- Aqualaygualry in arcade fire - black wave/bad vibrations Today i watching overlay from here. this is wondeful film. Who are watching this?
- cattartiste in arcade fire - black wave/bad vibrations SplitVideo is a freeware virtual video clone and split video nick driver in behalf of connecting disparate applications to a single video...
- Peggus-interruptus in The Temper Trap Lovin’ The Temper Trap!
One of my favorite ways to see a film is to go in knowing as little as possible about it save for the knowledge that people I trust like it. I’m totally willing to put up with the jeers from film snobs in order to gain this experience. The stigma of ignorance is a low price to pay for the treat of this sort of unexpected goodness. I don’t get the same experience often with live shows. Someone is always filling me in with the dope before I get there. And that’s cool too. But… unexpected goodness is what I got this past Wednesday at Chielle on Colfax Avenue. The Detroit Cobras were rockin’ out in the Bluebird next door but the all the wall to wall people in the fab little store that made room for us knew we were in a great place for music that night.
I decided to go to the show in the first place because I wanted to hear A Dog Paloma. That was reason enough to go for me. Although I’d seen the lo-fi flyer on the bulletin board at the bookstore, I was too preoccupied with a week of speeding tickets, tow truck bills and other bad news and didn’t pay much attention to who else was playing. Not yet anyway. I just knew that Joe Sampson and Nathaniel Rateliff could be counted on to counteract the crummy and melancholy October days that had gripped on tight. And they did make my week better. Joe and Nathaniel are great to hear on their own…but together…chalk it up to chemistry or creative competitiveness but either way they sound beautiful. I like Joe’s songs and am glad to sit and listen anytime he sings them. The Wheel finished off the set solo delivering a single song with energy and intensity that probably was as loud as it got all night. And it was great.
Next up was Karl Blau. Watching Blau perform was like hanging in the kitchen while the best cook you know makes your dinner. He’d start out by making a vocal beat or backing sound and with the click of a pedal it’d be looping then he’d play over that and then add another sound or line and layer that on top and before you knew it you were surrounded with an array of sounds like a beautiful and tasty plate of food in front of you. Sometimes seeing how things are put together takes away from the magic of it, but Blau’s approach was like a super cool sleight of hand…you thought you saw everything he was doing but near the end of a song, you’re looking at him up there with his brilliant red guitar and you realize that there’s so much more going on than the pieces you saw put together. I don’t think I’m easily impressed, but this was one of the coolest performances I’ve ever witnessed. Low key, and it still blew you away. He makes a subscriber cd called KELP! monthly and I’ll bet that stuff is like having Christmas twelve times a year.
Finally up walks Calvin Johnson, just him and his acoustic classical guitar. He stands there and looks Read more »
oh my god you guys. seriously. i am too tired and other things right now and it is too late to write about this like i will soon but if there is anything you should be listening to right now it is this. and he just is playing a new live one for me this minute and it mentions eyeliner. listen to it. DO IT!
I have been waiting for years (okay, four) for the next great album written both for and about the club scene (the last one, in my opinion, being The Faint’s Danse Macabre). So when I first streamed Boys and Girls in America, I got pretty damn excited. Hell, even the album artwork made me happy: I took one look at that scraggly indie boy and midriff-baring chick surrounded by falling confetti, and thought, “sweet, this is gonna be the album that brings to light all the social and sexual bullshit that goes down (no pun intended) in the indie music scene. I am going to grin my face off and proceed to rock the hell out.”
And rock out I did. I’m a big fan of catchy, which explains why Boys and Girls in America immediately appealed to me musically. It’s got cascading guitar hooks that feel like they belong in an arena and tumbling organ and piano that feel like they belong in a jazz club or at a Baptist revival. This is NOT material for your average footshuffling indie crowd at some garish industrial venue–it’s the kind of album that makes one wanna dance. It makes me want to stage dive off my bed while playing air guitar to
“Chips Ahoy!“ (dude, a song about stoners betting on a horse named after a Nabisco cookie… brilliant) but that’s because I’m sometimes a little dumb like that.
So, uh, back to the album. Recycling fictional characters Holly, Charlemagne, and Co. from previous releases Almost Killed Me and Separation Sunday, Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn continues his pattern of Making Shit Up. On Boys and Girls in America, however, Finn’s stories (though they remain clever) are a little less dark, and the background accompaniments are more refined (to the extent of approaching power-pop). The album contains slower ballads that, though somewhat sweet, are still chock-full of allusions to the indie scene and gender relations therein. In the lines “hey citrus/hey liquor/I love it when we come together,” “Citrus” quietly alludes to a certain Chemical Brothers club anthem of yesteryear; in “The First Night,” Finn advises the ladies, “don’t even speak/to all those sequencer and beats boys/when they kiss they spit white noise.”
Though Finn’s statement is poetic and incisive, its attitude of admonishment is part of what constitutes my main beef with the album. I love that Finn and Co. point out certain idiocies committed in the name of indie rock (e.g., boy starts band, fangirl drools over boy, boy fucks fangirl but already has girlfriend), but I also think that, lyrically speaking, Boys and Girls in America is a bit of a boys’ club. The leadoff track, “Stuck Between Stations” starts with an allusion to Jack Kerouac and ends with a eulogy of John Berryman. Brilliant as The Dream Songs were, it annoys me somewhat that the album grounds itself in a reverence for male literary figures and then goes on to suggest, six tracks later, that females “don’t have to deal with the dealers/let your boyfriend deal with the dealers/it only becomes inconvenient/when you wanna get high alone.” And if said boyfriend gets annoying, Finn quips, “there’s always other boys and you can make them like you.”
I’m not saying there aren’t plenty of scenester chicks who employ that modus operandi, or that there aren’t scads of secretly machismo scenester jerks who, in turn, prey on such chicks. I just have a hard time believing that the more upright neo-beatnik scenester guys–you know, the ones who pride themselves on their liberal intellectualism but haven’t read a single female author in the last year–aren’t part of the problem too. Though the album does suggest that this type of male intellectualism ultimately doesn’t solve much (”she said ‘you’re pretty good with words but words won’t save your life’/and they didn’t so he died”) it still comes back (albeit empathetically) to the tired tale of woman-as-victim (”Holly’s not invincible/in fact she’s in a hospital”). In sum, this dance- and thought-provoking album keeps finding its way back onto my decks, but I’m still waiting for a record about the club scene that begins with a nod to Diane DiPrima and then goes on to tell the thinking woman’s side of the story.
It sure seems like a long time ago that Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler-Zavala were in At the Drive-In, much longer than the six years that it’s been since that band’s break-up. While it’s possible, especially if you squint and tilt your head a little, to hear bits of that band’s post-hardcore sound in Rodriguez-Lopez’s and Bixler-Zavala’s current project, The Mars Volta, TMV draws much more heavily on a sound that’s not much in fashion now: late ’60s and early ’70s prog- and acid-rock. Think Close to the Edge-era Yes, mixed with a heavy dose of the Syd Barrett-led Pink Floyd, and you’ve got a basic idea of where TMV are coming from.
Amputechture is not going to be the album that changes anyone’s mind about TMV. If you thought De-Loused in the Comatorium was impenetrable and Frances the Mute had too much noise and not enough song, you’ll think the same thing about Amputechture. On the other hand, if you like extraordinarily competent instrumental work and arrangements with parts that lock together as firmly as a jigsaw puzzle, the album might be just your thing.
It’s phemonenally, deliberately difficult music. It doesn’t have any melodies that you’ll end up humming, and the songs are spliced together out of an inordinate number of discrete parts rather than having any kind of traditional structure. Only one of the eight tracks clocks in under six and a half minutes. The lyrics seem to have something to do with a loss of faith in God, but even by prog-rock’s admittedly loose standards, they border on an unnecessary obtuseness turning into self-parody. Sample lines from “Tetragrammaton”: “The kiosk in my temporal lobe / is shaped like Rosalyn Carter / she says my map is home again / but torn face down.” Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that.
Does it repay the kind of repeated listening that it requires? The answer, as might be guessed, is: sometimes. Aside from the final menacing chant of “sharpen your eyes,” I can’t really get anything out of “Vicarious Atonement” no matter how hard I try, and “Vermicide” doesn’t make much of an impact either. But “Day of the Baphomets,” which is probably the standout track on the album, has a sequence of beautiful moments with a strangely Latin feel — it’s like King Crimson meets Weather Report, and it’s thrilling. Similarly, “Meccamputechture” is probably the best blend of where Rodriguez-Lopez and Bixler-Zavala have been and where they’re going, equal parts System of a Down and Dark Side of the Moon.
Amputechture isn’t TMV’s definitive statement (they probably haven’t made one yet), but it’s reasonably successful on its own terms. It’s certainly not making any effort to meet the listener halfway, but if you’re up to investing the time it demands into it, you’ll enjoy at least a fair bit of the album.
Rating: 6/10
Some stoner in a basement somewhere once swore that Pink Floyd’s moody Dark Side of the Moon album synched up perfectly with The Wizard of Oz. You know, “Run, Rabbit, Run†plays during the tornado—and the drum beats, man! They’re right in time with her feet! Well, San Francisco duo Dark Side of the Cop gives a healthy nod to the tradition of combining musical/cinematic loves, but they actually do it intentionally… which is some amazing, dorky genius right there. Marco Panella, armed with guitar and various bits of electronica, created a synched-up soundtrack to the masterpiece Beverly Hills Cop. You’re damn right that’s fucking Eddie Murphy. Now he and his buddy Roger Thomasson have a disc on Auger Down Records and are touring a shitload in support of good music and ’80s movies alike.
I had a chance to chat with Marco and Roger after a distortion-riffic (and very chilly) set at the South Union Arts Center (read: a converted church with a neon Jesus above the stage/altar that says, “I am the Light of the Worldâ€) last week, to discover more about… you know, people who actually come up with such ideas:
So tell me about how all this got started – you know, getting high one night and watching Beverly Hills Cop, maybe?…
Marco: Haha, yeah, pretty much! It was sort of a bad idea that floated around in our heads since high school, but we never really had any occasion to do it until we were between bands. My friend and I were big Eddie Murphy fans in high school… we never thought we’d, you know, actually do it. He’s from Detroit, so you know—there’s the Detroit angle, and it was either that or Trading Places. Trading Places would be harder…
Roger: Harder to name.
Marco: Yeah.
So how did you go about doing that? Watch the movie with the sound down?
Marco: Yeah, actually… I made the whole thing on the computer, so you can watch little clips with the songs linked up to them. When we perform we kinda stretch the songs out a little bit, but yeah… it was a pain. I didn’t even see the whole thing through until I was done, and then we watched it and I was like, “Oh my god, what the hell was that?â€
Have you ever thought about doing it live? Like if you had a video hookup, playing the songs while screening the movie?
Marco: Yeah, definitely, we’ve thought about it… We’re not really good enough…
Roger: One of the problems is that the songs have changed a little bit since the album, so they wouldn’t link up the way it was intended. I’m sure people would still assume they were linking up anyways, but you know. Some of the songs were like two minutes on the album, to keep them synched up to a particular scene, but now they’re like four or five minutes, and wouldn’t work, really.
Have you come across the website with fans who swear that Rush’s 2112 synchs up with Willy Wonka? Read more »
Even though they got their first big break opening for our nemesis panic@?&*% at the disco, i must confess that i quite like the hush sound.  their 2006 sophomore effort like vines is nicely crafted, almost big-band ish, and definitely fun to listen to, if not even one of the better records to come out of the chicago music scene in awhile. the lyrics do sometimes touch on the artsy-yet-sincere side but are way more literate and inventive than the typical why-don’t-you-love-me-i’ll-do-anything formula that current radio eats up with a spoon. in a weird way this album reminds me of 2001 era call and response, which is never a bad thing when you’re in the mood for spacey california sugarpop.
anyway, the hush sound kids are definitely good musicians - the catchy, upbeat tunes alternate male and female vocals and have some interesting energy to them. the single “wine red” is addictive, “sweet tangerines” has some gorgeous piano and my favourite song off the album, “lions roar,” is about a circus (what else?) and has that slightly evil carnival flavour to it that i love so much.  they use some more classic, jazzier instruments than your average pop beast does and all the elements combine to make this great little driving album, perfect for summer and happiness and all that crap.Â
on the con side, i should warn you that the hush sound is young and hip and perhaps a tad annoyingly ingenue at times, like they would love to be mysterious but don’t know exactly how to pull it off. it’s a very earnest endeavor and at times you could even call it…god forbid…perky, all traits which i imagine my ex’s current girlfriend to have, come to think of it. that’s judging from her inane myspace page, which i freely confess i occasionally peruse for the entertainment value. oh don’t be like that - you do it too. it’s what myspace is for, after all…finding new music and watching attention-hungry people attempt to define themselves with charming little online personas while splashing cutesy and ridiculous personal info all over the intarwebz for our voyeuristic pleasure.Â
but man, do i digress. whew. so yeah, the hush sound. good band. enjoyable sound. fun to jump around to. and while we’re on the topic of myspace, lovely marketing vehicle that it is, please check out some of the hush sound’s songs and maybe catch them on tour. dates after the jump. Read more »
So you’ve just gotten the 2005 summer anthem ‘Girl’ out of your head - or at least its Atari-inspired intro - and now you’re hungry for another Beck hook to lodge itself in your lower brain. You’re in luck! Beck’s latest, The Information isn’t as unthinkingly giddy as Guero, but it has the funk and the reliable cool to make you happy, moved and addicted. Written primarily between Sea Change and Guero, The Information offers up big doses of each. Beck apparently still has something to bummed about, but it is not the overwhelming emotion and he’s found the fun side to disappointment and frustration.
Beck made us glad to be sad in our formative years with Mellow Gold and Mutations, and now he makes the melancholia of the 20/30-something demographic seem somehow pleasant. I hope this doesn’t mean that he’s dissatisfied at home, but whatever the source of his driving dissatisfaction (let’s hope it’s just a keen worldview), it serves him well.
So far the big talk has been about the unusual packaging and presentation geared towards selling more albums (combating piracy in a constructive way? what?). Maybe the content on the disc isn’t as radical as its packaging and bonus features (finding ways to sell albums is revolutionary?), but there’s plenty of Beck on here that hasn’t been heard before.
The Information is about sensory overload, and it contributes in its own special way. Fortunately, Beck isn’t throwing handfuls of spaghetti at the wall in the hopes that some of it sticks. Sure, there is a lot happening here (dial tones, robot burps and technological bleeps that can only be described as ‘information’ all populate the album’s soundscape), but the songs’ arrangements and construction are typical of the composer: doing strange new things with simple chord changes and beats we feel like we’ve heard somewhere before. Read more »
I’m not ashamed to tell you that I’m absolutely, head over heels in love with The Pipettes. I’ve had them playing constantly on my computer, to the point where it’s starting to interfere with my album reviews that I’m supposed to be writing. I feel that I should tell you this so that you’ll be prepared when their CD inexplicably makes my end-of-year top 20 list that, as a “rock critic,” I’m obligated by federal law to create and post. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
At any rate, as their debut album, We Are The Pipettes, was not released in the US and isn’t going to be, the chances of them touring stateside are minimal at best. Which is why I was really excited when I discovered that fabchannel.com has made available the video of a complete Pipettes show that they played in Amsterdam earlier this year.
The audio isn’t perfect — the balance between the vocal mics is especially off — but as it’s the closest I’m going to be able to come to seeing them live for a very long time, I’m really happy anyway. Seriously. Don’t interrupt me. I’m gonna go watch them play “Pull Shapes” again.
Look, it’s critically important that i not be the only one here who endures this, so here you go:Â
Limp Bizkit performing Prince’s “1999″ in Seattle in 1999
I apologize in advance.
OK, no i don’t.
OK, the “breaking” part is a joke, since tour ended almost a month ago. Anyway, you may not have heard, but i play in a rock band what occasionally buys a cheap, dilapidated van and makes an effort to tour two to three weeks out of the year, since it’s all the time we can get off work. Ah, yes, the glamorous life of an indie rocker. Anyway, i’m not here to blab about myself (which may shock those of you who know me fairly well). Instead, i thought it may interest a few of you looking for some hott, obscure new music to check out a few of the amazing bands we met up with on tour–bands making a quality racket in front of 8 people in a Lansing, MI living room, 11 kids in a punk rock library in Huntsville, or maybe a couple dozen kids in a masonic temple on Long Island. Yeah, we play all the hippest venues.
