- joiezabel in Scarlett Johansson - Anywhere I Lay My Head it really is brilliant, scott. i hate you.
- hotshotrobot in Scarlett Johansson - Anywhere I Lay My Head Goddammit, Borch, now how am i supposed to review this? I can’t top that!
- Borch in The Avett Brothers - House of Blues - May 14th Good Lord, that’s a beautiful song! The Avett Bros. were in Chicago? Why wasn’t I notified?!
I let a friend of mine borrow this album the other day and decided to take another listen in honor of it. I forgot how disgustingly good it is.
You gotta love something so classic and Renaissance as DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man to be tampered with and exploited to fit the artistic musings of a death metal band. The “supernatural art” of this album is exactly what Anders Friden says it is. It’s above and beyond. Besides, after this album, In Flames started down the rocky, well-trodden, and shit-streaked path of mainstream. It’s still good, hell it’s still amazing…but it’s still streaked with brown. It’s much like what’s been happening since the dawn of good music. Eventually, most of it just gets corrupted and stretched to fit a wider demographic. Clayman falls in just before that. I love it.
Hopefully by now, you intrepid internet-reading music fans know the story of young Cal Robbins, who was born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a motor neuron disease that will keep him in a wheelchair for life. But Cal has been blessed with loving, strong parents, one of whom happens to be a well-respected indie rock musician and producer who goes by the name of J. J’s got some wonderful friends, and they’ve been helping out with auctions, benefit compilations, and shows. One of ‘em featured the reunion of a nearly-forgotten D.C. band, you may have heard about it.
Cal is two years old now, and as wonderful as that is, he’s nowhere near out of the woods. Another auction to benefit him has been announced, and it’s a doozy. On offer are such things as:
-A lesson from impossibly talented ex-Jawbox drummer Zach Barocas
-A fully-autographed set of the Mission of Burma Obliterati pre-release 12″ers
-Not one, but TWO copies of Shellac’s infamous Futurist album. These were donated by two members of Buffalo Tom, who have presumably realised, like everyone who hears this record, it’s not that spectacular and they might as well do something good with it.
-4 DVDs full of footage of Shudder to Think recording their landmark, amazing Pony Express Record (buy the damn thing now, if you haven’t yet for some reason)
and most mindblowingly,
-a copy of Craig Wedren’s handwritten journal from the making of PXR, featuring “of pages of Craig’s handwritten lyrics (including early drafts and unreleased songs!), recording notes, doodles, personal journal entries, and correspondence!”
Now, let’s face it, folks: I probably won’t be able to afford any of that stuff, if it goes for the amount it should. But if one of you has some deep pockets and will make a copy of that Craig Wedren journal for me, I’ll donate everything I can to Cal’s fund. Plus I’ll be your bestest friend.
As a special bonus for reading, here’s an alternate take of “Savory” by Jawbox. Enjoy!
I don’t have anything to say about Camille Saint-Saëns that seems worthy of this venue, so I may be putting my writing-about-my-listening-project on hold for a while.
Instead, I give you this, courtesy of the miracle of modern technology, which gives us robots, hydroplanes, carbon-composite tennis rackets, and obscure Kylie Minogue TV clips. You’ll have to tell me if you agree, but I think it may be the single most awkward artist/audience mismatch I’ve ever seen, and that includes the time I saw a crowd watch Eisley (who I was there to see, let it be known) go on stage immediately before Reggie and the Full Effect and New Found Glory.
And yes, maybe she deserves it for lip-synching that obviously, but then again I’m not sure these guys would be worth the effort of actually singing for.
Can you imagine how excited i was to hear that Rick Froberg, one half of the creative force behind one of my favorite now-departed bands, Hot Snakes, recently played his first show with his new band, Obits, at New York City’s Cake Shop? Can you really?
How about the excitement of hearing word on the internets that this new band, these Obits, sounds like a cross between CCR and another Froberg joint, the venerable Drive Like Jehu?
If the words “mind blown” and “enormous boner” spring to mind, you’re pretty close to accurate.
Now, take that knowledge and add, as the cherry on the top of DJ’s orgasmo-rock sundae, the discovery that the first-ever Obits show was bootlegged and posted online, and, well, this blog post could take a downright awkward and uncomfortable turn for the rest of you.
I’ll be in my bunk.
[two minutes later]
As of right now, the sendspace link for the show is still good, so download it while you can. If you’re a fan of Jehu and Hot Snakes, be assured that Obits bring the rock and bring it hard, in a more straightforward, slightly more classic rock, but still blistering Froberg style. I cannot wait for the album.
Oh, and by the way, Froberg’s longtime running buddy, Hot Snakes and Rocket From the Crypt alum John Reis, has started playing out with his new outfit Night Marchers, and like Obits, it’s everything you could hope from ol’ Speedo. Check out their MySpace and groove to some farfisa-flavored RFTC-style garage-punk. Scream, Dracula, scream!
I don’t really get it. I grew up in New York. Not just New York, but Brooklyn. That’s where all the cool kids are, right? But I’ve never been profoundly influenced by African music the same way that all the new New York-based internet sensations have. Maybe that’s why I’m not in a band (my lack of musical talent has nothing to do with it, I guarantee you).
Following in the heels of bands like Yeasayer, Vampire Weekend’s self-titled debut was officially released today (in actuality, it is the same thing that made the rounds last summer, just with strings now). The Columbia grads classify their music as “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” and “Upper West Side Soweto,” and are undeniably preppy. As such, Vampire Weekend tells us that they “don’t give a fuck about an Oxford comma,” and that they think “Hyannisport is a ghetto.” Certainly, that’s not what the indie rock landscape is used to. But while its probably impossible for Vampire Weekend to match the hype ascribed to them, the album certainly shows why there is so much hype in the first place.
Every song on the album, from opener “Mansard Roof” to closer “The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance” is ridiculously catchy, and with the possible exception of “M79,” every song is too much fun not to listen to. They brush up against jam band territory, but stray away just enough with an Afro-beat influence to make them pretty damn irresistible. The standouts on Vampire Weekend are “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,” “Campus,” and “Walcott.” None of these songs do anything particularly different from the others (except for maybe Walcott, which relies more on a piano than the rest of the songs), they’re just the catchiest. If you are looking for some variation, “A-Punk” is, as the name implies, a little faster, and has a slight punk edge to it, and “I Stand Corrected” is slower, building up to the loud “I…Stand…Corrected” chorus. But picking just one song to listen to is a fool’s errand; you really can’t go wrong with any of them (again, except maybe “M79″).
The album is ripe with the opportunity to be overly pretentious, but it really doesn’t get there. Instead, it’s just an album that’s a whole lot of fun. With all the hype though, a backlash is inevitable. After all, how long can a bunch of hipsters listen to music that proudly calls itself preppy?
Label: XL Recordings
Release Date: January 29, 2008
Rating: 8.5/10
MP3 Download: Carbon / Silicon - Falun Gong love song
I’ve pretty much always been a fan of Mick Jones. No, not the lead singer of Foreigner. I’m speaking of course of the guitarist and sometimes vocalist of The Clash. I loved The Clash, as all true music fans should. I mostly liked Big Audio Dynamite. Hell, I even regularly listen to his wankiest project, BAD II, which, honestly, wasn’t really wanky at all.
So, in listening to Carbon / Silicon, I’ve already got a biased towards liking it purely because of Jones’ inolvement. C/S finds Jones pairing up with Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s synth bass guitarist, Tony James. The first reaction I had to hearing of this pairing was, ‘Wow, that’s a cool little collaboration they’ve got there.’ but my second reaction was: ‘Wait. I don’t know shit about Sigue Sigue Sputnik. In fact, other than that Love Missle song, I don’t think I know anything by them.’ And I’m willing to bet that’s true for most of you, too. That makes the fact that Jones is putting out new work at 52 years old truly the most thing interesting about this project.
