in other news ...

pitchfork media should just change their name to must love deerhoof.

i see that mustlovedeerhoof.com is still available, guys.

arthur magazine bitchslaps godsmack

arthur mag interview with sully erna

this isn't exactly stephen colbert at the white house correspondents dinner, but man, is it satisfying to read as a liberal music-lover. i recommend you just click on it, but basically, arthur magazine's jay babcock responded to a request from godsmack's publicity to interview the band by taking them to task for the navy's use of their songs in recruuting commercials. is babcock a little hard on erna? hell yes. is erna a millionaire living fat off the profits from music which is not only atrociously derivative and bereft of originality but also being used to promote the military unquestioningly? yes.

i don't think it's wrong for anyone to decide to join the military, and i support anyone who makes that decision with full knowledge of what they're risking. what i do have a problem with is people who lend their support without even really knowing what they support.

stupid, yet compelling

i guess that's pretty much all of western history, but i'm talking about all the ridiculous crap that people post on myspace. thanks to noah pwned for this one. i have, of course, run the numbers and come up with this for my soundtrack.

Music Library+Shuffle+Skip Forward for Every New Song = A Life Soundtrack (of a life-movie)

START!

Opening credits: Hamoa Beach – Gomez

Waking up: Machines Pt. 1 – Dabrye

Average day: Silent Shout – The Knife

First date: The Denial Twist – The White Stripes

Falling in love: In This Home On Ice – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Fight scene: Big Girl – Ghostface Killah

Breaking up: Suicide Uma Schrantz – P.O.S.

Getting back together: Away From Home – Crystal Skulls

Secret love: A Little Longing Goes Away – The Books

Life's okay: Viking’s Daughter – Szymanski Shettler Morris

Mental breakdown: Teddy Bear and a Tazer – P.O.S.

Driving: All the Wine – The National

Learning a lesson: Hard Party – Crystal Skulls

Deep thought: Guns Before Butter – Gang of Four

Flashback: Game Over - Dabrye

Partying: Is This Love? – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Happy dance: Always a Target – Radio 4

Regretting: Courtesy Laughs – Phoenix

Long night alone: Far Left – Spank Rock

Death scene: Cubbybear – Flavor Crystals

Ending Credits: Raised By Wolves – Voxtrot

how was the howwastheshow show?

so howwastheshow.com had their fourth anniversary party last night and david de young was kind enough to let me write the show review for old time's sake. here's a link.

HWTS 4th anniversary review

one-listen thursday

so this week one-listen wednesday comes to you from the comfy environs of my own house. and also on thursday. and i missed last week. i know, i know. shit's real. so better late than never. in case you're new here, i listen to a cd i haven't heard before and then hold forth on how it is while i'm listening to it. it's been called "the death knell of criticism." that's just super.

we are wolves
non-stop je te plie en deux
fat possum

i read a little bit about these guys in skyscraper, and it seems they're a bunch of montreal art school students and the guy who plays drums plays guitar here and the guy who plays keyboards plays drums or some such thing. and there's a drum machine.

from what i heard about this band, fat possum seemed like an odd label fit, but i can kind of see it. it's got a guttural thing going about it. a little bit like the black keys recording ethos. the name of which i can't remember. hang on ...

hey wow: in looking for the above info i just discovered that the black keys have signed to nonesuch records. their nonesuch debut will be out on sept. 12. okay, i'm going back to look for that term again ...

no luck. it's something about lo-fi meeting awesome. i'll try and get back to you. dude: the ice cream truck is right outside my house. the jingling bells are an interesting addition to we are wolves squallingly dirty sound. it makes me think of death from above 1979 except not nearly as propulsive; it's much slipperier and greasy. i'm on track 3, "la nature." it's held down by a killer great dirty synth line that's just begging to be remixed. i mean, you could hang a whole electronic dance beat around it, but mostly it's draped in lots and lots o' noise.

the title of the album means "non-stop i fold you in two." sounds super-uncomfortable. the drummer plays standing up with no bass drum, which is where the drum machine comes in. it's a very collage-y sounding record so far, with lots of little weird whoops and hollers going on in the background (and sometimes the foreground). there's something very art school about making music with a powerfully pounding groove and then singing like you're being eviscerated. this is like dance music for a david lynch movie.

is it in wings of desire where nick cave is singing in a club in germany? it's kind of got that vibe, where just even being able to dance to this just screams i'm wearing black and don't really care. i'd just as soon be writing pomo poetry.

i don't mean any of this as a knock, though, because this type of thing can be done either very badly or kind of sickeningly well, and we are wolves seems to be falling into the latter camp. the drum machine keeps everything organized, but the synth lines and guitar stuff sounds like it's in constant danger of falling out of time. it's a good tension. there's a great broken bassline in "snare me" that i bet would just kill live when pumped up loud and through a killer p.a. system.

have i mentioned that they're playing here soon? they are. i just went to check my e-mail, but then i realized that i already downloaded that message to my e-mail at work, so i can't get you the details, but i'll get back to you on it. plus: just scored an aimee mann interview! sweet!

track 5, "namai-taila-cambodge (go-tabla-go)," is probably my fave so far. it's tabla driven and more mellow and open than the other stuff so far. plus, it's instrumental. the screaming might be getting to me a bit. but if that's your thing, they're good at it. it's nice to hear a band switch gears.

wow, "nonstop" has a toy ray gun sound as a major melodic element. props.

so again with the black keys: they've invented this sort of idealized blues sound which strips all the crap away from contemporary blues and amplifies the groove, the grit and the soul to make a sort of simulacrum of blues and soul music. we are wolves sound much the same, except it seems like they've traveled to the future and done the same thing with stuff like nine inch nails and other industrial/electronic musics of the late '90s and early '00s.

jay clark needs to remix something from this album. did you hear his bloc party remix? stunningly awesome faux-nintendo work. at its heart, this is really a very simple album; it's just that each element that's there is ramped up to a quasi-ridiculous degree. these guys should be cast as the houseband in some kind of near-future, dark apocalyptic noir movie. the song "t.r.o.u.b.l.e." has only these lyrics: "t to the r to the o u b l eeeee ... looking for some trouble!" suffice it to say, they mostly keep their political statements to their volume and not their lyrics.

we're on the penultimate track now: "we are all winners." this album has a charming mix of world-weary posing and wide-eyed naivete, in the way that very abstract and arty music by its very nature displays a kind of contempt for the everyday, but at its best also makes us re-envision what the everyday is. there was a great little piece in harper's last month about exploring the quotidian, about going deep inside the everyday and non-descript to find a sublimality that's very different from our typical expectations of the sublime. we as americans expect to be entertained 24 hours a day and made to feel special, but this seems like a pretty recent development. there's a lot of beauty to be found in gentle observation of pretty much anything.

on the surface, we are wolves seem to not fit into the everyday with their glitchy and aggresive synth sounds and howling vocals, but there's something brave about not setting music apart from life. they're all playing off-instruments for the members and it sounds like they're having a hella fun time doing it. good for them. i'll bet they kick ass live.

and scene.

one-listen wednesday

so here's maybe what i'm thinking: i'll alternate weeks with local and national releases. that seems like what's happening anyways. last week all enjoyed one for the team, so this week i'm going to check out radio 4.

radio 4
enemies like this
EMI

well, first of all, now friends like these can't call their album enemies like this. i still miss their old domain name whoneedsenemies.com. that was so clever, but probably harder to remember than friendslikethese.com. the title track, which opens the record, has something in common with the more gothic dance punk stuff i've heard. i love you but i've chosen darkness aren't particularly dancy, but R4 has a little of that vibe, although much more free of reverb and amped up to 11 and cut in two with a rusty wire. there are these manic single stroke rolls in practically every measure that really keep you on edge.

right before i started listening to this i was listening to minus the bear, and i'm catching a little afterglow of that on this one. mostly in its immaculateness. and hey, it was mastered by the same person, emily lazar, who mastered heiruspecs' last album. apparently there are really only like four mastering places to have your stuff done. i'm thinking of the lodge, magneto mastering, (mumble mumble) and that other one.

this isn't exactly subtle music, but the differences between bands of the minimalist dance punk stripe generally reveal themselves over time. just how much gang of four have they listened to? bloc party? tons. franz ferdinand? less than bloc party, but enough. i'm already at track 3, "too much to ask for," which is showing its gang of four/clash influence proudly on its sleeve.

first impressions are a funny thing. oftentimes, as i'm listening through a record for the first time i'm having all kinds of different ideas about the disc, but the ultimate test seems to be if enough stuck at the end of the record to bring me back for more. there have been plenty of records that didn't initially seem that great that kept pulling me back for reasons i couldn't really figure. at the drive-in's relationship of command is one, crystal skulls' outgoing behavior is another.

"everything's in question" is the most interesting track so far. it has a massive attack-worthy bassline that seems a little dub and some echo-y edge-style guitar in the post-chorus section.

apparently, franz ferdinand's singer is putting out a cookbook of his recipes. i would assume the franz ferdinand diet is something like the all-ramen college student diet. gotta keep that wispy frame.

"this is not a test," which directly follows "everything's in question," is showing further sonic broadening. a decidedly (or maybe stereotypically) african rhythm track begins it and then squiggly guitar lines snake in over the top. this kind of broadness is making me feel better about the earlier, more straightforward tracks. it's got a chant-like mantra that repeats the title. entrancing.

and here comes the melodica. speaking of at the drive-in, i thought they were punk geniuses for using it in "quarantined" (i think that was the track; the names rarely had anything to do with the lyrics), but it turns out that, yep, gang of four did it fifteen years before them. the melodica is a little keyboard that you blow into like a recorder. you might not know what to call it, but when you hear it, you know it. ben folds uses one every once in a while. basically it seems like tracks 5, 6 and 7 are like a big old dub-influence samich. watch out, the clash.

one problem i had with the bloc party album (the silent alarm) was that it had this very strange characteristic of seeming great when you heard any one track and kind of underwhelming as a whole. there was a lack of connection amongst the tracks. i got the sense that you could shuffle the whole thing in itunes and the running order would make just as much sense. i think radio 4 might have a little of that going on. in that several of these tracks could make your summer mixtape a wonder to behold, but if you threw on the whole disc at a party it wouldn't make a dent after the first couple songs.

we're winding up to the last track here. this is nothing if not a crisp listen. i think i like this on first listen. at first it seemed to be a very straight-ahed dance punk kind of thing that didn't seem distinct from a lot of other stuff i've heard, but those middle three tracks really spread it out. funny how a couple tracks that show off another side of the band can make the down-the-pipe ones feel more significant. there are some really great little guitar stabs and the polyrhythmic aspects are a welcome change from four-on-floor stuff.

and scene.

the new pearl jam reviewed right

despite my mixed feelings, i ref pitchfork a lot on here, so now i'm sending you to a site i actually prefer for what i feel to be the most even-handed review of pearl jam's new self-titled disc i've read so far.

pearl jam review on cokemachineglow

i've been considering writing up my own review, but this one pretty much nails it. i don't know if i would have that much to add, really. pitchfork's 5.5 was laughable; i can't even understand why they would review it other than to confirm to snobbish hipsters that their dislike of pearl jam can remain intact. to call eddie vedder's voice an "acquired taste's acquired taste" is completely ridiculous for a site that has handed out sterling silver reviews to the likes of clap your hands say yeah, wolf parade and, yes, scott walker. i can bet you that vedder's baritone is a lot closer to what the man on the street expects from a rock singer than alec ounsworth or spencer krug's strangled yelping, which i love, by the way. i love CYHSY and wolf parade, but i think hipsters should acknowledge that there's more to the music scene out there than their little corner of it. pearl jam themselves said it best back on vs.: "this is not for you."

is pearl jam going to crack my top ten come year's end? am i going to find myself going back to it over and over again? probably not. but i'll just remember to check back in on any of the bands whose first efforts have yielded up 8.5s or above on pfork this year in 2021 to see how they're doing. pearl jam have been putting out good to great albums for 15 years. they make a living doing music, they play to scads of fans at every venue they hit and they've written some great songs. not a bad take, i think.

okay, i guess i did have something to add.

scott walker review on pitchfork

review of scott walker's the drift on pitchfork

i don't feel like i trashed walker's album or anything; i was simply giving my first impression of the disc as i listened to it. here's a glowing review from the old pitchfork, which makes the excellent point that "pretentious" doesn't necessarily mean "bullshit." but i stand by my opinion that this is a record that asks, "how much art can you take?" and i don't think anyone should feel bad if the answer is "less than this."

on a separate note, i caught sigur ros at the orpheum last night, and thought they were spectac. about four songs into their set, i was beginning to lose interest a bit since every song followed essentially the same dynamic pattern: slow build to climax, drop it back down, build it up again. i don't know the names of their songs, but there's one from agaetis byrjun that has a little flute melody that comes in about 2/3 of the way through, and starting with that one, i was quite impressed. the thickness of their sound is almost unbelievable, but they also stripped it down really nicely partway through and played a song with all the lights down save for a few that were linked into the sound levels from the mics. the result was a flock of lights that would brighten when a chord was hit, then flicker out as the sustain died. a great show for the orpheum's set-up, all things considered. the one disappointing aspect was the ruining of what could have been a beautiful moment of silence. at one point in one of their songs, the entire band and the video that was being shown behind them came to a halt, with all the members frozen completely still. the silence lasted about ten second before someone shouted, "woo-hoo!" and then another person piped up. and then someone took the opportunity to tell the band they were fucking awesome. kind of lame, folks. i know it's a bit much to expect people to shut up completely for a show, but instead of a beautiful 30 seconds of silence, we got a display of just how uncomfortable we are with pauses. why is that? why can't we just let an empty space be an empty space?

the death knell of criticism, mk iii

i'm about to launch into a one-listen wednesday of afternoon records' upcoming release by one for the team, but first this: there's going to be a slamming show at the triple rock tonight featuring headliners pretty girls make graves (including ex-twin cities bamf jay clark on guitar), giant drag and the joggers. pgmg just released elan vital, which i'm pretty sure means lively flair or something like that. there are throngs and throngs of kids who love pretty girls like rap kids love breaks, and i'm not super-familiar, but i love jay clark's remix of bloc party's "positive tension." it sounds like a nintendo playing dance rock. pgmg mix up the vocals between the dudes and the dudettes, which always gets the thumbs up from me, although the critical reception for this album has been somewhat muted. i brought along the new romance, so i'm throwing that in right now.

giant drag is another boy-girl affair, although just the one girl (annie hardy) and the one boy (micah calabrese). their disc kicks off with the catchingly-named "kevin is gay," and over the course of the whole thing cover a good amount of ground sonically, especially for a two-piece. it definitely falls onto the indie-dance-punk-pop side of things, but isn't overly aggressive. watching duos go at it live is always entertaining as they fill in parts on the fly. the best of them make up with energy what they lack in instrumentation.

this just in: the new romance is more immediately good than elan vital. i'm not saying better, just that so far it's making a better impression.

and now: one-listen wednesday

one for the team
s/t(?)
afternoon records

right away: guitar-through-a-tiny-radio sound. an immediate plus. when the track kicks in, it's damn solid. i don't have any track listings here, so i don't know what this is called. it's kind of clattering and great. tamborines should be mandatory on certain songs and this is one of them. and there they are. call me crazy, but i'm thinking matthew sweet here. it's got that vocals-in-you-face feel to it.

checking up on myspace (where else do you go for info about bands?), i discover that one for the team has 0 friends. not even tom. this would be ian anderson (who heads up afternoon records and writes for the pusle from time to time) and a bunch of guys doing anderson's songs, i'm a-guessing. the second song is definitely keeping up the ante with a great line about, "i've been coming of age for most of my life," and a refrain of "you're taking off, you're taking off your..." i really hope that's a double entendre.

apparently, power-pop grows on trees here in the twin cities, and this is one of the finer examples i've heard. personally, i like my power-pop a little shaggy, a little more organic. plug in, crank the amps, write a rocker, then add claps, harmonies, and yup, tamborines. another major plus: the fourth track's chorus references the band's name ("take one for the team, and one for me"). always a plus in my book. the pinnacle example being, of course, the song "in a big country" from the album in a big country by the band in a big country.

wow, killer little ac/dc style riff at the end of track five. razor sharp, anderson. track five is so far the most spleen-filled, but it's still pretty sweet and the breakdown part at the end reminds me of muse--one of my favorite guilty pleasure bands, like a cross between queen and rage against the machine.

i always struggle in these things to just say who bands sound like, since that's the cheapest and easiest way to explain a band's sound, but on the other hand, it's cheap and easy. track six has a great little interpolation of that childhood teasing melody of "na na na na naaa naaaa" (that looks horrible and not like how it sounds, but i don't know how to express it in print) in the chorus.

"making wishes under overpasses?" hell yeah, dude. i've always liked the stuff i've gotten from afternoon records from superdanger to viceburgh to look down to squareshooters, but this might be my favorite so far. hints of 12 rods? yeah, i think so. see, there are nasal vocals and then there are nasal vocals, and it's a really fine line to walk between braying and endearing; anderson's doing a great job here of staying on the right side of that line.

and now the track nine change of pace. keyboards! well, at least it starts that way, but overdriven guitars have taken over ... and now back to the keyboards. it's a song about school and buying houses. "someday maybe we'll be fine" is the chorus. this is what i love about a good indie rock pop moment: it's simple and almost dumb, even, in a way, but couched inside of support that's fuzzy and splintered and that tension gives it a certain poignance.

okay, i've got it now: built to spill circa there's nothing wrong with love. cross-pollinate that with matthew sweet circa girlfriend. who wouldn't want to listen to that? yeah, this is just super-pleasing over the distance. we're at track ten now and i haven't heard a clunker so far.

looks like they played with voxtrot on april 17. i'll bet that was a good show. and thus we've wound to the end of one for the team's disc. man, kudos, ian. this one's definitely going to be getting more than one listen.