Monday Music Roundup

Oh, I was so lucky to get to spend Friday night seeing Feist. She is a completely charming and talented performer (not just a musician, as my friend Leora noted –”Are you gonna quote me on your blog?”– after the show). Feist really knows how to engage and enchant the crowd, but she also wields that guitar fearlessly, gets her vocal loops going, dances around in bliss to the crashing drums, and manages to be fashionable all at the same time (brown mini dress, hot pink tights).

The new songs from The Reminder sounded great live (especially “My Moon, My Man” — hot dang that’s fantastically thumping in concert) under the twinkling drapery of Christmas lights. The same imaginative, surreal qualitities that Feist brings memorably into her music videos (flying toast in Mushaboom, everyone deciding to dance in unison on 1234) seeps into her live shows too, through the morphing of her busy hands during the songs into butterflies dancing, waves rolling, or little legs walking down the front of the mike stand.

Despite having sung the song “like 4,000 times,” Feist forgot the middle verse to Mushaboom. She asked the crowd if someone who knew it would come up and fill in. An absolutely elated girl hopped up on stage, grabbed the mike as the music played, and effortlessly jumped in at exactly the right moment: “I got a man to stick it out…” It was one of those great moments of geeky fandom that just makes you happy to witness.

A very few other pictures (and the story of the snarly security guard that almost threw me out of the show) are included in this album. Remaining Feist tour dates here. I would totally love to be Feist for a week, that’s my new rockstar dream.

Here’s your new tuneage for this week’s enjoyment:

Dress Blues
Jason Isbell
A kind reader recommended this track from former Drive-By-Trucker Jason Isbell‘s forthcoming solo album Sirens Of The Ditch (July 10, New West Records), saying that it was “hard to get this song out of my head.” I absolutely agree, I’ve listened to it on repeat: a honeyed slowburner that feels like prophecy.

Can’t Get It Out Of My Head (ELO cover)
Velvet Revolver
Taking the cake for the band that the STP/G’n'F’n'R hybrid was least likely to cover, Velvet Revolver takes on an ELO cover on their newest one, Libertad, dropping July 3rd. And you know what? It’s actually pretty good and I find myself liking it a lot. Although I sometimes question Weiland’s jaunty/naughty sailor look in concert, Slash takes away the guitar solo here in sizzling fashion. Speaking of Slash, I’ve been pondering the plotline of the November Rain video lately. Have you seen this? I don’t know why I think about such things.

This Town
Frank Sinatra, on the Ocean’s 13 Soundtrack
Obviously a movie about swinging crime in Vegas perpetrated by fashionably-dressed men must, by law, include a Frank Sinatra tune. This one is also excellent for adding to your very own mixtape for midnight desert runs to Sin City. The soundtrack to Ocean’s 13 (which I haven’t seen yet but probably will because George & Brad told me to) is another atmospheric-cool collection by David Holmes, who also scored Fuel-favorite Out of Sight (among others). Niiice.

When Did Your Heart Go Missing?
Rooney
I’ve been curious about hearing this song since Rolling Stone likened it to a lost Wham! track, and yes, I hear the similarities here; it does kind of make me want to wake you up before I go go. But then I read how it is also in the new Nancy Drew movie, and in a totally geeky move I will confess to reading many Nancy Drew books in my youth. I will not see the new Nancy Drew flick (because it would probably be a similar audience to the time I saw Crossroads on opening night and I don’t want to talk about it) but I can picture this song also as a theme to daring teenage intrigue, old mine shafts, and moss-covered mansions. From Rooney‘s new album Calling The World (out July 17). Tour dates here.

Love (unreleased promo track)
The Cure
This song was, for some reason, dropped off the double disc extravaganza of Lennon covers to save Darfur, Instant Karma (a project of Amnesty International, out now). I could have recommended a few other tracks that could have gotten the boot instead of The Cure, whom I love, even though I can never apply eyeliner as deftly as Robert Smith. Thank God I’m better at the lipstick than he is, though.

Speaking of love and Lennon, today marks 40 years since the first public performance of “All You Need Is Love” on a massive world broadcast. Check out this fascinating post/video. Watching the way Lennon sings makes me really happy here; he just seems . . . pure.

Choose Your Own Adventure, summer edition

It finally cooled off enough today for me to go out for a run just as it was getting dark tonight (almost 9pm, I love the long summer days). There was a humidity in the air, and as I ran facing west, towards the mountains and Pikes Peak, the sky was flaming orange and lightning was crackling electric all around me. Kinda scary, but also very cool.

If we can’t have a great music festival on Alcatraz, this’ll do

The Noise Pop peeps have done it again. In conjunction with Another Planet Entertainment, they’ve just announced an outdoor fall music festival on Treasure Island, the other mysterious land mass in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. It’s been so long since I’ve been out there, it’s just this exit on the Bay Bridge that I always used to speed past. But come September 15 . . .

THE FIRST TREASURE ISLAND MUSIC FESTIVAL
SEPT 15-16, 2007

Modest Mouse
M. Ward
Thievery Corporation
Spoon
Gotan Project
DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist
Built To Spill
M.I.A.
Ghostland Observatory
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

…and others to be announced. In addition to the above acts, there will also be a second stage featuring up and coming local bands. According to the press release, “It is the first music-based event of this scale and scope to take place on the man-made island that was originally built to house the 1939 World’s Fair.”

(I also just found out that parts of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade were filmed on Treasure Island, which just ratchets up its rad factor in my book)

There’s some stiff competition that weekend on the festival scene: I’ll be at the Monolith Festival, and it’s also the weekend of Austin City Limits (and somehow Spoon is playing at all three). But how cool is that for all you fans of good music back in my old stomping grounds? Good job on this one, festival organizers.

TREASURE ISLAND FESTIVAL SAMPLER
The acts they’ve lined up are a refreshing blend of indie rock, international beats, and electronica/hip-hop.

Summer – Modest Mouse
Chinese Translation – M. Ward
Un Simple Historie – Thievery Corporation
Rhthm & Soul – Spoon
Mi Confesión – Gotan Project
Erase You (feat. Chris James) – DJ Shadow
What’s The Altitude (feat. Hymnal) – Cut Chemist
The Plan – Built To Spill
Amazon – M.I.A.
Stranger Lover – Ghostland Observatory
Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

New Feist remix: 1234 (VanShe Technologic remix)

While I prefer the original of this song (one of my two favorite tracks on The Reminder), I do admit that Feist‘s voice lends itself exceptionally well to remixes since it is so distinctive and always seems to just float over the top of whatever dense beats are laid down.

Break the silence – it’s okay to hate that album

I love this idea – The Guardian (UK) asked musicians to write about one album that everyone loves but that they hate. It takes a marvelous bit of bravery to get this off your chest, and even if I disagree with some of these assessments (ooh, and agree with others) I really like hearing different perspectives.

Here are two excerpts:

The Doors, LA Woman
Nominated by Craig Finn of the Hold Steady
In America when you’re growing up, you’re subjected to the Doors as soon as you start going to parties and smoking weed. People think of Jim Morrison as a brilliant rock’n'roll poet, but to me it’s unlistenable. The music meanders, and Morrison was more like a drunk asshole than an intelligent poet. The worst of the worst is the last song, Riders on the Storm: “There’s a killer on the road/ His brain is squirming like a toad” – that’s surely the worst line in rock’n'roll history. He gave the green light to generations of pseuds. A lot of people told him he was a genius, so he started to believe it. The Velvets did nihilism and darkness so much better – they were so much more understated; what they did had subtlety, whereas the Doors had little or none: they were a caricature of “the dark side”. I actually like Los Angeles, but the Doors represent the city at its most fat, bloated and excessive. Morrison’s death does give rock some mythic kudos, but that doesn’t make me want to listen to the music. In fact, if it comes on the radio, I change the station.

Arcade Fire, The Neon Bible
Nominated by Green Gartside of Scritti Politti
People who enjoy this album may think I’m cloth-eared and unperceptive, and I accept it’s the result of my personal shortcomings, but what I hear in Arcade Fire is an agglomeration of mannerisms, cliches and devices. I find it solidly unattractive, texturally nasty, a bit harmonically and melodically dull, bombastic and melodramatic, and the rhythms are pedestrian. It’s monotonous in its textures and in the old-fashioned, nasty, clunky 80s rhythms and eighth-note basslines. It isn’t, as people are suggesting, richly rewarding and inventive. The melodies stick too closely to the chord changes. Win Butler’s voice uses certain stylistic devices – it goes wobbly and shouty, then whispery – and I guess people like wobbly and shouty going to whispery, they think it signifies real feeling. It’s some people’s idea of unmediated emotion. I can imagine Jeremy Clarkson liking it; it’s for people in cars. It’s rather flat and unlovely. The album and the response to it represent a bunch of beliefs about expression and truth that I don’t share. The battle against unreconstructed rock music continues.

Read the full article here.

So, which albums do you just hate (you heretic)?

Thanks Ben!

Summer Mix 2007 :: All I want is an umbrella in my drink

This morning was the Colorado Springs annual street breakfast, which sounds dodgy but means eating good food (“too early for flapjacks?”) while sitting on hay bales in the middle of the street downtown. No joke, I actually get up early for this. On this same day last year (always the day before summer officially begins) I posted up my Tanline summer mix, which kept me going all through the hot months. I’ve been working on this year’s mix pretty much since the chills of winter set in (and hung around) as a bit of wishful thinking and longing for these warm days.

Today’s high is supposed to be 89. I am so ready.

FUEL/FRIENDS SUMMER MIX 2007
“ALL I WANT IS AN UMBRELLA IN MY DRINK”

Ordinary – The Alternate Routes
A sublime opening note to start the summer: “I’ve been wasting my days good and reckless and true . . .”
Rock ‘N Me – Steve Miller Band
I think their Greatest Hits (74-78) could be one of the finest summer albums ever.
Flight of The Conchords theme song
Addictive.
Kokomo – Adam Green & Ben Kweller
The ironic deadpan intonation, but still having fun, makes this a great cover of the Beach Boys classic. I will go to any of these places listed with Ben and Adam.
Hardcore Days & Softcore Nights – Aqueduct
What I wish for each of you. Plus, this beat makes me want to die of happiness.
Assholes – The Damnwells
Man alive, I love this song lately. Dezen’s velvety rasp perfectly anchors the steel guitar and makes it all flow together in a wonderful, warm, defiant anthem of youth. Also dig the backing vocals: “Don’t catch it! No, don’t catch it!“
Ice Cream Man – Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers
Who doesn’t love the ice cream man? I need a missile pop; preferably barefoot.
Wild Honey – U2
My favorite U2 song on a hot summer day, from those bright opening notes. I’ll swing through the trees with you, Bono.
He’s On The Beach (b-side) – Lemonheads
A fantastic b-side from the Big Gay Heart single, he’s in Australia and he’s on the beach, and there’s sunshine everywhere. Or so they tell me.
(I Love The Sound Of) Breaking Glass – Nick Lowe
I first heard this sitting on a picnic blanket drinking PBR in Wash Park and I instantly liked this shimmery, dramatic ’80s tune, which sounds so lighthearted even though it’s about smashing out windows and submission.
If She Wants Me – Belle & Sebastian
This song feels like the way everything sloooows down on a really hot day, all billowy and hazy, with really, really fey harmonies
Beverly Hills – Weezer
Then stomp things back up with Weezer at their Queen-est. Driving around in a crappy car, fashion sense a little whack – sounds like every summer when I was a teenager.
99% – Mooney Suzuki
Kind of a grand ’70s rock sound to these guys with “ooo ooo oo”s and “naaa na na naaa”s galore.
I Love The Summer Days – Marbles
The other Schneider from Austin, this is Robert Schneider from Apples in Stereo with a song that sounds like Herman’s Hermits meets Cotton Mather. I was surprised to find out this was modern.
Seven Days In The Sun – Feeder
Worth it for that opening drum break which would be fantastic on the steering wheel; plus the song’s about vacations in Mallorca and other summery affairs.
Firecracker (Music in High Places – Jamaica version) – Ryan Adams
Ryan spends a few days down in Jamaica jammin’ with locals, Toots, and various Maytals and the result is a movie filled with these spontaneous street-jam sessions. Lyrics to epitomize summer (“everybody wants to go on forever, I just want to burn up hard and bright“).
The Joker – Steve Miller Band
A quarter if you can tell me what a pompatus is. I LOVE everything about singing along with this song (including vocalizing that guitar catcall after the love your peaches/shake your tree/lovey dovey lyric).
Dance Tonight – Paul McCartney
Summery, stompy, simple and lovely.
Throw Your Arms Around Me (b-side version) – Neil Finn
Pearl Jam’s covered this Hunters & Collectors song in concert and called it a “song that felt like summer.” I agree wholeheartedly, especially this live version by Neil Finn.
In The Aeroplane Over The Sea – Neutral Milk Hotel
I missed this album until recently somehow, and now I absolutely want to lay on my back listening to this and watch the clouds go past. Perfect.

ZIP: ALL I WANT IS AN UMBRELLA IN MY DRINK MIX

Happy summering, y’all.

The flight of The Conchords, now with dancing robots and smooooth party moves

This made me laugh. Fantastic if you need to waste a half hour at work. Plus the theme song is dang catchy, and the really awful lyricism in the songs is unmatched. Take some cues, all you songwriters, you.
(updated clip)

[actually, that’s just a snippet isn’t it.
Watch the full first episode here instead]

Their banter on the show just strikes my funny bone the right way (and maybe it’s those New Zeeeeland accents too), plus see a tiny pic of their recent Bonnaroo appearance (courtesy of friend Max).

Monday Music Roundup

I got to see the fantastic Jesse Malin on Friday night at a criminally under-attended show (perhaps due to the borderline negligent website for the venue/promoter, which didn’t even mention the show). After the show I thanked Malin for the sheer joy in the music that comes out through him when he performs. He is a musician full of heart, who knows how to rock. With an engaging stage presence, the new material sounded tight (balanced with his older songs) and he connected well with most of the crowd. The notable exception being the drunkie heckler in the front row with two bendy, feisty, lady-companions who kept interrupting Jesse during a very promising sounding story about moving a bed with a van in NYC and getting a phone call from Barbra Streisand’s “people.” Jesse utilized his NYC street-skillz with and told ‘em to put a cork in it or leave (deservedly), and we never got to hear the rest of the tale.

Jesse hopped off the stage for his campfire moment where we all sat on the ground in a circle and helped him sing “Solitaire” and braid each others hair and make friendship bracelets. Actually, it had the air of effusive spontaneity (even though it was admittedly contrived for the Blender.com cameras that were filming the show) and made me feel happy inside. Especially when he sat down right next to me and we all belted, “I don’t need any . . . I don’t need any . . . I don’t need anyONE!!” Go see him if you can this tour (oh and check the pics here and mini-video I was able to surreptitiously capture here).

Music for this week:

Long Forgotten Song
The Thrills
The two new songs posted on MySpace by Dublin’s The Thrills are shimmering and lovely, making me look forward to the new album. Even though they are from Ireland, their songs sound like California. This tune, about “a long-forgotten song but everyone still sings along,” sounds somehow like a song you once knew but forgot, and it feels weighty. It’ll be on their upcoming album Teenager, due 7/23/07 with great cover art.

Vanilla Sky
Paul McCartney
I finally watched Vanilla Sky this weekend for the first time (thanks Tony!) and shame on me for it taking me so long. I was scared off by the mixed reviews when it first came out (and a general fatigue of Tom Cruise’s smile) so I never took the plunge, even though it is a Cameron Crowe film and sweet bejesus I love him. Vanilla Sky blew me away — it’s my favorite kind of intelligent reality-bending/brain-messing movie with a marvelous soundtrack. For those who have seen it all the way through, think about the perfect placement of R.E.M.’s “Sweetness Follows” in light of what happens from that point forward in the film, even though you don’t know it at the time. There’s also priiiime placement of the eerie, icy, otherworldly sounds of Sigur Ros and some always-appreciated Jeff Buckley. The credits start rolling with this tune, penned by Paul for the film. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Head Like A Hole (NIN cover)
Giant Bear
Not to be confused with either Giant Drag or Grizzly Bear, Giant Bear is a Memphis five-piece that has decided to reinterpret Trent Reznor’s seething defining moment as a fiddle-twinged bit of Americana-rock with shared male/female vocals. It’s interesting, I’ll give them that, and not unlikeable. Off their self-titled debut album due out August 14 on Red Wax music. Luther Dickinson (North Mississippi All-Stars) and Rick Steff (Lucero) also play on the album.

Collarbone
Fujiya & Miyagi
The first time I heard this song by Fujiya & Miyagi, I pictured it as the perfect soundtrack theme song for the movie of my life when I doll up and head out into the sparkling nighttime streets to wreak some sort of imaginary unspecified havoc. It’s a pimp song, sleek and funky and absolutely irresistible. I don’t know why three guys from Brighton go by Japanese monikers (other than perhaps a partial tribute to Mr. Miyagi from Karate Kid?) but I ain’t complainin. From their 2006 album Transparent Things, which I definitely need to investigate further.

The Devil Never Sleeps
Iron & Wine

[let's try this new music stream thing? Let me know if it doesn't work]
There are some songs from Iron & Wine that just devastate me in the best way possible; I think Sam Beam is an amazing songwriter. I thought I knew him, kinda had his sound pegged as the perfect soundtrack to activities like moping, looking out a window at the grey clouds, or falling asleep. So get ready for the sounds on the new album Shepherd’s Dog (due Sept 25 on Sub Pop) — the songs are just as wonderful, but with a heck of a lot more spitfire and pluck. This one sounds like something from another time, floating out the window of a neighbor’s house into the humid summer night. The devil never sleeps because he went down to Georgia and is dancing to this.

********
Also, a final P.S. on Father’s Day – after an immense father-feteing BBQ at my parents’ house, I dozed off on the couch yesterday afternoon while my dad watched sports on TV. The sports channels are rarely on in my house (unless it’s the Giants), so I had forgotten how comforting and nice it is to weave in and out of sleep on a full belly listening to my dad comment on the game to no one in particular.

It was 40 years ago today :: Monterey International Pop Festival

[photo from this great article]

Forty years ago this weekend, the epic Monterey International Pop Festival took place at the fairgrounds in Monterey, California, about an hour from where I grew up. Almost every musically and culturally significant artist of the day played this weekend, two years before Woodstock and the first large-scale rock festival in this new vocabulary of music.

The Monterey Pop Festival marked the first major U.S. performances of Jimi Hendrix (who was booked at the insistence of board member Paul McCartney) and Janis Joplin, and also introduced Otis Redding for the first time to a wider American audience beyond the South. The Beach Boys were supposed to play but cancelled, and in true Sixties form, Donovan was denied an entrance visa due to a 1966 drug bust.

Along with the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band from the Beatles two weeks prior, the festival kicked off what would come to be known as the Summer of Love. More than 200,000 people attended the festival (and I’ll bet that crowd smelled really . . . pungent), and the admission fee was a mere $1.

One of my favorite records is something I got a year or two ago from Amoeba Records on Haight in San Francisco during a music dig (a favorite pastime). One shiny black side features Jimi Hendrix’s incendiary performance from that watershed festival, the other side Otis Redding’s most monumental performance at that point in his career.

From the liner notes on the back of of this 1970 record (scanned above):

Jimi Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell, and Noel Redding were the rage of England in that summer of love and psychedelica but they had yet to play the United States and thus were no more than a rumor to most of the Monterey crowd. Their appearance at the festival was magical: the way they looked, the way they performed, and the way they sounded were light years away from anything anyone had seen before.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience owned the future and the audience knew it in an instant. The banks of amplifiers and speakers wailing and groaning as Hendrix’s fingers scurried across the strings of his guitar gave the trio’s music as much density as other rock groups were getting out of the studio 8-track tape machines. And, of course, Hendrix is a masterful –though seemingly off-hand– performer. Pete Townshend of The Who had become famous for destroying his guitar. Hendrix carried the ritual a couple of fantasies farther with lighter fluid and dramatic playing positions in “Wild Thing.” When Jimi left the stage he had graduated from rumor to legend.

JIMI HENDRIX SET
Killing Floor
Foxy Lady
Like A Rolling Stone
Rock Me Baby
Hey Joe
Can You See Me
The Wind Cries Mary
Purple Haze
Wild Thing

Otis Redding had been performing and recording for five years, but his fame and his following –despite a couple of undeniable hit records– were largely confined to black rhythm and blues audiences in America and to Europe, where he and the Stax/Volt Revue had a justly fanatic following. The Monterey International Pop Festival was comprised of rock people who were still a year or two away from rediscovering their roots, “the love crowd,” as he characterized them.

It’s difficult to characterize the extent of his impact Saturday night. He was the last act in a day of music which had left the spectators satiated and pleasantly exhausted. Redding went on around midnight, close to the curfew agreed upon by festival organizers and the local police department and sherrif’s office. Booker T. and the MGs and The MarKeys had played a brief instrumental set and played onstage to back Redding. Within moments after Otis Redding hit the stage, the crowd was on its feet, and –for the first and only time in a weekend of five massive concerts– was impulsively rushing toward the stage to dance in the warmth of his fire.

He rocked and rolled past the curfew with a dazzling performance which no one could think of stopping. That night he gave the Monterey International Pop Festival its high point and he was embraced by the rock crowd as a new-found hero. Six months later he was killed in a place crash, leaving Monterey as perhaps the high point in his performing career.

OTIS REDDING SET
Shake
Respect
I’ve Been Loving You Too Long
Satisfaction
Try A Little Tenderness

And…

SAMPLER OF OTHER PERFORMANCES THAT WEEKEND
Festival Introduction – John Phillips
Along Comes Mary – The Association
Love Is A Hurtin Thing – Lou Rawls
San Francisco Nights – Eric Burdon & The Animals
Ball and Chain – Big Brother & The Holding Company
Mystery Train – Butterfield Blues Band
Mercury Blues – Steve Miller Band
So You Wanna Be A Rock N Roll Star – The Byrds
Dhun: Fast Teental – Ravi Shankar
Wake Me, Shake Me – The Blues Project
Somebody To Love – Jefferson Airplane
Summertime Blues – The Who
My Generation – The Who
California Dreamin’ – The Mamas and The Papas


ZIP FILE OF ALL SONGS IN THIS POST

In true 2007 fashion, the festival has a blog here, and last night they screened the footage from the festival in downtown Monterey with an interview by documentary producer, the famed D.A. Pennebaker. Some info here is from the wiki, and you can waste several hours watching footage from the festival on YouTube.

What a weekend.

Father’s Day

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I have, perhaps, the best Dad in the world: For reasons like this, and especially like this.

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there! You have an exquisitely important job.

Heaven – Live
Have A Little Fun With Me – Glen Phillips
Father and Daughter – Paul Simon
Father and Son (Cat Stevens cover) – Johnny Cash & Fiona Apple
Luuuuke, I Am Your Father (from Tommy Boy) – Chris Farley
My Father’s House – Bruce Springsteen
My Hero (live in Hyde Park) – Foo Fighters