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I remember when I was a freshman in college, browsing through my friend Shaun’s music collection and coming across the then-current Natalie Merchant album. (Tigerlily, if memory serves.) I asked if I could borrow it, and he agreed. I took it downstairs to my room, put it in…and was greeted with a cacophonous barrage of guitars that I was pretty sure was not the beginning of “Carnival.”
I went back to his room, handed it to him, and asked, “What is this?” With a kind of “gotcha!” grin on his face, he responded, “Oh, that’s Nada Surf. It’s a factory misprint.”
The reason that I tell this story is to try and convey something of what I felt when I put The Holy Ghost, the new album from Connecticut band Aeroplane, 1929. It’s far enough away from the rehashed emo-punk of their debut, To Persevere, that even though I had the promo CD case sitting in front of me, I might not have been entirely convinced I was listening to the right band, had the lyrics on the CD not matched the ones on the liner notes.
From the sound of The Holy Ghost, it seems like Aeroplane, 1929 spent the entire time between albums holed up in a room listening to old Uncle Tupelo and Neil Young records. It’s actually a style that suits them much better; the improvement from their last disc is striking enough that I think that even the worst of the tracks on The Holy Ghost is better than the best of the songs on the debut. The clean drums, alt-country guitars, and pedal steels that float through the album are effectively placed, well-produced, and competently played, and it’s a very pretty sound indeed.
The highlight of the album, and the song that I strongly recommend that you seek out, is “Hounds at Heels,” a chugging track packed with jangly acoustic guitars, tastefully distorted leads, a whole bevy of handclaps, and lead singer Alex Mazzaferro’s most carefully focused lyrics of the CD. I actually think it’s one of my favorite tracks I’ve heard so far this summer, and I foresee it spending a significant amount of time on my speakers for the next few months anyway.
Nothing else on The Holy Ghost is quite that good, but most of it is certainly good enough. The few moments where the album strains are generally due to the lyrics, rather than the music — the political anger on “Locomotive,” for instance, is a bit heavy-handed for my taste. Certainly, The Holy Ghost isn’t a perfect album — but unlike the debut, I think it is an album that deserves an audience outside of the band’s native New England.
At only six tracks, and a running time well under half an hour, The Holy Ghost is extremely short: short enough that I think I’d probably refer to it as an EP if the band’s promotional materials didn’t seem to treat the release as a full album (though they’re careful to avoid saying so in so many words). This leads me to hope that the follow-up might not take very long to come out. It may sound silly to start speculating about the next release when this one has only just come out, but I really think that, after the growth exhibited on this album, the Aeroplane’s best work is still in front of them.
Release date: July 2007
Label: Topshelf
Rating: 7.5/10 (The extra .5 is just because I liked “Hounds at Heels” so much)
Presenting! A new 1-10 ratings system based on how happy Kenny Loggins appears on his album covers! The Loggins Album Cover Happiness Scale! With additional lol/l33t-style commentary for no good reason!
1: Sittin’ In
i r srs loginz. i haz ful hous.
2: Nightwatch
this hallway is hell of spooky Read more »
This is about a week old, but it was brought to my attention only yesterday. Seattle’s venerable weekly, The Stranger, published this amazing “open letter from Billy Corgan” last Tuesday, the release date of his new solo album, Zeitgeist. Nosh on these highlights:
My Dear Friends,
Today is the greatest day you’ve ever known.
Seven years, seven months, and ten days ago, the clock struck midnight, 2000, and the world began turning faster. Back then, I disbanded the Smashing Pumpkins because the new millennium demanded it. A new age needed a new start—cleanliness and unity, not the confused, confusing wreck I let the band become.
We were once the most important band in the world, and everyone—me, you, Courtney Love—knew it. The Smashing Pumpkins drew the line between Black Sabbath, the Bee Gees, and the Cure, and that line caught a generation like a leash around a wayward puppy. We founded Alternative Nation, and the kids and advertisers flocked around. But because the band had become bloated, overbearing, headstrong, because it grew beyond my control, it had to die. I killed it before it killed me.
And now, after all those years of self-imposed obscurity, of forced poetry, of side projects mired in mediocrity and too many guitarists, I bring us, together, here, to the corner of Future Avenue and Now Street. This is our moment! This is our day! This is Zeitgeist! (That’s “Spirit of the Age” in German. Trust me: I’ve read Hegel.)
* * *
As for the music, the critics won’t get it. They never have. My old fans—the ones whose lives were changed by Gish and Siamese Dream—won’t get it. They will complain that the sound is too dense, too severe, too, yes, overbearing. But the New Generation is the one I’m speaking to, the one that needs to know that My Chemical Romance and Panic! At the Disco couldn’t exist without me. Whether they want to know doesn’t matter. This Zeitgeist is not consensual—it’s here, whether you understand it or not.
Here is what you must understand: Nothing has changed since 1999, except my budget. And Pro Tools. I am still the same alt-rock messiah I was. You are still my teenage flock.
Actual letter, or perfectly-executed farce? Well, if it were a real open letter, wouldn’t Corgan have written it to Chicago, in the same manner in which he always subjects his poor, embattered home city? My guess it that it’s fake.
Viva la Stranger. Your parody muscles are well-toned and sinewy.
There is no possible way for me to recall my 3-day experience at the Pitchfork Festival without it becoming the worst college admissions essay to a music school ever, so instead I have decided to make a list of my yays and nays of the weekend’s festivities.
Yays
+ 312unes program and beer! Getting people excited about the different bands and things that Goose Island is going to do to help Chicago’s local music scene. Plus the free beer was pretty rad, and needless to mention, I was a bit drunktastic!
+ Amazing Chicago weather. We (as in the royal Chicago denizen ‘we’) lucked out. It was amazing weather the whole weekend.
+ Voxtrot. They were the first band of the Festival that I was excited about. I used to describe them as the Smiths meet Belle and Sebastian. But now, I’d say they sound like if Elton John and Morrissey had a bastard love child who looked painfully like Adrian Grenier in The Adventures of Sebastian Cole and knew how to party. Hmmm. Does that even make sense?
+ Battles. They definitely dominated with their sound and presence.
+ Of Montreal. I think they alone brought down the festival. Stephen Malkmus of Pavement fame was singing and strumming his heart out and people were turning their heads in anticipation for Of Montreal. At one point, some guy did a sound check and everyone bum rushed the second stage. Hah!
+ Girl Talk. He rocked the house. Or rather, rocked the limited amount of staging given to him. But it’s amazing what one person can do with non-licensed music. AMA-ZING!
+ The Flatstock poster show. ART ART ART ART! Beautiful Art! Need I say more?
+ De La Soul. They were the perfect group to the end the festival. They kept the momentum up and the crowd happy. As I walked to the Green Line stop, De La could still be heard, playing way past the 11:00 pm shut off. Good for you, De la!
Nays
- YOKO ONO!!! I have never seen a group of people flee faster by the sheer repulsion of sound ever in my life. Click HERE if you don’t believe me. But consider yourself warned.
- Pitchfork’s sound system. I wish it were LCD. Throughout the festival, one of the most recurring things you heard people say, (other than “man, I love 312 beer”) is that the sound sucked. You think they could have put some more money into their speakers and less into Yoko ‘crapula’ Ono.
- The third stage. Who the crunk thought it a good idea to put the third stage way in the back where there was no place to stand and AND to park Toyota’s shitty wannabe transformer car, the Scion, in the middle of it all? Good job, event planner…you fail.
- The disappearing port-a-potties. There were a lot of accessible waste management receptacles, but when they would pick the strangely located scattered ones, it left behind a pile of excrement for people to happen upon with their shoes or sandals. Not the greatest festival moment, speaking from personal experience.
- The lack of bands that, well, could rock out. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Cat Power, but she was a total snooze-fest! I was already tired as it was and her wispy, sorrowful vocals made me want to end it right there. New Pornographers were okay but didn’t really get the draw of the intoxicated crowd. The one band that did know how to rock was Mastodon and it was insanely annoying. No one needs to hear that much metal that loudly, ever. If so, an ice pick to the brain works just as well.
- Did I mention Yoko Ono?
- The long lines for everything! Want to eat something? Go stand in that line. Want to potty? That line there. Want an ATM? Oh that line laps the park thrice over. You want to leave? Welcome to the line ride for the CTA Green Line. ACK! It was like I couldn’t escape standing in lines for the life of me! Oh well.
But what made Pitchfork Festival particularly memorable for me was not only seeing Of Montreal but meeting them. Both Kevin Barnes and Dottie Alexander were wonderful and frankly I was too starstruck to say anything intelligent. So yeah, there were a lot of pluses and minuses but this three-day insanity was well worth it. Lollapalooza, I’m ready. I survived Pitchfork, I can tackle you with bells on. And of course my beer tickets!
Milwaukee’s basements have been glowing with a slightly goofier light the last few years. Yes, goofier than the typical Christmas lights and bare bulbs that usually adorn such places with names like “The Vault,” “The Breakfast Nook,” and one of Milwaukee’s newest basement venues, “Six Flags Great America.” The light is coming from the chests of the members of Terrior Bute, Brewtown synth-punk spazzes who tend to wear matching shirts with taplights attached to them as they bash their keytars during their shows. Also, they are totally super-young and teeny and adorable, and i say that as a straight male who dates people his own age. The Bute recently took their show out of the cellar and onto the road, playing a brisk two-week tour that sent them to New York, Baltimore, and various other destinations of an eastern persuasion. When they made it back to the home of the first place Brewers, they took some time to answer our five questions.
1. When historians listen to your most recent CD 1000 years from now, what will they say?
I liked it better when Cher did it.
2. If you could play a show with any band/musician living or dead, who would you pick and why?
OK, dream band: Jonathan Davis on vox, Fieldy on bass, Monkey on guit. and ?uestlove on drums.
3. What is the strangest band-related dream (one of) you have had?
OK, I had this dream (Henry). I was sitting at a huge banquette table out on a pier in the middle of the ocean. It was hot and sunny and I was just sitting at this huge table, and then beneath the sparkling blue waves I saw this massive swimming black translucent ghost. the ghost shot out of the water and put the sun in its mouth…which caused a solar eclipse…or what ever you would call the sun being blotted out by a ghost’s mouth…my friend JJ was there too and he turned to me after all this and said “what’s the real you Henry? How many of ‘you’ are there?” [NOTE: No, i'm not sure what this has to do with the band either.]
4. What do your fans look like?
Giant translucent swiming ghosts. [NOTE: Ah, now it makes sense.]
5. What bullshit do you run into at most every show that makes you think “man, this bullshit again?”
OK, so Ryan had this dream. We were all sitting in this giant baby basket and we all turned to each other and said “man, this bullshit again?”
Bonus question: If Hitler were cloned and birthed as a present-day infant, would it be possible to raise the clone as a productive member of society, or would it still only have one testicle and not eat meat? In other words: nature or nurture?
Jeff had a dream about this one… Jeff had a dream he was being chased by a big nazi man, only instead of having a regular head on his shoulders he had a a cooing baby there instead… and the baby had a man’s head…no, wait, never mind, it totally didn’t… pretty creepy…Jeff made a short story about it for a film class this semseter. You can read his blog about it at www.natureistherealbeast.net…???…
Their debut CD, Return to the Astro Castle, was released in August of last year on Milwaukee’s Vicious Pop Records. Groove to their single “I’m a Manican” and realize why girls my advanced age want to take them home and make them men. (Are they not men?)
Ted Harbert, president of E! and CEO of Comcast Entertainment Group, has decided to not only continue to be an insufferably horrible cable company but to give Snoop Dogg his own reality TV show. Harbert said Friday during E!’s portion of the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour that the rapper-producer-actor, his wife and his three kids will be the subject of an untitled half-hour series debuting in late 2007.
What!?!?! I have had it up to here with Snoop cameo-ing in on my favorite premium cable series (I’m looking at you Weeds and Entourage) but now he is hustling in on my reality TV! No, I say. Enough is enough! But I am sure the masses of teen and college-aged burn-outs will flock to this like the second coming of Latoya Jackson and it will be this huge phenomenal ratings hit and my 5 year old cousin will be forced to say “forshizzah” in her daily vernacular for the rest of her life. Again, no! Has Russell Simmons taught us nothing? Has his sufferings from being married to Kimora ‘trannysaurus’ Lee been for naught? Take back the night, my brothers, and do not let Snoop Dogg take over our airwaves.
Cameras will follow Snoop Dogg — aka Calvin Broadus Jr. — as he pursues his career, taking viewers into closed-door meetings and private recording sessions. They will also follow him in his roles as the founder of a youth football league and as dad to two sons and a daughter and husband to Shante.
Snoop Dogg’s involvement with community issues includes coaching 2,500 kids in the Snoop Youth Football League and orchestrating the Protect the West Conference, aimed at keeping the peace within the hip-hop community.
I’m not trying to be a hater but I call bullshit on Snoop Dogg’s philanthropic nature. Ok, fine. I am a hater. Sheesh. But don’t hate the hater, hate the blog. Or game. Or… you know what I mean! Hollaheezie!
Source - Reuters
