing track from their recent (and excellent) All That to the Wall. Catfish Haven bassist Miguel Castillo writes in his liner notes, "Many a beer was consumed in honor of this project." Jesse Woghin from the Narrator, on his band's cryptic credit, "Additional programming by the Mannequin Men DJs," says, "Seth [Bohn, drummer for the Mannequin Men] was there drinking beer for 1 of the 2 days of recording." So Chi-Town may be able to claim not only two of the best tracks on the comp, but also the most beeriest. Way to go, guys. You make us proud. September 19th - 9:38 p.m.
I knew former Attorney General Janet Reno had crazy talents at, like, justice, but did you know she's also up in the record business too? She's the executive producer of a new box set, Song of America, that brings together a large and mind-bogglingly diverse cast of contributors to interpret 500-plus years of American music to more or less run through our national history in song. Seeing Beth Nielsen Chapman and Suzy Bogguss listed on it isn't surprising, but Devendra Banhart, Danielson, and Andrew Bird are pretty wild choices for such a potentially museum-like project. Amazon's snippet players aren't getting along with my browser, so I can't vouch for the quality of the finished product, but I feel good about a former attorney general and a dude who dresses up like a tree working together to teach people about America. I really want Reno's next joint to be a song in the style of Akon's "Sorry, Blame It On Me" where she apologizes for Ruby Ridge and Waco. September 14th - 2:31 p.m.
For their new video, "Oh My," Office went for a skanky, retro-porntastic 80s vibe. Even professional porn-hounds approve of the finished product—it appeared not only on Gawker Media's music blog, Idolator, but also on its sex-obsessed sibling site, Fleshbot. From the number of warnings plastered on the video's site you might expect that you were about to see some full penetration, but the whole thing's safe for work, which is probably a bummer if you have some sort of thing for jerking off while listening to bouncy pop music. Which I'm guessing some people out there do.
September 10th - 6:50 p.m.
It probably makes me a bad person that I'm feeling slightly happy over the news that Dan Deacon had a cherished stage prop stolen from him. I mean, it's true that I've had to endure the blazing Technicolor annoyance machine that is his live show several times, and been in dozens of arguments with people who insist Deacon isn't the worst thing since car accidents, but I shouldn't let myself sink so low that I find joy in the extreme amount of emotional trauma this sweaty man-child is suffering through. To my shame, I'm even feeling a little civic pride that the theft occurred in Chicago. What a fucking bastard I am. Lissen up—if you stole dude's beloved green skull, send it back to him. If you did it to fuck with his little head, you've done well. If you did it out of some misguided infatuation with him, well, I'm sure you'll grow out of that eventually—hopefully soon. Either way, MySpace the guy, or if you are, as Deacon writes in an atypical aggro outburst, a "thief coward," you can email sam@windishagency.com to arrange delivery. Before you do so, please take many pictures of the skull in hilarious settings and e-mail them to me. I'm sure I'll feel terrible about enjoying them. September 7th - 7:07 p.m.
Press release subject line of the week: "The Deadly Syndrome Will Resign if 50 Cent Resigns If Kayne West Sells More Albums Than 50 Cent." How meta. It goes on: It’s official, Elite Pop Folk Quartet, The Deadly Syndrome have unwittingly been sucked into the 50 Cent and Kanye West feud by deciding to release their debut record on the same day. This record release showdown has prompted both Curtis and Kanye to claim that if The Deadly Syndrome do indeed sell more records than themselves, then neither shall retire nor publicly insult one another in the press ever again. You know the way through my heart and into my blog posts is with really stupid jokes. A stupid enough joke will even let me ignore your douche-y "Elite Pop Folk Quartet" thing, at least temporarily. September 4th - 2:51 p.m.
I dropped in on the Elliott Smith tribute at the Bottle for a little bit on Saturday. It was less exciting than I had hoped, and more crowded with grown-up frat boys than I would ever have guessed. The upside of the show was that I got into a conversation about Elliott Smith bootlegs with one of my friends, and he told me that there was a decent audience-recording of a Smith solo set at the Bottle from right around the time of Figure 8's original release. You can find it here. The recording quality is indeed decent—although if you want to download, hit up the FLAC links instead of the low-bitrate MP3s—and the performance is pretty excellent. In fact, the rendition of "Independence Day" is the best I've ever heard. Chicago bonus: During "St. Ides Heaven" then-Chicagoan Rebecca Gates steps up to handle backing vocals. August 23rd - 5:01 p.m.
The new issue of Spin showed up at my house today, and after giving it a cursory flip through I'd say it looks like the magazine has a serious boner—that's a journalism term—for the City of Chi right now. The Spin Mix lists Miss Alex White & the Red Orchestra's sugar-thrash treat "Squeaky Clean" and the bumping remix of Matt & Kim's "Yea Yeah" that Flosstradamus (described here as "DJ gremlins") did a little while back. A few pages later there's a picture of Kid Sister alongside a description that makes her come off as some sort of club gangsta rather than a fun-time lady who raps about getting her nails done. Then Office shows up with a full-page profile that's oddly focused on their drinking abilities. It's a full-on Chicago party up in there. Just as I was thinking how weird it is that I've probably seen half of this month's Spin together in the same room, I got an e-mail alerting me that the Mannequin Men—local purveyors of "tight-pants swagger"—are today's band of the day at Spin.com. You can and should download the track "Boys" from their upcoming Fresh Rot here. (Full disclosure: I wrote the bio for Fresh Rot's press materials and those guys are my bros.) I smell a "Chicago is the New August 21st - 5:09 p.m.
The little Flash video game at Pinback's Web site is hardly going to take the place of NBA Street Homecourt as the center of my day to day existence. But November Fireflight's a pleasant enough diversion from actual work, with pleasantly dreamy design and non-stressful gameplay that sort of approximates what it would be like to be a really stoned member of Pinback. As an added bonus, the duo's upcoming Autumn of the Seraphs (which comes out September 11 on Touch and Go) plays in the background. I haven't listened to Autumn too much yet, but I kind of like it, which is surprising. I saw them play the day that I moved to Chicago, and their supremely long and unexciting—okay, boring—show led me from just sort of not liking them to thinking they were an absolute shit band. I'm something of an expert at holding grudges, but Autumn's good enough for me to let this one drop. Good job, guys. High fives. August 20th - 5:32 p.m.
No stranger to interesting merchandising, local indie-rocker-slash-art-guy Archer Prewitt is about to unleash an army of giant figures depicting his comic creation—and occasional Reader guest—Sof'Boy. And the "giant" part is no joke. The figures will stand two feet tall—as tall as seven packs of Marlboro menthols, according to the slightly strange commercial for the thing or, as BoingBoing points out, close to how tall the little dude is in his comics. According to the manufacturer, Presspop Gallery, the number of vinyl figures produced will depend on how long the casting mold holds out. The first edition is a run of 70; they're guessing it'll be good for 200 or so at the very most. I'd love to buy the entire run and line them up around a room in my apartment, like a cuter version of those Chinese terracotta warriors, but they're retailing for $250 plus shipping, so that's not going to happen.
July 25th - 3:32 p.m.
Few things in this world embody the intersection between giddy, teenager-y crushing out and spending way too much time in bars like the Hold Steady and photobooths. And now, finally, the two are coming together. The band's asking for photobooth pics to use in the artwork for an upcoming single. You can submit yours (scanned in at 300 dpi) along with a scanned copy of this release form for each person pictured to photobooth@vagrant.com. Can you think of a better way of honoring the memory of all of those Jager shots and resulting ill-advised photobooth make-out sessions than putting them on the cover of a rock band's record? Probably not.
July 10th - 6:31 p.m.
Word just came out today that local synthesizer enthusiasts Walter Meego will be releasing their first full-length album through Almost Gold Recordings, home to Peter Bjorn and John. The record, which may or may not be called Voyager, won't be out until late 2007 or early 2008, but if you beep over to their MySpace page you can peep some pretty-finished sounding electro-pop demos. I've got a few more new tracks in my iTunes, and based on those, I'd say the record has potential. The beats are a little bouncier and clubbier than they were on the Romantic EP and the duo toys with a range of danceable influences—a little disco, more than a little Daft Punk, and maybe a smidge of Ed Banger—but they've also got the vocal thing going on, so the songs probably won't be confined to DJ sets. With the right coverage in NME I bet Walter Meego could take over England. In the meantime, I'm sure you'll be able to hear more new songs when they play the Bottle on July 27th. June 29th - 5:16 p.m.
Most of the time I'm not really feeling the stuff that Craig over at the Chicago-based indie rock blog Songs:Illinois posts, but every once in a while he's absolutely on point. Like today. This past week he's been doing a series focusing on what he calls "Real Indie Rock": bands that have decided not to go the publicists/managers/licensing route and instead stick to the punk ethos that indie rock used to be based on. Today's entry is Baby Control, a Vancouver quartet that's blasting out some seriously sweet punk-pop mayhem. They categorize themselves as "grunge" and their influences section just says "Nirvana," but aside from their general location and their obvious love for yelling and loud guitars, there's not too much to tie them to the descriptor. Actually, the boys playing the instruments sound like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in their more Sonic Youth-y moments, and vocalist Zoe Verkuylen sounds closer to Kathleen Hanna or Bratmobile's Allison Wolfe than any grunge chick (even when the band is actually covering Nirvana). Vancouver's Ache Records is releasing their full-length, Best War, on July 31 (you can check out the title track here); Citystarfleet is handling the vinyl. After listening to three Baby Control songs about a dozen goddamn times apiece today, I would have to say that I'm feeling "pretty excited" about getting my hands on a copy.
June 28th - 4:48 p.m.
Just got the word that as of this afternoon, tickets for the Pitchfork Music Festival are completely sold out. If you didn't get your tickets in time, you can always hide your dignity in the back corner of your closet and get on Craigslist. June 7th - 4:12 p.m.
Maybe you think spending the better part of three days outside in the sweltering ass heat, getting drunk and being pounded by heavily amplified music, is exhausting. And that's fine. But the rest of us know that half the fun of music festivals is pushing your partying abilities to their absolute limits through the fine tradition of the unofficial afterparty, and the post-Pitchfork Music Festival scene is already shaping up to be pretty interesting. Some of the more interesting-sounding events haven't been confirmed yet, but I just got word from the Empty Bottle that they'll be hosting three nights of extremely danceable jams over the weekend. The reasoning behind it, according to booker Pete Toalson, is that it would be "more fun to do something like this, and we'll all be too drunk to do anything but dance at this point in the evening anyhow." The series, which they're calling We (heart) Chicago, is sponsored by the excellent records-and-cool-stuff store Turntable Lab, and the schedule goes a little something like this: Friday, July 13 Gutter Butter DJs
Saturday, July 14
Sunday, July 15
June 1st - 5:47 p.m.
Shellac's next record, Excellent Italian Greyhound, doesn't come out until Tuesday, but it being an eagerly awaited album by a much-loved indie rock institution, and this being 2007, it's already been leaked on a few blogs. The music news aggregator site The Daily Swarm—a great addition to your RSS feed, in my opinion—asked Steve Albini his feelings about his first unapproved premiere. Unsurprisingly, he's a little grumpy about it. He calls downloaders "harmless," but only after harshing on them: "Downloads reach those people who don’t really like music enough to be participants in it as a culture, they just want to consume at their leisure, casually, the way my mother would have the kitchen radio playing while she did housework." For the record, the track in question, "Steady as She Goes," would only be a good accompaniment to housework if you do yours with a sledgehammer and a heart full of rage. Albini's dismissal of worthless downloaders marks a record-breaking 10,000 disses in his underground-music career, the highest by any one individual and second only to the combined staff of Maximumrocknroll. In an imaginary press conference after receiving an entirely fictional award for his accomplishment, Albini said of the honor, "Bah." May 29th - 2:19 p.m.
Fucking Kanye, man. He can piss me off again and again, talking crazy bullshit about how tough it is to be rich and famous or making an absolute fool of himself at European awards ceremonies, but every time he puts out a new record he wins me back all the way. The latest is Can't Tell Me Nothing, a new mix tape that dropped on the Internet over the weekend that's already shaping up to be the hot hip-hop joint of late May and early June. I can say without reservation that you have to download it right now and spend the rest of the day listening to it at full blast, on repeat, while hanging out the windows of a vehicle and screaming. Kanye brought out all of his friends for the Can't Tell Me party, including Common (a couple of tracks from his upcoming Finding Forever), local track-killer GLC, Talib Kweli, Sa-Ra (who people really gotta start paying more attention to), and former Puff Daddy valet and current fashion plate Fonzworth Bentley ("I don't wear sneakers / I wear slippers"). The Lil Wayne verse on "C.O.L.O.U.R.S." is, like any Lil Wayne verse, reason enough to get the whole thing. The fact that he can make a line like, "When you're really rich / then asparagus is yummy" actually work goes a long way toward justifying his self-anointed Best Rapper in the World title. As for Kanye's own contributions, he's still keeping up his role as hip-hop's premier smart-ass, flipping Rich Boy's "Throw Some D's" into an ode to breast implants and opening his take on T-Pain's "Buy You a Drank" by declaring that "this verse has not been Russell Simmons approved." But Kanye's been working on another part of his image for a minute now: the most up-on-it hipster in the rap game. Can't Tell Me has one song (a snippet of "Stronger," which is going to be Graduation's club-slayer) built off a Daft Punk sample, another ("Us Placers," in a supergroup with Lupe Fiasco and Pharrell) off a Thom Yorke solo track, and yet another where he shouts out being on the cover of Fader while riding the beat to Peter Bjorn and John's "Young Folks." He also makes a surprisingly big deal out of local scene star Kid Sister, whose fanbase is decidedly more Brooklyn Vegan than Murder Dog. Not to mention the cover art is by Takashi Murakami, who probably half the indie rock world would give a lung to score. I'm all for Kanye's indie rock kick, but I'm afraid he's going to take it too far with an Arcade Fire collabo or something, and the resulting blog-gasm will basically melt the Internet. Please, Kanye, watch how far you take it: I don't know how I could survive without my daily LOLcats fix. In the meantime, I'll be sitting here with the 1:23 cocktease of "Stronger" on nonstop repeat for the rest of the week. May 21st - 4:40 p.m.
For some reason that I can't quite figure out, the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block is offering a compilation of rarities from indie rocker faves like the Rapture, Broken Social Scene, TV on the Radio, and Les Savy Fav. I guess they're just doing it because they can. At first I felt a little Pepsi Blue about blogging it, but the download page actually has less advertising than most sites. (Although the handy "Download the entire album and artwork" link kind of blends in with the sponsorship shout-out.) I haven't gotten through the whole album yet, but I gotta recommend the TV on the Radio track, "Me-I," from their ultra-rare self-released debut OK Calculator. It's super lo-fi—the band recorded the whole album in their loft, a lot of it on a cassette tape four-track—but the main piano riff has this tinny, dissonant Wu-Tang-ish vibe that bangs pretty hard. There's also a video for "Me-I" featuring a dude dressed as a bird, a sandwich with a knife, and some big-time choreography. It's kind of "wow".
April 13th - 6:23 p.m.
I just listened to the new Marilyn Manson leak--OK, most of it--over at Stereogum, and I have to agree with their assessment that "Heart Shaped Glasses" sounds more than a little like the Killers circa 2004. But listen to the bass line and you can hear that Trent Reznor isn't the only old-timey gloom rocker biting the DFA. And there's something about the cadence and delivery of the vocals--and even the lyrics, a little--that suggests some exposure to Craig Finn and the Hold Steady. In fact the whole thing sounds like the work of someone with more than a passing acquaintance with exactly the type of music that Stereogum normally covers, which leads me to wonder: is Marilyn Manson into blog rock? And if so, can we expect more indie sounds from his upcoming Eat Me, Drink Me? Given that the tentative track listing includes songs called "Mutilation is the Most Sincere Form of Flattery" and "If I Was Your Vampire" I'm not going to bet on it. But I can't stop thinking about what a Marilyn Manson cover of "Young Folks" might sound like. Can make that happen. Are Internet petitions legally binding in California? Also, did you know Lil Jon is way into hockey? Like, so way into it that he's blogging the NHL playoffs for NHL.com? I don't care about hockey, so I'm not actually reading his blog, but whoever came up with the idea of posing Lil Jon with the Stanley Cup strapped into his passenger seat is a MacArthur-level genius. April 9th - 6:49 p.m.
In its first two years the Intonation Music Festival helped prove that Chicago could be a viable host city for large nonmainstream concerts--in fact it might've been a little too successful. The festival's organizers recently called off plans for a 2007 installment, citing the glut of big outdoor shows planned for this summer, and are turning their attention instead to a number of smaller events. "Festivals can be great fun, of course, but they can also be somewhat impersonal," Intonation organizer David Singer said via e-mail. The plan now is to hold events "in places where the audience can feel like they've actually shared an experience with the performers." He didn't give any specifics, but did cite the Jon Brion concerts Intonation booked at Steppenwolf and the Hideout last month as representative examples. It's "exceedingly possible" that the organizers will do another festival at some point, Singer says, but for now they're out of the biz. "As Eric Bachmann once said, 'The underground is overcrowded.'" In the meantime, Intonation wants to put together a string of benefit shows for its charity of choice, Rock for Kids; the first, Chicago's Northside Battle of the Bands, happens at Horner Park this Saturday. March 26th - 3:26 p.m.
The onset of windows-down weather in Chicago means that from now until the end of summer we're going to be hearing radio's heaviest-rotation hits pretty much constantly. I'm actually fine with that. There's a corny kind of pleasure in big summer singles—the sort of "we're all in this together" sentiment that pop music inspires in its best moments. And it follows a predictable course: I will absolutely love hearing "Throw Some D's" every one of the hundreds of times I hear it until the one time that is absolutely too much, and from then on I will be madly over it. But when you find yourself unable to get away from a song that's nowhere near the Hot 100, it feels kind of sinister. Accidentally overhearing a decade-old single once can inspire pleasant nostalgia, but hearing it a dozen times in a dozen different places can evoke a kind of Dickian existential paranoia. Which is what the Cranberries' "Dreams" has been doing to me for the past month. For some reason, it's following me everywhere. In Chicago coffeehouses, on the streets of Austin, I am suddenly hearing it way more than pure statistical chance warrants. Last night the experience peaked with a set by the solo synth-pop project Bruno & the Dreamies, which ended with "Dreams" done as weightless new wave with a DIY-sounding slant, like the Psychedelic Furs crossed with a K Records four-track project. After his set I found Bruno and told him about how "Dreams" seems to be following me around. He told me the same thing happened to him and that's the reason he decided to cover it. We both agreed that hearing it so many times forced us to admit that it's actually not too bad of a song. And also that the whole experience is totally freaky. March 1st - 1:37 p.m.
The Hideout's already pretty famous for treating their bands really well, but they're stepping things up a little further for some Chicago acts heading down to South by Southwest. On Saturday, March 10, they'll be hosting an all-day showcase of Austin-bound locals, and by "all day" they mean seriously the whole damn day. If you want, you could start off seeing Catfish Haven at noon and stick around all the way through to the 1900s' midnight set and the Life During Wartime dance party afterwards. The $10 cover will be split up among the bands, who will also be getting a bag of groceries and beverages for the trip down. Throwing what basically amounts to a benefit for a bunch of indie rockers so they can go to Texas and drink beers and play for record industry people might seem a little lame, but for smaller bands, the exposure can be crucial to their existence and the trip is expensive. Shows on the way down can be hard to come by, as like every band in the country tries to book tours to offset the trip to the festival. And if you've ever driven through Texas, you know that having some road snacks can help you deal with the mind-numbing ride. Seriously, go look at Texas on a map. That fucker's huge. The showcase schedule runs like this: 12:00 Catfish Haven 2:15 Tijuana Hercules 3:00 Josh Caterer (from the Smoking Popes) 3:45 Redwalls February 13th - 7:34 p.m.
It's days like today that make me fall in love all over again with the Internet. It is snowing like a motherfucker outside, and I pledged within seconds of waking that I wouldn't be leaving the house today. Luckily all of the good music out these days is in digital-only form, so if like me you're telling Mother Nature, "Fuck off, I've got a stash of frozen enchiladas and an Xbox," you can still get some decent jams. I just finished downloading And Justus for All, the new mix tape by Little Brother and Mick Boogie -- it takes a minute, since it's a 27-song monster and not a mini-album like Talib Kweli's recent free download Liberation -- and I can already tell it kind of kills. The news that fan-favorite producer 9th Wonder was ditching his full-time status in the group had a lot of hip-hop geeks calling the next Little Brother record a fall-off without even hearing it. What they weren't banking on -- and, OK, I also believed the antihype for a second -- is that Phonte and Big Pooh are still two of the smartest and most hilarious MCs working. Sure, Mick Boogie sometimes comes off like a bootleg 9th Wonder, but that's not going to ruin my day or anything. Stereogum posted earlier that Snowden has a remix available as a free download, at least for the time being. As a rule I try to avoid any band that sounds like Interpol, but Snowden doesn't just share Interpol's gloomy atmospherics -- they're also nearly as good at writing hooks. Their Anti-Anti took a while to grow on me, but I've ended up getting mildly hooked on it. None of these remixes take any big chances, but their crunchy electro bump should earn them a spot in either your "party" or "gym" playlist. While we're on the subject of workouts, Aesop Rock's contribution to the Nike + Original Run series is up at the iTunes music store today. If you didn't hear about it when LCD Soundsystem dropped the debut Original Run track, the point of the series is that Nike commissioned a bunch of artists to write original 45-minute-plus songs that they hope you will use in conjunction with their iPod setup in your running workout. Given the tiny number of musicians I can imagine pulling off a feat like that, it sounds like a potential trainwreck. But like LCD's James Murphy, Aesop Rock has put together an epic-length track that doesn't ever get tedious. The basic musical theme runs through an extended series of build-ups and cool-downs that actually sounds like what I vaguely remember a workout run feeling like. If you're not working out and you have a normal human attention span, I'm not sure what use you'll have for the track, although I have a suspect (and hate myself for suspecting) that there will be at least one fanatic indie rap fan using it as the soundtrack to a vigorous sex session. Which, I guess, counts as a workout. February 9th - 6:20 p.m.
At some point last year I went to the MySpace page for spazzy Chicago metalcore band Wolf & Cub and found they'd stuck a (Lone) in front of their name. They'd also changed their location to "CHICAGO IN THE U.S. NOT AUSTRALIA, Illinois United States." I assumed that someone else had jacked the name, which isn't hard to believe, considering that it comes from pretty much the best series of samurai comic books and movies ever. So I decided to check out the competition and was fairly unimpressed. I heard a little guitar riffage and a couple of mildly cock-rockish moves, and I wrote them off after a couple seconds as a kinda less-awful Wolfmother -- a designation that still allows for a considerable amount of sucking. But now I've actually sat down and listened to the Aussie Wolf & Cub's full-length, Vessels (which gets its stateside release March 6th on 4AD), and sadly enough I feel like I might have to switch sides. I still love shrieky metal noise to death, but it turns out I like a high-powered blend of Clinic-al abstractness, My Bloody Valentine guitar abuse, and Led Zeppelin stomp even more. Wolf & Cub may be the first band to work in a style that could be called arena shoegazer (for a good sample, click here to listen to their single "Steal Their Gold). I'm sorry, Chicago Wolf & Cub--you still rule, but those Australians are really kicking my ass. January 26th - 12:39 p.m.
To a good number of the people who went to the Intonation Festival last year, one of the weekend's highest high points was Saturday's afternoon set by the Boredoms, where Eye, Yoshimi, and two drummers blasted a crowd full of Sparksed-up Bloc Party fans with a faceful of powerful, meditative noise. Anyone who still had the Boredoms mentally filed under "sounds like warring chimp tribes hitting each other with guitars" was probably baffled by the eerily spiritual, almost sacred, power of their performance. The decade-long transition from the spastics armed with noise machines that the Boredoms were in their early years to the intense space-hippie sound of their recent Seadrum/House of Sun unfolded over the course of their Super Roots series of records, which is getting a new release through Vice Records. The first three -- Super Roots, Super Roots 3, and Super Roots 5 -- came out Tuesday, and the next three will be out on February 20. Over the course of their journey Eye & co. tear through experiments in structure and genre, like the one hour-plus track that is Super Roots 5 in its entirety or the fucked-up funk of "2" from Super Roots 6, and it's all compelling as hell. There was talk for like a minute about Vice collecting the whole series into one boxed set, but that plan's been ditched, so I guess you'll have to go out and buy them three at a time. Your record collection will seriously be pissed at you if you sleep on these.
January 24th - 6:17 p.m.
Earlier this week Touch and Go Records posted the first of 31 video clips shot at its 25th anniversary fest in September. For the next 30 weeks there'll be a new one every Monday. The current one is the kind of opening montage that every concert video needs, with bits of interviews, short clips of performances, some shots of guys setting up the stages, and a nice, vaguely epic-feeling piece of footage shot from a car heading down Elston towards the Hideout. From what I can tell, the people that did the shooting knew what they were doing--it looks pretty pro-style. Touch and Go says they have no plans at the moment to put the footage together into a proper release, so for now their site will be the only place to catch it. I can tell you right now the Negative Approach footage will make bookmarking the page and checking up on it every week completely worthwhile. As sort of a bonus feature, Touch and Go also has a song from the upcoming Ted Leo and the Pharmacists album, Living With the Living, available for your listening pleasure. I just got my copy of the CD the other day, and I still need time to let it sink in before I can come up with a coherent opinion of it. But I will say that after only a couple of listens it makes me want to drink whiskey, buy a Conflict shirt, and write strongly worded emails to my elected officials. January 24th - 2:51 a.m.
The music industry spends the whole Christmas season pumping up best-ofs, box sets, and other crowd pleasers in an attempt to raise fourth-quarter profits, then collapses on the 26th and spends the next few weeks doing the business equivalent of staying in bed and not answering the phone. (Want music critics to stop compiling year-end lists? Put out a great record next New Year's Eve.) Yesterday marked the beginning of the return to normalcy, and here are a couple of the records making it happen. There was a lot of chatter about Vietnam in 2004, when advance copies of their Vice EP The Concrete's Always Grayer on the Other Side of the Street started floating around. It sounded in parts like a bleary jam session between the Stones in Nellcôte and Dylan at his most "fuck it"-est, and elsewhere like a toned-down, bummed-out Spacemen 3, an epically weary piece of rock that made getting drunk in the afternoon sound poetic. It should have been huge, but it wasn't. Vice dropped them, and they sort of fell off of the map. But Kemado decided to take a chance, and has just released the band's new self-titled album. The sounds are all the same -- warm, echo-laden guitars, Michael Gerner's nasally croak -- but the band sounds different. Maybe they switched up their dietary supplements or something, but Vietnam is downright inspired, bristling with unexpected electricity. Hopefully they'll get another chance to top themselves like this. "Vibe" is MV & EE's main thing. Joined by a backing band called Bummer Road -- with J Mascis on mellotron -- on their new Green Blues, they're all about mood over structure. Their hazy, pastoral psych-folk is a peaceful, easy feeling for the most part, although the noisy breakdowns the songs sometimes unravel into could perhaps freak out a chemically altered listener. The band's occasionally overwhelmed by their ambition, and a good chunk of the record is given over to formless jamming, but when they get it together on songs like the opener, "East Mountain Joint," their hippy-dippy vibe is infectious, no matter how much you might hate actual hippies. If you don't already like Piebald, their new Accidental Gentlemen probably won't change that. But for all of the emo kids who flocked to the catchy pop punk they've laid down on their past couple of records, Gentlemen might come as a surprise. The band's retro-evolved their sound from 00s mall punk to 70s power pop and jacked more than a little of Cheap Trick's swagger in the process. They almost have the chops to pull it off, too. Of course if it's Cheap Trick-ness you're hankering for, you might as well pull out Budokan again, but Piebald's new rock schtick could make an acceptable substitute for Built to Spill if you're in a pinch. January 19th - 8:25 p.m.
My column on podcasting went online today. I'm only a regular subscriber to a dozen or so podcasts, about half of them music-related. Between given at least a cursory listen to every promo I get in the mail, trying to keep up on the radio, mp3 blogs I feel obligated to check out, and occasionally trying to listen to something just because I feel like listening to it, my daily music time is maxed out. So I try not to subscribe to too many podcasts because if I get too many in at once, I'll just let them back up. But if you're still interested, here are a few that I listen to fairly regularly. Diplo's Mad Decent Radio is probably the most sporadically updated podcast I listen to, but it's also one of the best. Diplo's DJ sets are famous for their all-over-the-place genre blending, but his podcasts generally work one theme apiece. Between sets of indigenous club music from Africa and South America -- a wealth of Brazilian funk carioca, if you're into it -- he's dropped some fiery mixes in tribute to the New Orleans hip-hop scene and Afrika Bambaataa's Zulu Nation. The Fader magazine's been dropping a monthly podcast for a minute now. The staff over there is almost pathologically obsessed with staying on the cuttingest of edges, and their podcast is basically a preview of the tracks and trends that'll be running the clubs for the next few months. It's also an expertly blended mix, finding a common thread that makes cozy neighbors of gangsta rap, electro, dancehall, indie rock, and anything else with a decent beat. My column alluded passingly to the Garage Punk Podcast, but I actually don't subscribe to it anymore -- as much as I love garage punk, I don't love it enough to need an hour of it sent to me every single day. Luckily they offer individual episodes on their Web site, so when you need a dose of nasty fuzz and bad attitude, all recorded poorly, you know where to go. Seattle public radio station KEXP is a shining example of the right way for radio to embrace an online audience. Beyond streaming of their broadcasts, they offer great podcasts full of independent music, including exclusive live recordings. My favorite of their podcasts is the Song of the Day, which is exactly what it sounds like: a single new song delivered to your iTunes every day. The focus is on middle-of-the-road indie rock, which isn't an altogether bad idea. At the very least, you don't have to spend any effort reading indie mp3 blogs in order to realize how unexciting Tokyo Police Club is. On better days you might find your new favorite song of the week without even trying. This afternoon I got an e-mail from a guy who does a podcast called The Best Radio You Have Never Heard. The name's a little hyperbolic, considering that anyone exposed to college radio in the 90s has heard DJs who blend alternative power pop, 70s rock, and the occasional dance song. But this is indeed what it sounded like when the record geeks started taking the radio into their own hands to do what the big stations wouldn't -- college radio is the spiritual ancestor to the podcasting explosion. January 11th - 10:17 p.m.
Starting later this month, with the release of the Shins' Wincing the Night Away, Sub Pop is giving vinyl buyers a free digital version of each record they purchase. Merge came up with the idea about a year ago, and hopefully other labels will start picking up on it in the near future. I only buy vinyl for DJing purposes, or when I find something that's either rare or just has way too cool of a cover to pass up. Actually, I think that the Don Rickles listening party my roommate and I had yesterday was the first time I've used my turntable in months. But I would consider hooking up with this vinyl-plus-download thing if I bought anything from either label in the future, because they offer legal, high-quality, DRM-free files, which is a better deal than the locked-up songs you get from iTunes. If you only use the files for your portable devices, you're saved the hassle of having to rip your vinyl. If you're not too picky about sound quality, you can listen to the mp3s, have an analog backup, and enjoy the kind of physical artifact you don't get with a regular digital purchase. "And what can compare with the wonderful physicality of an actual touchable record collection?" the blogger blogged as he took a break from browsing the Ikea site because he's out of goddamn shelf space again. January 5th - 5:47 p.m.
If you have the time and/or patience and/or strength of spirit to read yet another year-end list, the results of Idolator's first Jackin' Pop Critics Poll are up now. Chicago's pretty well represented in there. Lupe and Rhymefest both came in about where I'd expected, and Chicago rock nabbed a few spots, with Bound Stems, Lawrence Arms, Low Skies, Eleventh Dream Day, Catfish Haven, and Mannequin Men all making appearances. Best Chicagoland-related surprise: Saint Charles black metal band Nachtmystium beating Jay-Z by one point. December 27th - 5:16 p.m.
The print edition of the year-end Critics' Picks issue of the Reader only had room for our top five album picks of the year, but there's obviously a lot more music to talk about than that. My own list was based on a rough estimate of which records I played for my own pleasure the most times this year. In keeping with that standard, here are the next five: The Roberta-Flack-via-Dirty-South synth line that opens T.I.'s "What You Know" was as big a gimme as any DJ could ask for this year -- dropping it at any time of night got a reaction from the crowd equivalent to throwing a handful of twenties on the dancefloor. Nothing else on King (Atlantic) was anywhere near that bonkers, but Tip's at the forefront -- alongside Nas, Lupe, and the Clipse -- of the best hip-hop trend in forever: making records you can actually sit all the way through in one listen. The biggest reason OOIOO's Taiga (Thrill Jockey) wasn't my most-istened-to album this year is that it sat on my desk for too long before I actually listened to it. The ideas Yoshimi and her gang kick out had always sounded better in concept than in practice. But hearing them arrange these psychedelic textures -- from tribal pounding to mellow mindstorms that beg for the "groovy"descriptor -- into a near-perfect whole now has me completely freaked. What if I got it wrong before and I've been missing out on one of the best bands going? I'm fully against the concept of "guilty pleasures" -- either you like something or you don't -- but I'm still sort of embarrassed about where the Sounds' Dying to Say This to You (New Line) stands in my iTunes rankings. It's everything its critics complain about -- a vapid sugar rush of an album -- but it's also got to have the hook-densest record I've heard this year. Deep inside my mind there's a voice warning me about the long-term effects of ingesting this much candyfloss, but it's drowned out by the chorus that's chanting, "More, more, more!" This past year brought a deluge of psych rock -- from Brightblack Morning Light's chill-out teepee sounds to the slowly riffing doom metal invasion -- but its high-water mark may have been Comets on Fire's Avatar (Sub Pop). The decision to apply their expert soundscaping abilities within stricter song structures was unexpectedly brilliant. A batch of lysergic rippers to make your stoner uncle weep with joy. The Hold Steady's Boys and Girls in America (Vagrant) almost drowned under the waves of commentary, meta-commentary, and meta-meta-commentary that followed its release. My two cents: if you judged records solely on the quality of the air-guitaring they inspire, this might be the decade's greatest album so far.
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Tags: Hip-Hop, Indie Rock, Year end lists, T.I., OOIOO, Sounds, Comets on Fire, Hold Steady, Psychedelic
December 12th - 12:42 a.m.
(1) If you've listened to the Mountain Goats, you've probably had your head knocked by the hugely good words that John Darnielle writes. Seriously, if he wasn't a complete word wizard that band would be like the sad Barenaked Ladies. He's also good at blogging, and right now at his music blog Last Plane to Jakarta he's working on a project called Thirty Poems About My Favorite Black Metal Band, which is exactly what it says it is. The band is Drastus, and they're French. (2) Nick Sylve |
