music musings by wunderkind

2006-08-07T21:56:00.000-07:00

i have nothing better to do these days & my keyboard is currently reacting as it should when i press the l, o, ( and . keys, so i might as well take advantage of the current climate, right? oh & there's the whole lack-of-posts-for-eight-months-thing, but we won't talk about that, k? your prize: the most comprehensive list of my favorite new & upcoming releases from the first 8 months of the year...and by that i mean my five favorite albums thus far:

be your own pet - be your own pet
goddam. so i came across this album a few months back & put it on knowing nothing about it other than they had been dubbed "proteges" of sonic youth's thurston moore, so i went in thinking that there was a 30% chance that it was a bunch of wank-rock. um, nope. the album's 15 songs clock in at a total of just over a half-hour & smash you in the face the entire time. for me, there was a void left by the recent inactivity by erase errata (which is thankfully now over with their first release since 2003, nightlife) & the death of the sick lipstick, who disinegrated soon after the release of 2003's sting sting sting. be your own pet fills this. the facts: they're from nashville, they're teenagers, the lead singer, jemina pearl, shovels the final clump dirt onto karen o's grave.

they've since picked up a mention in a recent rolling stone & a full page in the latest edition, which means that there'll be a lot more of the coveted 18-34 demo (myself now included) who know about be your own pet. their myspace page currently features a live shot of them on the floor sprawled amongst a pile of drums & cords. nuff said.

fave track: "bicycle bicycle you are my bicycle"
video link to live conan performance here.

dirty pretty things - waterloo to anywhere
i'm lazy sometimes, so here's the review i wrote for ny press:

there are two types of rock stars in this world--those who break into their bandmates' flat, swipe the telly, and procure some sweet crack rock and those who wonder where the ef the telly went. dirty pretty things' carl barat knows this dichotomy all too well, but with the stateside release of waterloo to anywhere, all should be resolved--it turns out that barat was the talented libertine. while his tabloid/drug-addled ex-bandmate pete doherty fell ass-flat late last year with the spottiness of the babyshambles' down in albion, this august brings barat's first post-libertines release to the u.s. the libertines' two albums engaged fans because of their upbeat jagged pop-crispiness. from start to finish, waterloo embraces the same feel. opening with "deadwood" and finishing with "b.u.r.m.a.." waterloo romps through twelve solid tracks of un-fey brit-pop. the kicker: there are few standouts on the record. the first single, "bang bang you're dead," appears to declare doherty a non-factor, but that may be just wishful rock-critic thinking. while barat offers up a solid first release, he still needs to pen tunes closer to doherty's standouts if he wants to be thought of without the anti-shine of crack teeth over his shoulder.

fave track: "deadwood"
video link here.

sunset rubdown - shut up i am dreaming
basically, spencer krug is the preppiest/most straight-edged looking guy in indie rock (or damn close to it). as the lead vocalist/songwriter foil to wolf parade's dan boeckner voice o' gravel, i've come to prefer his songs over dan's, although at this time last year, when i was in a more frenzied mood & had just seen them for the first time at cmj, i was a dan fan...but there's now a canadian indie supergroup project i'm all gaga for called swan lake, that features spencer, destroyer's dan bejar & frog eyes' carey mercer & it does a nice job of defining the type of indie rock that tickles my fancy these days...anthemlike, chaotic, bowie-vocaled sort of stuff.

...and this is what sunset rubdown is like--krug's keyboards & vocals & track names like "i'm sorry i sang on your hands that have been in the grave." it took me a while to fully embrace the album, but now it bests wolf parade in my book. well, it would if i had a book. which i don't.

fave track: "swimming"
check out the "unofficial" videos for "us ones in between" & "i'm sorry i sang on your hands that have been in the grave."

tunng - comments of the inner chorus
these tunng dudes are all british & stuff & use all types of bleeps & acoustic guitar & "found sounds" & i guess people might refer to it as folktronica or some such thing. its the sort of stuff you can listen to on bus rides or beach days or walks across a city bridge or any of those times you want to be all reflective & shit...but you don't have to be reflective to listen to it, because the fact remains that these dudes just create damn beautiful songs. i might go as far as to say that they're pretty. the album starts with the sounds of wind chimes for christ's sake.

to take a ride on the comparison train, i'd say that they're similar in style to the books, but not as wanky & probably more "accessible." after all, they did release a single with a cover of bloc party's "pioneers." it's the second full-length from them, after last year's mother's daughter & other songs, which was just as purty. now all that needs to happen is for them to fly their butts on over to america & play some shows so i can drool in person.

fave track: "jenny again"
video link here.

j dilla - the shining
i just got to hear this one for the first time while in the midst of writing this list & it instantly made the list, bumping thom yorke, who would have been boring to write about anyhow. this album was j dilla's last, recorded while his kidney was failing (which eventually led to his death earlier this year). as a counterpart to donuts, his album released just before his death, which features 31 songs that have a very choppy, cut-up feel (& of which only one is more than two minutes), the shining features songs that are more fully-realized & feature appearances by common & madlib.

j dilla has always been low-profile, known more for his producing skills (see de la soul, pharcyde, a tribe called quest). when artists talk about dilla, they use some pretty strong words...both common & ?uestlove have spoke of him in the same breath as charlie parker. this album is not some posthumous tupac/biggie junk though. it's solid in a way that their from-the-grave albums aren't & showcases a nice final chapter in the life of a producer who artistically crafted beats & rhythms without the need to ever be some showy puffy-like type.

fave track: "e=mc2" (featuring common)
random video here.

2006-01-01T16:45:00.000-08:00

since i fucking hate pretty much everyone else's end-of-the-year lists, here's mine:

12 favorite albums put out in 2005
animal collective - feels
black mountain - black mountain
the books - lost and safe
broken social scene - broken social scene
cheeseburger - the gang's all here
deerhoof - the runners four
the huntingtons
ifihadahifi - no more music
jens lekman - oh you're so silent jens
okkervil river - black sheep boy
oneida - the wedding
wolf parade - apologies to the queen mary

12 favorite albums coming out in 2006
(with notation for those i've heard already)
january
the gossip - standing in the way of control
test-icicles - for screening purposes only
tunng - mother's daughter and other songs*

february
man man - six demon bag*
arctic monkeys - whatever people say i am, that's what i'm not*
belle & sebastian - the life pursuit
liars - drum's not dead

march
mogwai - mr. beast
eastern youth - 365-step blues
an albatross - blessphamy of the peace beast feastgiver & the bear warp kumite

2005-12-22T12:04:00.000-08:00

from the 12/21 ny press:

MYSPACE KILLED THE VIDEO STAR
How MySpace is revolutionizing the record biz.

By Shawn Parow

Because the Arctic Monkeys are the newest indie darling since The Strokes emerged from Arlene’s Grocery, chances are that they’re eventually going to be stung with the same “Fuck The Strokes” backlash that surrounded their initial hype-tsunami.

With both bands, their early successes were fueled largely by fans, sans marketing budget or affiliation with a clever PR firm, an on-the-cheap formula that the record industry would kill to perfect if it could. (Of course, the Strokes were aided by the presence of ranks of beautiful women who flocked to their shows as their lead singer Julian Casablancas is the son of the head of Elite Models.)

Regardless, The Man has co-opted an impressive list of cultural offerings throughout history, and he’s done some of his finest poaching from the realm of music. For every Pearl Jam and Nirvana, there were 50 Seven Mary Threes and Silverchairs who rode the “right sound” and titanic marketing blitzes to gold and platinum records. The end results are clear. Ten years after the release of Seven Mary Three’s American Standard, a gold record to commemorate the album’s success can be had on EBay for $349, less than the cost of a 60-GB iPod, the centerpiece of the our latest cultural co-option, digital music.

Just as the music industry crept forward and finally started to get a handle on how to best exploit the digital frontier to drive record sales for marketing-driven musical acts, along came MySpace.com. With its “MySpace Music” section, it allows unknown bands to act as their own PR firm, with a streaming jukebox, tour dates, and announcements. Yet, now ranking as one of the Internet’s most viewed sites, Rupert Murdoch snatched it up in July and made it a part of his NewsCorp portfolio.

But, even before Murdoch’s acquisition, record labels realized that they had a way to reach some millions of MySpace users (currently 37 million and counting), many of whom are of the key teenage demographic, and began to promote through the site.

Billy Corgan has over a million “friends” on MySpace. Neil Diamond recently streamed his new album via his profile. Madonna did the same with her latest “gem,” Confessions on a Dancefloor, and even graced us with her very own insightful audio confessions (“When I sleep at night, I sleep with my bra on.”)

Chances are that Madonna’s only vaguely aware of what MySpace is, other than another tool in her PR arsenal. Even The Arctic Monkeys, in a recent interview with Prefix Magazine, claimed to have few Internet skills, not “even know(ing) what MySpace is,” even though much of their fan base grew from trading of their demos via mp3s. For many bands, it’s been a key component in their growth as a band, and they’re well aware of it.

Joel Bravo, guitarist for the New York band Bravo Silva, mentioned that MySpace is a completely open forum that allowed them to connect with both fans and other bands. When they set up their page on the site earlier this summer, they received kudos from Atlanta’s Snowden, which, in turn, led to a spot on The Gothamist’s Movable Hype showcase.

This has since led to a steady string of shows throughout New York and an increased fan base. A label signing looms on the horizon, and it’s all happened in less than a year, a pace that probably likely has toiling bands like Soul Asylum rolling in their graves.

Still, band sites with mp3s and streaming audio are nothing new. MySpace simply condenses all these sites into one area and allows for easier networking between bands, creating music scenes unrestricted by geographical boundaries. In November, MySpace took this idea and shaped it into MySpace Records Vol 1, featuring teen-fave mainstays such as Weezer and Dashboard Confessional alongside a host of lesser-known bands. The true test will be to see if by MySpace Records Vol 5, the site becomes the next MTV, telling its teen audience who to listen to. If that becomes the case, there’ll likely be a new battle cry: Fuck MySpace.

2005-11-19T17:44:00.000-08:00

the other day i received a package from ace fu records, containing a number of cds from the ol' roster & they've surreptiously become the soundtrack to my 05 birthday weekend. received:

acid mother's temple & the cosmic inferno - iao chant: i put in the cd. i'm all like, "one song? 54 minutes?" what the fuck is that? it's good shit, maynard. chillin to it right now, in fact. it makes me picture a cooler, pissed off grateful dead without all the noodly crap.

an albatross - i am the lazer viking: this is the band that i've never got to see live, despite their multiple dates with the fugue, including multiple dates where i was at the show before an albatross went on, saw other bands, and then left, like a sucka. i ILLEGALLY DOWNLOADED this album a year or so ago & deleted it the same day. we didn't jive whatsoever. oh, what a year of jadedness does to musical tastes. now, i love the shit out of this album & to mimic critics--"...my only problem with this album is that under 10 minutes long, i have to keep hitting repeat! (ha ha hilarious! i'm a lazy fuck!)" if you don't have the time it takes to listen to this album in its entirety, then you the sucka, bitch. i watched friends with you for a whole half hour a million times.

aqui - the first trip out: apparently, these peeps aren't a band no more. too bad.

bonk - western soul: the dudes on the front cover look like they're either crying or more coked than anyone i've known personally, which makes me think of vice, which makes me hate the world, but at least the album doesn't suck like vice. probably the 2nd most rocking of the bunch.

man man - the man in a blue turban with a face: not feeling the album yet, but feeling that it's probably much sweeter live.

michael leviton - my favorite place to drown: ukelele. coming soon.

tungg - mother's daughters & other songs: this is my favorite of the bunch. i liked kings of convenience at some point & then saw ereland oyes (from k.o.c.) do his electronic stuff as an opener & this album sort of brings that shit together in a way that's actually good. it made a sweet soundtrack whilst walking along the bottom of the prospect park parade grounds & worked equally as well as i waited for the g at fulton st later in the night. it's not out yet, so i won't say more, but it's eventually worth checking out. i'll be strolling to it til then, bitches.

2005-11-17T13:02:00.000-08:00

from the nov. 16 ny press:

jeff tweedy
november 16, 8

there’s a minute-and-a-half scene buried near the end of the dvd outtakes to the wilco documentary i am trying to break your heart, where a shaggy jeff tweedy sits with a smiling stuffed monkey leaning against the wall, calmly staring straight ahead, strumming and picking “bob dylan’s 49th beard” for the camera. it’s a fitting song for tweedy, who in the manner of dylan, now exists as “jeff tweedy,” the character from i am trying. it’s now tweedy’s challenge to expand upon that character under watchful eyes. so far we’ve learned more about his migraines and his painkiller use since the film’s release. with the release of wilco’s new live album, kicking television, wilco fans (most of whom have caught the group live) will have yet another permanent record of tweedy as the leader of his heralded band. tweedy, though, is currently on a 13-date tour sans band—“jeff tweedy solo performance.” his solo performances hearken back to that outtake from the film, where it’s just him and his guitar. there’s that intimacy and that chance to see tweedy in the flesh and wonder how he’s been doing lately. during the last 20 years, he’s kept busy playing with a number of bands who have more of a right to the term “supergroup” than, say, the new pornographers. there were the alt-country superstars uncle tupelo (with jay farrar, now of son volt). then there was golden smog (who are in the process of reuniting—go minneapolis!), featuring jayhawks’ gary louris and soul asylum’s dan murphy. more recently, there’s been the loose fur collaboration with musician/über-producer/ex–sonic youth member jim o’rourke. and then, of course, there’s wilco, who finally ditched the alt-country thing when they unleashed yankee hotel foxtrot back in 2002, subsequently causing the indie-rock world to briefly implode. soon after, tweedy announced to the chicago sun-times that ryan adams could have wilco’s old sound. (we hear he’s doing wonderful things with it these days.) and then there’s the million-times-told story behind the making of yhf, with its entangled record-company foibles, band-member departures and eventual successes captured in that documentary. in the course of all this (and wilco and tweedy’s follow-up, a ghost is born), tweedy has only released one solo album, 2002’s chelsea walls, the soundtrack for ethan hawke’s directorial debut, and it’s worth owning only if you’re “really into” all things jt. when he performs solo live, as he will twice this week, he brings out all the jeff tweedys in all the bands that he plays in, doling out their tunes with a feeling akin to the energy from a pre–newport folk dylan, who, at last count, was on his 11,000th beard. jeff tweedy still has many a beard to grow before he’s gone.

2005-11-13T17:00:00.000-08:00

went and saw art brut at northsix friday night. slacked and missed test icicles, eventually arriving part way through the occasion's set, and they're um...if i wanted to see phish (well, i've already seen them 13 times) i would have stayed home & popped in bittersweet motel.

...and maybe i was in a bad mood when art brut came on, but i hated everyone, most of all the band, during their set...and i'm a fan of the album.

maybe it actually was fun for many people. many people.

maybe they bring out that selective-performance-musician/artist-preference function in me that makes me hate karen o but enjoy les savy fav's loveable tim harrington. art brut is traipsing 'cross karen o country with their antics.

maybe it was because whilst standing outside with mates finishing cigs before entering the club, a bouncer asked a guy to move along and gave him a tap on the shoulder. the kid dropped to the ground as if he had been clocked & had people thinking something was seriously wrong (seizure?). it was sad. the bouncer asked us to stay outside while the cops came so we could tell them how ridiculous this was. one of my mates agreed & we then had to comply but when the ordeal was over, he bought the first round. did that incident foul up art brut?

whatever it was, i was so over it five minutes into the set.

then i was supposed to go back to northsix saturday night to see man man. that didn't happen though.

a tip for all you people going to a musical concert. if the show starts in an hour and a half & you decide to shave your head with an electric razor before the show & you have a lot of hair & you're going to shave it all haphazard because it's all going to end up the same length eventually, make sure that the razor is fully charged. if you don't, it will konk out after a short time and leave your head half shaved. by the time you get the razor charged enough to finish off your head, the show will be over. i'm jus' saying. that's all.

2005-11-10T17:31:00.000-08:00

from the nov. 9 ny press:

arctic monkeys
november 15, 8:30

marketed as the greatest thing since otto rohwedder introduced his new "sliced bread" to the good people of chillicothe, missouri, back in 1928, arctic monkeys step stateside for the first time this month, riding a tsunami of british hype. filling the brit-pop void left by the crack-laden demise of the libertines, this sheffield, england, four-piece first stepped on stage in early 2005 and gained a skyrocketing rep following their demo, which was distributed solely via shows and fan-distributed mp3s. to the surprise of the band, by the august 2005 reading and leeds festivals, throngs of fans were singing along to these demo tracks. the hype behind them grew so large that when they released their first single, "i bet you look good on the dance floor" just weeks ago, it entered the u.k. singles chart at no. 1, a feat generally reserved for the likes of the spice girls. now they've signed to domino records and have a "proper full-length" to be released early next year, when the record industry will be left wondering why they continue to be such codgers about the whole mp3 thing.

next week (11.16): a 500-word piece on jeff tweedy

2005-11-08T19:37:00.000-08:00

ifihadahifi rock the freakin' awesome shit.

recognize, five borough suckas...so they come back to nyc.

2005-11-03T19:24:00.000-08:00

my two from this week's new york press (11.02.05)

xiu xiu
november 03, 8

we like to stalk musicians. currently, we're stalking xiu xiu, who just played bowery ballroom at the beginning of september. we penned a preview of the performance and then watched quietly from the audience, occasionally shushing those around us so we could hear singer jamie stewart's muted lyrics and guitar. we plan on continuing our indie-stalking on the nyu campus this thursday to close out our halloween week. as narcissistic stalkers, we always put our eyes and ears out for musicians who are like ourselves (likeably creepy). we found our match in san jose's xiu xiu. with lyrics rife with disturbing images like"cremate me after you come on my lips," we sometimes get the feeling that jamie stewart could well be stalking us.

spoon
november 05, 9

there is a guy we work with who we all whispered about on his first day in the office. "holy crap. that guy is totally britt daniel, the lead singer of spoon." unfortunately, he only looked like britt daniel. damn. no lunchtime jam sessions out back in the smoking area. still, we often dream of what life would be like if britt daniel did work in our office. we'd be all like, "hey britt, remember back in the '90s when you got dropped from elektra and then wrote a whole ep about it?" he'd be all like, "of course, but i'm trying to get this email out before five. enough with the music questions, ok? and do we always have to play my albums in here? i understand that gimme fiction's all new and you like it, but i can't concentrate if i hear myself singing in the background. can't we put on some boz scaggs?"

next week (11.09): arctic monkeys

2005-10-28T21:45:00.000-07:00

art brut - bang bang rock and roll
i'm a sucker for solid indie brit-pop albums. belle & sebastian shaped my current musical tastes. don't even get me started on the libertines. i heard art brut for the first time today both at home & work & in my headphones & man, it's some libertines-level shit.

seriously, everyone & their mother's wrote about eddie argos' i wanna be the boy/the man that writes the song/that makes israel and palestine/get along. classic. and the shouting of i've seen her naked. twice! on good weekend is quite clap-worthy.

anyway, check it out. britain rules!

art brut

2005-10-25T16:24:00.000-07:00

so last night was everybody's favorite indie darlings-of-the-moment, wolf parade, at bowery. thanks to my preview of their two new york shows in last week's new york press:

wolf parade oct 24-25
OH MY GOD THE GREATEST ROCK BAND IN THE UNIVERSE HAS COME TO PLANET EARTH TO SAVE US! HOLY MONTREAL, BATMAN! We’re pretty sure that at last count that was the headline across every music publication on the planet. So, if you’re one of those people who makes it a point to hate bands after they become part-band/most-hype, you’d better move on and start getting into Arctic Monkeys. If you’re not, Wolf Parade’s got the best thing going right now. With their recently-released Apologies to the Queen Mary, they’ve put out an album that, in 2005, has been eclipsed by only one album (according to indie gurus Pitchfork)—Kanye West’s Late Registration. Full of jagged keyboards, disjointed hooks, and scratchy lyrics—blissfully blasphemous lyrics—the Parade’s album smashes through ten songs and two ballads without devolving into the pop crap you’d expect these days from Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock (who introduced the band to Sub Pop and produced part of the album.)

...and the loving sub pop employee with access to the comp list, i was there. for me, it was my first non-cmj show with them & it was quite possibly the best show i've seen in years...but i do have a spotty memory & constantly-evolving musical tastes, so my claim probably wouldn't withstand any rigorous testing.

the best way to describe them is that their live show features performances of most of their gems at a level that is both 5x as fast & 10x as intense without a drop in quality (save for the way some of the trademark two part harmonies were washed away in the mix).

as for the setlist, they played pretty much everything off of Apologies... except for "Grounds for Divorce."...and they played three new songs and an old one to thwart the human setlist in the front row who kept yelling out song titles. yes. we know you can remember song titles. the fifth "is-he-or-is-he-not a member" member of the band jokingly snapped at him, "we have a very rigid setlist!" we all chuckled heartily at that one. anyway, the new songs are new/solid. punch us on the face with a new album soon, guys. pretend you're mark e. smith.

side highlight of the evening:
the sub pop employee who yelled out "shit in my pussy" at the band.