This mural in the Silver Lake neighborhood of LA was the recognizable backdrop for the cover of the 2000 Elliott Smith album Figure 8. After becoming a sort of shrine following his death in 2003, with tasteful fan graffiti and notes scrawled on the wall, stupid taggers decided to mess it all up. And no one cared. Enter the impassioned fans, and the subsequent restoration. Read the full story over at Sly Oyster and download a 1997 set from Elliott on Morning Becomes Eclectic.
What is and never should be. Totally dig both the song and the album. The pasty nudity not so much — if I wanted to see that, I’d just go step in my own damn shower.
The Damien Rice b-side “Rat Within The Grain” from the 9 Crimes single has been steadily pacing towards my favorite song of the moment. Like so many of Damien’s creations, this one is piercing and terribly sad, soaked in a wistful bitterness.
I was first snagged purely by the linguistic aesthetics that stopped me in my tracks — the braids of wordplay like wood/would, want, wonderful, true. The repetition lulls you along like the chugging of a railroad car, then socks you in the gut with the acidity of his meaning.
It gouges pretty harshly at the softest parts of my insides, as his jaded self-contempt seeps into the tender, almost-hidden professions of a maybe hopeless kind of love. In one long sentence, he goes from wanting to keep her at arm’s length because he knows that parts of him are a turbulent ocean, and wanting somuch to be wonderful in her eyes. The circular logic is pristinely bittersweet:
I wouldn’t want you to want to be wanted by me I wouldn’t want you to worry you’d be drowned within my sea
I only wanted to be wonderful, in wonderful is true, in truth I only really wanted to be wanted by you
Isn’t that more or less the human condition as it pertains to love, right there?
Then a moment later, the other most striking part of the song:
“In my bed go rest your head upon the bones of a bigger man he can cover you with rockwool and you can close up like a clam . . .“
Just because I didn’t know what rockwool was, I googled, as I do. I learned that it’s an inorganic, alkaline, sterile, inert growing medium, the kind that a gardener would use to replace soil. Maybe that strikes you as too much technical knowledge, that I am a nerd who should just enjoy the song, but for me . . . knowing that makes it an even more brilliant lyric. Sterile. Inert. Alkaline. She closes up.
After I sit here and try to write about it, I realize the futility. Just listen to the song and the weight of the space it occupies. Hopeless and hopeful, redemptive and beyond redemption.
Jumping a decade ahead from the sunny early ’60s feel of his excellent Tower of Love album (2006), the first listen from the upcoming Jim Noir 2008 self-titled release has a bit more psychedelica and golden shimmer to it. You can almost picture the shiny happy people twirling and spinning on the Berkeley streets to this one, while Noir muses about a relationship gone to crap:
“If you don’t want to be with me what do you expect me to be? Don’t you worry, I’ll be fine“
Jim Noir is out April 8 on Barsuk, features a spaceman on the cover, and the opening track is called “Welcome Commander Jameson.” If he’s talkin to the whiskey, while in outer space, well then I like Jim even more.
Yes Man Ari Hest Brooklyn musician Ari Hest was looking for new ways to challenge the conventional music-releasing paradigm, and decided to try something new in 2008: releasing one song per week and offering fans the opportunity to subscribe to his creativity, as it were. This tune is currently top on his MySpace player and caught my ears with its warm, roots-rock sound, but everything I am hearing spinning on there so far is good. The best-loved songs from this year’s “52“experiment will be released as the follow-up album to last year’s The Break-In. I think he came through Denver in support of that album playing with the Damnwells but oh wait I missed it.
I Woke Up Today Port O’Brien I’m going to try and see Port O’Brien this weekend as part of the most excellent Noise Pop Festival in San Fran. They’re playing at Cafe du Nord, which is the sweatier, dirtier, downstairs cousin to the Swedish American Hall — where this Oakland band played just a few weeks ago, opening for Nada Surf. This song sounds like a joyous cross between some tribal ceremony and a playground dodgeball riot. I love it, it makes the floor wanna shake.
Gray or Blue Jaymay Jamie Seerman is a 26-year-old New Yorker with an earnest, pleasing voice and melodic songs that draw from a range of pop and jazz influences. But seriously. Has no one in her management advised her that people hear her stage name and perhaps think of this? Or am I the only one? In any case, this song packs a limber bassline that stretches and wraps itself around her effervescent strum and playfulness. It charmingly starts with “i feel so helpless now, my guitar is not around” as she tries to memorize everything about the guy in this song, and it makes me feel exactly like I am fifteen. I found myself singing this (out loud!) in a 7-11 the other day, so it must be catchy. Autumn Fallin’ is out March 11 on Blue Note.
Ready For The Floor (Jesse Rose Mix) Hot Chip There’s something just a little endearing about the marginally off-key exhortation of lead singer Alexis (guy) Taylor here as he urges me to do it, do it, do it, do it now. It creeps into my subconscious. Maybe it’s that borderline-nerdy feel combined with the dancefloor-ready beats that is making Hot Chip such a huge success amongst the kids who don’t dance much, and this remix brings out all the parts of the song that I like the best. From their new album Made In The Dark (out a few weeks ago on Astralwerks).
Falling Slowly The Frames After the agonizing THREE musical theater extravaganzas from the Amy Adams “Enchanted” film last night at the Oscars, I was even more excited about Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova winning for best song. This tune is just ridiculously, impossibly gorgeous and if you’ve seen the lovely little story soundtracked by it, it becomes even better. The song was originally written and released with Glen’s band The Frames in this slightly different early version from the 2006 album The Cost (Plateau Records). Listen here for an injection of tension and fervor with the electric cascades, but it does make me miss Marketa’s prominent duetting vocals. “You have suffered enough and warred with yourself, it’s time that you won.” Good for them.
Coming from the swampy, minimalistic fuzz-blues background of the Black Keys‘ past work, the decision to have Danger Mouse (Gnarls Barkley, Gorillaz) produce their upcoming album sounded so surprising, so fresh. I had a hard time picturing what that would sound like. Now I have some idea, and I am even more excited:
Well, that feels spacey, crisp, and dirty all at once. I would post the mp3 but it looks like other bloggers have been asked to remove it (plus, it’s for sale on iTunes) and I don’t need to go lookin for woe.
Attack & Release is out April 1 on Nonesuch, and there’s a bunch of tour dates coming up.
Wilco just might be the most vibrant live band playing right now. Earlier this week they completed a five-show residency at hometown Chicago’s Riviera Theater during which they played every song in their released catalog. My friend cwb sent me this review of the night he attended, and it encapsulated their aesthetic so perfectly that I have to reprint it here:
“[Tweedy] was warm and pithy, sincere and ironic, all at the same time, charming and engaging throughout. I’ve never heard better vocals from him, and he just seemed in a great place the whole night. His own twinkling and shimmering pop universe of sound, with the more than occasional crashing waves of drums and power chords, or troubling lyric, reminding us we weren’t just innocent kids good vibe-ing in Brian Wilson’s sandbox, beautiful and stoned.
. . . Tweedy’s lyrics and vocals generally strike me as that little voice in my own head, or the invisible tweedy on my shoulder, whispering the secrets, mysteries, doubts, questions, and truths of the universe and local wal-mart.
One listen to this catchy-as-all-get-out song is usually all it takes to have me whistling it for a large part of the day. I’m getting really good at it; someone should make the Heather Browne Whistle Remix.
The guy who remixed this writes: “Black Dominoes is my new nome de remix and I gig out in the Southeast as Kellen John Kid Danger. I’ve shared bills with people like the Black Kids, DJ Klever, the Selmanaires, Flosstradamus, Treasure Fingers, Deerhunter, HR and Dr. Know from Bad Brains, the Black Lips, Snowden etc. I’m based in Atlanta but I actually just did a great gig this weekend at the 40 Watt Club in Athens.
I thickened up the original Vampire Weekend track with some Chico Sonido percussion and some beats jacked with the help of Blaqstarr and Diplo. The female MC is Rye Rye from Baltimore–I think her ‘response’ to the original Vampire Weekend verses add another dimension to the track.”
I love it.
In related news, Beggars Group/XL Recordings is giving away a prize package for this buzz album of 2008 that includes some cool Vampire Weekend schwag — a copy of the Mansard Roof 7″ single, an autographed poster, a scarf or hat, and best of all a pair of tickets to a local show. Most folks I know who have caught these guys live are instant converts.
Congrats to Brian R. who was just randomly selected as the winner of the Kurt Cobain DVD About A Son.
It took me just a few weeks to remember about this one, but my benign neglect translates into good timing because the film was just released on DVD yesterday.
Name: Heather Browne Location: Colorado, originally by way of California Giving context to the torrent since 2005.
"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel." —Hunter S. Thompson
Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. Rock on.
This mural in the Silver Lake neighborhood of LA was the recognizable backdrop for the cover of the 2000 Elliott Smith album Figure 8. After becoming a sort of shrine following his death in 2003, with tasteful fan graffiti and notes scrawled on the wall, stupid taggers decided to mess it all up. And no one cared. Enter the impassioned fans, and the subsequent restoration. Read the full story over at Sly Oyster and download a 1997 set from Elliott on Morning Becomes Eclectic.
Wilco
Name: Heather Browne
