- teecomb in Pitchfork Leaks Some of the 2008 Lineup Animal Collective rocks so hard. It’s has great melodies and most people who hate on it have only heard one era of them that didn’t...
- Mark in SonicBids & CMJ 2007: Anatomy of a Scam? …Meh. Sonicbids is a total scam. Our band was stupid enough to fall into it to. It didn’t take us long to figure out that they keep...
- Matt K in Just a small complaint… Agreed whole-heartedly. Nice observation.
the indelicates are an english indie pop/folk/rock/whatever group, formed in 2005 by simon indelicate and julia indelicate, who started the pipettes and then apparently wised up and left that band when she realized what she had done. they have finally put out their first full-length album, called american demo. it’s different. it’s clever. it’s like the weird bastard child of kurt weill and queen. in a good way. like literate burlesque mixed with anthem rock. this might be the best thing that has happened to music in a long time. they have songs called ‘if jeff buckley had lived’ and ‘waiting for pete doherty to die.’ they talk about the media and shit. they can read. and julia has the clearest, most effortless opera-with-an-attitude voice.
don’t believe me? go ahead, watch the videos for the new singles ‘america’ and ‘new art for the people.’ then go buy the record from british amazon or something, because it is awesome.
i feel like you all should know that i am kind of infatuated with london band noah and the whale. they play breezy folk-pop tunes with whistling and stuff. whistling is very in these days, you know. the new single is called “shape of my heart” and the video is pretty awesome for ten bucks and a video camera. or maybe that should be 5 pounds and a video camera. whatever. foreigners.
anyway, watch it and report back. the commie wifebeater is the best.
i hesitated to write this review for 2 reasons: 1. james has been my favourite band for 14 years, i am in no way impartial, and there is a limit to how many times you can say how awesome an experience is without sounding like the proverbial broken record and 2. the show was pretty damn awesome and special and effervescent and there really are no words. but i decided to suck it up and write something, mainly because the average grunt out there probably doesn’t even know that james is back together (hooray!) and has a stellar new album out (hey ma, 04.07.08) and might even come to the states in august. be still my heart.
anyway, in light of the above disclaimers, i’ll make it short and sweet. i went to london to see james with my best friend zak and it was rad. tim booth is bald now, but he still dances in that crazy shamanistic way, larry gott is still a guitar genius, andy diagram was back with his trumpet wearing a daisy dress on stage. they played almost the whole new album, and tons of older stuff too. although they didn’t play either of their best-known songs ’sit down’ or ‘laid,’ they started with ‘born of frustration,’ ended with ’sometimes (lester pigott)’ and played pretty much everything in between that i could have wished. tim jumped out into the crowd during ‘come home’ and the whole band just generally seemed to be having a great time playing to an audience that loved them.
speaking of, james fans are legendary and there is a very special dynamic that happens between the band and the crowd, trust me. the venue was small enough to keep it intimate, the crowd knew every word to every song and jumped around like the happy idiots we were. i moshed! it was very early 90’s, oh my god. there were people there who came from mexico and portugal and sweden to see james and warm fuzzy feelings of camaraderie abounded for the most part, with the exception of a few ruffians who kept trying to push their way to the front. i pushed back though, so no worries. i screamed myself hoarse, got my piggy toes smooshed by other jumping fans and had a huge grin plastered over my face the entire time…not nearly high enough praise for a night that i seriously will remember the rest of my life. the show ended with the audience stamping their feet and singing the chorus of ’sometimes’ over and over and over as the band stood on stage smiling and enjoying the impromptu appreciation.
so there’s your review. enjoy it. and more importantly, go see james if you ever get a chance. i promise it will be a pretty incredible experience, no matter what kind of music you are into.
ps. my federation opened. not bad, but i was too excited to focus on them. the singer has a lot of hair, though.
Here’s the full lineup (finally!) for the 2008 Lollapalooza, held in Chicago August 1-3. I have starred the bands I am excited about seeing, since I know you all care.
Radiohead*
Rage Against the Machine
Nine Inch Nails*
Kanye West
Wilco*
The Raconteurs
Louis XIV
Love and Rockets*
Gnarls Barkley
Bloc Party
The Black Keys*
Broken Social Scene
Lupe Fiasco
Flogging Molly
Mark Ronson
Cat Power
The National*
G. Love & Special Sauce
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
Explosions in the Sky
Brand New
Gogol Bordello
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
Dierks Bentley
Okkervil River*
Amadou & Mariam*
Blues Traveler Read more »
rumour on these here intarwebz is you can pick up a track from every single band playing this year’s SXSW festival right here. hurry up before the powers that be take it down. those bastards.
breaking insider info, dear readers:
This year’s Pitchfork Music Festival will take place on Friday, July 18 through Sunday, July 20, 2008. The location remains the same — Union Park, Chicago, IL — and the tickets will go on sale this Wednesday, March 12 at noon CDT.
Friday
Pitchfork Music Festival and All Tomorrow’s Parties Present: “Don’t Look Back” - featuring Public Enemy performing “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back”
Saturday
Animal Collective, !!!, Vampire Weekend, Dizzee Rascal, No Age, Atlas Sound, Fleet Foxes
Sunday
Spiritualized, M. Ward, Boris, Extra Golden, El Guincho
well meh. public enemy’s a pretty cool score, of course. and i love me some spiritualized, but that’s really all i am excited about so far. and yes, that includes animal collective. go ahead and sue me for being a bad indie hipster.
