- Doug Stephen in FOR FUCK SAKE EVERYONE KNOCK IT OFF WITH THE GOD DAMNED ACCORDIONS JESUS CHRIST Woah, okay Vice Magazine.
- Doug Stephen in Vampire Weekend - S/T I’ve never listened to a solo Paul Simon record, or to Graceland, so I don’t know about that. But the songs I’ve heard by Vampire Weekend...
- bjyhore in New Single: Patrick Wolf’s “Accident and Emergency” She had actually been robbed of it cant be cruel. Mistress. I could do. jennifer lopez porn Three.
Hi everybody, i’m Conan Neutron, I play in the band Replicator from Oakland, CA. There are many tour diaries, but this one is mine. Thanks to the SSC gang for asking us to do it here.
Freedom Tickler, “tickle her fancy with the REAL thing, it’s the patriotic thing to do.”
Hilarious condom available at a rural gas station.
We left Robert’s house pretty early, after making sure to hook him up with as many Replicator buttons and stickers as he could handle. Thanks guys! I had a total scare when I thought I had left my brand new perscription sunglasses (or “perscription stunnaz” if you prefer), at his place, and I realized we didn’t have his number. I basically had a couple of kittens freaking out, since I used to be photoallergenic and am still really, really sensitive to bright light.
Luckilly I had stowed it away in a compartment in my sidebag… whew!
one of the things I really wanted to do before we left Memphis is visit Sun Studios, home of Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, etc. It’s still an active recording studio, but it’s the only recording studio that’s a national landmark. Awesome.
I was worried about having enough money to actually pay for the tour, when the really nice girl at the register informed us that since we were a band we all got free admission for the price of a cd. BAD-ASS!
Rejoice, hipsters! I present to you a brand new album of anthems for you and your friends, all perfectly suited to soundtrack your life as you snort cocaine off the back of a filthy toilet in a rundown bar and/or shop for ridiculously tight pants at Urban Outfitters. Surely the last Killers album must be wearing thin by now, so this new steaming pile by VHS or Beta has arrived just in time, no?
I’ve never understood this whole indie-rock-dance-band revolution thing that has happened over the past few years. I guess when the parties moved out of their parents’ basements and into crappy clubs and bars, the scene kids needed something with a beat in order to maximize the appeal of their fashion choices and poor health. And that, my friends, was the birth of indie rock dance music. This “dance music” is made primarily with guitars, the synths are drowned out by butt rock riffs, and the insipid lyrics are generally about being a sad and misunderstood asshole that’s still fun totally fun at parties.
VHS or Beta’s Bring on the Comets is a pretty standard addition to the artless realm of indie rock dance music. To be fair, the record does exactly what it’s meant to do – it’s mindless, catchy pop with shiny production and absolutely nothing going on beneath the surface, created for people with absolutely nothing going on under the surface. The songs aren’t really bad, per se, but so utterly basic and lacking in creativity that I’m somewhat intellectually insulted. Sure, the tracks are catchy, but so is that hemorrhoid jingle I heard on television yesterday, and I certainly don’t want to play that on my stereo. Well, maybe once, but just for kicks. You know how it is.
I would break down the tracks for you, but why put ourselves through such torture? Trust me, all the songs sound nearly identical. If you’ve heard “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers, then you’ve heard this album, and I fucking know you’ve heard that song. Bring on the Comets is a lifeless and useless release from a band who caters to the lifeless and useless crowd. VHS or beta, you ask? I choose digital, thank you very much.
Release date: August 28, 2007
Label: Astralwerks
Rating: 4/10
ok, before i get into this review, let me first say that even if i am a huge, adoring, rabid, squealing fan of a band, that’s no guarantee that i will automatically like any and every new release they put out - quite the opposite, actually. i am way more likely to be critical of every little flaw if a band has put out something previously that i loved. i get really nervous when a band like the national or crooked fingers or okkervil river puts out something new because my expectations of them are so very high and i hate disappointment, dammit.
well, no worries with the stage names, thank god. to the contrary, i have actually heard from more than one source that okkervil river has gotten too good with this one. and that makes me laugh and laugh because hey, people are stupid and there is no such thing as music being too good. morons.
sure, this is way more polished and together than the okkervil river i have known and loved since stars too small to use was making the demo rounds in the late, late 90’s . the serrated edges are shinier and polished to a subtle sheen. there’s a full brass section that bounces and bubbles on the upbeat songs. and yeah, the melancholy that made their much-lauded 2005 release black sheep boy so haunting has shifted into a joyful kind of bittersweetness. but come on, people, to call this “too good” just shows how ridiculous some music reviewer types can be.
part of that attitude may come from the fact that this album is much more orchestrated and energetic than i ever expected from my okkervil boys - i can’t wait to hear it live. it opens with a tight little riff on “our life is not a movie or maybe” and then unfolds into blazing, thumping, piano-riddled rock songs that sweep you in their wake, then trick you into dropping into quiet interludes. the hand claps in the rocking “a hand to take hold of the scene” will have you jumping even when you realize that the song is really a plea for some control. the rocking “unless it’s kicks” manages to be self-analytical about this strange beast we call rock ‘n’ roll music, without resorting to preachiness, no easy feat, even for a writer of will sheff’s caliber.
which brings me to another good point - i like my music to be revelatory, to tell stories. and i don’t want the whole tale spelled out either, i just want to be offered glimpses into the minds of other “normal” folks who have their own mystery and strangeness running through their lives. and will sheff has never disappointed me with his songwriting. he honestly is one of the most literate lyricists out there, painfully insightful and intricately reflective with just enough ambiguity to keep things interesting. the kid must put so much time into crafting these songs - they are full of references that somehow manage to work into the mood of the tune without being gimmicky. the song “plus ones” ingeniously weaves the titles of classic rock songs with numbers in the titles into its lyrics, but with the twist of adding 1 to each…97 tears, 100 luftbaloons, 8 chinese brothers, 51 ways to leave your lover. it’s so well done that each reference fits perfectly with the tale he is weaving.
and though the stage names is an absolute blast to listen to when the band is playing those shimmery, energetic songs, it’s when they calm things down that okkervil river truly shines in that way they do so well. the plinky toy piano on “savannah smiles” combines oh-so-melodically with country-tinged strings and crooning. then there’s the last track, the shivery and disturbing “john allyn smith sails,” which somehow manages to combine the tale of a poet’s suicide attempts with the beach boys’ song “sloop john b.” hearing the ragged chorus singing “this is the worst trip i’ve ever been on” as a suicide note tugs and manipulates and feels voyeuristic and painful in the best way.
what i am trying to say here, in a wordy and ebullient nutshell, is that the stage names is okkervil river’s best album to date and much more accessible than their previous releases. i had my doubts that the band would be able to equal their older albums, every single one of which went straight to my shriveled black raisin heart the moment i heard it, but i can say with no doubt that this one tops them in almost every way. it’s more powerful, and its soft, reflective songs are just as poignant.
blah, blah, i could go on and on but this is one of those records that you really have to hear for yourself. give it a shot, please. it’s the least you can do after all i’ve done for you.
Label: jagjaguwar
Release Date: august 7, 2007 (US)
Rating: 9/10
Hi everybody, i’m Conan Neutron, I play in the band Replicator from Oakland, CA. There are many tour diaries, but this one is mine. Thanks to the SSC gang for asking us to do it here.
It was tough leaving Austin, as Paul’s house was both comfortable and pretty rad. However, Tennessee awaited! So leave we did.We got up entirely too early, and get on the road… I drive for 6 hours straight through the rest of Texas. While listening to the Cyn Cyn cd, we erupt into spontaneous cheers when we finally get to Arkansas. I actually liked Austin a lot, but there sure is a lot of Texas out there, it’s nice to finally be in a different state.
At Printer’s Alley, Todd and Chris, pseudo artsy shot.
One of the interesting things about tour is the journey there, meaning all of the places you see along the way, you see some really amazing things such as this:
Classy Taqueria sign in Rural Arkansas at a very crappy gas station.
We stopped for gas at a gas station that had pretty miuch the slowest gas pump i’ve ever heard. I guess they had a problem with the pumps and it was in the process of being fixed, all I know is that we went to do a different gas station so we could keep going. In any case, Arkansas was next, and we stopped for lunc in a town called Hope.
Jens Lekman has always had that way… a song starts rolling, and just before he turns the
chorus your cerebral cortex thinks, “It would be awesome if he did [this]!” And then he does it. Everything is just one notch below predictable, but satisfying and surprisingly original, given that he courts existing conventions so closely.
Until now, that is, and we’ll get to that in a second, but first the good news…
Night Falls Over Kortedala continues Lekman’s love affair with Bacharach (sure plenty of musicians appreciate Burt, but Lekman wins the prize for current recording artist who sincerely likes him the most) and Brian Wilson, mostly to great success, though the best moments already saw the light of day on previous ep’s and rarity compilations (a strange m.o. of Lekman’s full-length releases). But who cares? There are also heretofore unreleased standouts that deserve praise for camouflaging their sources so well as to not only avoid plagiarism but emerge fresh and crispy. Always clever, Lekman gets a hall pass for flirting with mimicry by likeable self-depreciation and outright silly lines like, “I took my sister down to the ocean, but the ocean made me feel stupid.” Sure he’s a dork, but he never sounds pathetic.
But he ruins some choice cuts by gratuitously exposing his influences. The otherwise charming track nine ’Shirin’ about a black-market hair stylist is sullied in the end by outright thievery of the verse to ‘Don’t Worry Baby’. Taking remnants of old monuments and fashioning them into new sculptures isn’t news, but the Beach Boys melody comes in on strings that don’t appear until the end of the song and not only tortures you to figure out why it sounds so familiar, but makes you wonder if you’ve been listening to stolen property all along. Next up is the cute but puerile ‘It Was a Strange Time in My Life’ (yeah, childish was the point here, I know, but it’s just dumb), of which the most lasting moment is a bored kid on a rainy day with a tape recorder. Maybe this is Lekman’s way of telling us what happens when he makes a full album, which he supposedly swore years ago never to do again. Maybe he’s right… two ep’s of the new stuff on Night Falls might have been better.
But there is a host of greatness on here as well. Unlike most artists, even those who write good lyrics, the words are the first thing you notice on Night Falls. ‘A Postcard to Nina’ has, of course, a nice-enough melody and an ebullient chorus, but the story of a lesbian who talks Jens into pretending to be her boyfriend for a dinner with her kindly but old-fashioned Catholic father is tender, comic and sincere, least of all because Dad is not an ogre but wants the best for his daughter and thinks that he knows what that is.
And it’s not just the lyrics that set the disc apart - ‘If I Could Cry’ uses Lekman’s skills as an arranger to sonically explain how it would feel if he could cry (apparently, it would feel like Donna Summers). And his admiration for the likes of Brian Wilson and Belle and Sebastian is well-represented in tracks like ‘I’m Leaving You Because I Don’t Love You’ where a break-up letter is juxtaposed with a clandestinely electronic update of ‘God Only Knows’, this time only winking at the source material.
The defects of the album - not to mention the poorly produced ‘Kanske Ar jag Kar I Dig’ wherein you can hear the blip where the backing vocal sample was looped - haven’t been enough to keep me from playing this album at top volume at home and at work, the chagrin of co-workers be damned. Lekman is reliable to write a few genuine pop gems every year, and even if 12 of them don’t belong together on one disc, the winning moments on Night Falls rival the brief perfection of the Rocky Dennis and Maple Leaves ep’s. It isn’t likely net new fans cold off the streets, but does provide more material for accidental listeners to stumble upon and enjoy (as I did one spring afternoon in ‘04 while accidentally listening to WNUR 89.3 at that serendipitous moment when ‘Black Cab’ got a spin). Goes to show that being a nice guy goes a long way.
Label: Secretly Canadian
Release Date: Oct. 9, 2007 (US)
Rating: 8.5/10
Hi everybody, i’m Conan Neutron, I play in the band Replicator from Oakland, CA. There are many tour diaries, but this one is mine. Thanks to the SSC gang for asking us to do it here.
Since we haven’t posted any pictures up yet, I figured i’d put a couple up from Luke Holwerda at our Phoenix show… these are from a good live review by Matt Neff in the Phoenix New Times.
your humble narrator on the vocals, Chris on drums
Ben in Phoenix
Due to the lack of an Oklahoma show we decided to stay in Austin another day. The idea being that we would try to hop on another show. Read more »
