As the Outside Lands Festival wraps up here in San Francisco (more on that soon!), things are just heating up in the city I return to, as Denver plays host this week to the Democratic National Convention. Our capital city is submerged in a deluge of politicians, parties, speeches, rallies, and of course, the randomfamouspeople.
Although I am not a Dem, I am proud to be partnering with some other local music lovers to bring a week-long music party during this notable week in a non-partisan, collective effort to recognize and celebrate our musical community while looking forward to a positive future. We’re bringing sexy back with DISCOBAMA at the the Shag Lounge all week long (830 15th St at Champa, one block from the Convention Center). Here’s what we’re up to: MON, AUG 25 7pm Patchwork 8pm Joshua Novak Band 9pm Young Coyotes DJs Soup / Hot to Death
TUES, AUG 26 Super Tuesday Dance Party. 9pm DJs Chain Gang of 1974 / Boyhollow / Hot To Death
WED, AUG 27 7pm Magic Mice 8pm Rabbit is a Sphere 9pm Cat-A-Tac, Everything Absent or Distorted DJs Tyler “Danger” / Boyhollow
FRI, AUG 29 7pm Life In Electric 8pm Kissing Party 9pm Laylights DJs Soup / Hot to Death
SAT, AUG 30 DNC Wrap Party, Starts 10pm. DJs Boyhollow / Hot to Death
The DISCOBAMA festivities are sponsored by Three Olives vodka, and the events this week are a collective effort of the MONOLITH Festival, Lipgloss (Denver3.com), Shag Lounge, Needlepoint Records, HunnyPot Unlimited, Cause=Time, The Donnybrook Writing Academy, and Fuel/Friends.
Greetings from San Francisco! Here I am nestled under the fog, bravely going to cover the Outside Lands Festival for you all (take one for the team, I know). Things get underway in just a few hours and I will be heading over once I can figure out what to do with my car. I think I’m walking 26 blocks. Awesome.
One of the artists I am really looking forward to seeing this weekend (there are many) is the always-enjoyable Matt Nathanson, who plays a hometown show tomorrow at 7pm on the Avenues Stage. I’ve recently been listening a lot to this stellar cover he performed not long ago on Sirius radio:
In related news, this second Springsteen cover features Charlie Gillingham of the Counting Crows and David Immerglück of the Crows and Camper Van Beethoven. Both of those guys played on Matt’s record Still Waiting For Spring back in the day.
Atlantic City – Matt Nathanson w/ Immerglück and Gillingham
Both covers are lovely. Maybe everything that dies someday comes back. Ah, I hope.
Last night eight of us made the three-hour drive up to the mountain town of Steamboat Springs to see these North Carolina siblings perform. I came at the behest of a friend who saw them once, said they changed his life, and proceeded to see them ten times on one tour. Last night was his eleventh show, and the fans there all seemed to possess similar levels of devotion. Although the music finds its roots in a backwoods-bluegrass kind of heritage, the show felt more like a punk rock performance in the spirit and the energy, the yell-out-loud immediacy. More than anything, I stood there happily perplexed for the first several songs as my neurons fired and tried to categorize a performance that defied it. This is their performance of Paranoia in Bb Major:
Scott and Seth Avett look like they stumbled in from the same cabin that Ray LaMontagne lived in out in southwestern Maine, and they seemed right at home in the small auditorium all open along the walls to the green hills covered in wildflowers. Their voices combine flawlessly, as only siblings can, whether they are shouting out one of their foot-stomping numbers or weaving a gorgeous dirge backed by a string duo. As they stand, Seth plays the hi-hat with one foot, and Scott has a kick drum – and the urgency pounds out while they strum as hard as they can.
I kept warning my friends that if they played “If It’s The Beaches” I just might cry and wouldn’t be able to help it (and who wants to cry on their birthday, really). That song slays me for so many reasons, both for they way it echoes some personal disappointments in my life, but also the immensely beautiful sadness and love that it captures in the pure lyrics. After a set that completely satisfied, they came out for the final song of the encore and launched into “If It’s The Beaches.” Dammit, I found those big fat tears slipping out unallowed from my eyes, but don’t tell anyone. But you know, even though I was crying (just a little!) on my birthday, it was a beautiful moment on an amazingly beautiful night and I didn’t mind.
The Avetts are back in Colorado for Monolith in a few weeks, and then they have dozens of other shows coming up. Seriously. You must go. An incredible, visceral, unclassifiable performance.
I just made myself a brand spankin’ new mix CD last night for a roadtrip and I keep finding myself throwing Broken West tracks on every mix I make lately. Now I have new fodder:
In a few short weeks their sophomore effort Now or Heaven will be released on Merge Records. You can preorder it now, and then go catch them on tour like I plan to do: BROKEN WEST TOUR DATES 9/09: Hi Dive, Denver 9/10: Slowdown JR, Omaha 9/11: The Picador, Iowa City 9/12: Orpheum Stage Door, Madison 9/13: 400 Bar, Minneapolis 9/15: Schubas, Chicago 9/16: Pike Room, Pontiac 9/17: Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto 9/21: Mercury Lounge, New York 9/22: Middle East, Cambridge 9/23: Cafe Nine, New Haven 9/24: TBA, DC 9/25: Local 506, Chapel Hill 9/28: The Basement, Nashville 9/29: Hi Tone, Memphis 9/30: Dan’s Silverleaf, Denton 10/1: Mohawk, Austin 10/4: Spaceland, Los Angeles
Recently I found myself outside the Sputnik in Denver staring down a double-edged challenge: one of my friends and his sister (close sibs) rode a vintage Schwinn tandem bike to the Langhorne Slim/Young Coyotes show [nice review here]. I’ve never rode a tandem anything before, and thought I’d give it a whirl.
Let. Me. Tell. You. That business is not as easy as it may look. Who invented that? Why did they think it would be a good idea to make two people balance in unison, and why did I think that it would be a good idea to try my maiden voyage at 2am? But I must say — should the opportunity ever present itself to you, I can recommend trying it simply for the fact that I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe and I haven’t done that in a while. And then I pretty much fell off.
Speaking of new experiences, here are a few that aren’t quite as fun but probably sound better (less grunting):
Traipsing Through The Aisles Samantha Crain I’ve recently become enamored with Samantha Crain, the newest signee to the Ramseur Records label (also home of the Avett Brothers who I plan to see tomorrow night for my birthday!). This Shawnee, Oklahoma native is a startling 21 years of age, and I was immediately curious to hear her music when I read that she conjures up “Judy Garland singing Neutral Milk Hotel songs.” And yes, amen exactly when you hear it. Her recent release The Confiscation: A Musical Novella is structured as a rich series of interconnected short stories. It’s backporch firefly music, or campfires and pine smoke, or pick your metaphor evoking a good and spreading warmth. Listen now.
Love Vigilantes (New Order cover) Voxtrot While Ramesh Srivastava of Voxtrot has been holed up in Germany for the last year, decompressing and working on the follow-up to their 2007 debut full-length (after their string of fantastic EPs), he’s stayed in Das Loop of technology and is now podcasting. There are all kinds of great free audio and video gems in their shiny corner of iTunes — a 30-minute summer mix, Vincent Moon videos from La Blogotheque, and this poppy New Order cover. All handclappy and cheery, this is almost reminiscent of “Love Me Do” with that opening harmonica. Even the spontaneous crowd chatter over the opening fits perfectly, as if you just walked into the room where the party is happening and everyone is there. You’ve got a fresh mint mojito or something summery in your hand, and this is your soundtrack.
We Should Fight Ezra Furman & The Harpoons From the Jonathan Richmanesque spoken opening of “I wrote this song in a paper bag,” this song unleashes into punk and melody, retro and squak, Violent Femmes meet The Kinks with a dash of The Replacements’ sloppy joy. Ezra Furman & The Harpoons were signed by Minty Fresh Records while they were still in college at Tufts University, and are still evolving as a band. I like where they are heading. The best lines in this song are “I’m not a monster, I’m a human being / I’m not a monster, I’m a human being / And I’m the greatest thing you’ve ever seen.” All that college-guy confidence and tenderness and insecurity in one lyric that sounds great yelled loud. The Brian Deck-produced Inside The Human Body is due October 7th on Minty Fresh [thanks SVB!]. Also – side note, these kids have a charmingly humble song called “I Wanna Be Ignored.” Take that, Stone Roses.
I Said Alright (live on KEXP) The Jet Age I’ve been meaning to give these guys a mention for months, ever since a friend with exceptionally good ears sent me a handful of laudatory texts late one night while seeing The Jet Age in San Francisco. He spoke of their charisma, their irrepressibly catchy and rocking sound (but maybe not in precisely those words, since it was 1am). Their debut album What Did You Do During The War, Daddy? (Sonic Boomerang Records) garnered an 8.0 on Pitchfork, who called it a “heart-pounding rocker … all of the riffs are stellar.” This is lean, punky, melodic pop. The Jet Age is from Silver Spring, MD and they’ve got a handful of DC-area shows coming up. I hear you should go.
My Party Chester French This song mysteriously popped into my inbox with vague provenance. We’re supposing that it is some new music from those golden Harvard boys, Chester French, following close in the same retro vein as the songs that have leaked so far from their hotly anticipated debut. Rhyming champagne with chow mein is something that’s just been begging to be paired for a long time now, and no one has done it until this song — but the lyrics about having a gift certificate to the mall totally reminds me of this, somewhat unfortunately. This Pharrell-endorsed buzz band has been all over the news lately – one of NME’s 25 Bands Making America Cool Again, a Rolling Stone Artist To Watch, and now a spouse to Peaches Geldof. They play Monolith on Sunday, September 14th.
Tonight after several days of torrential rain, there was a shift at sunset. The clouds were still black and heavy, but all around the edges and breaking through the middle were rosy cantaloupe-colored streaks of light, as the sun set behind Pikes Peak.
As the sky showed off like that a few hours ago, I was listening to this 1997 bootleg from my Smashing Pumpkins at my beloved acoustic Bridge School Benefit in California. Somehow this set fit perfectly – a bit shimmery, dark with the occasional beam of iridescence. I was at this show during the autumn of my freshman year of college. It probably rained that night too. It often does at Bridge School, and we all shiver in the rain to enjoy the oft-sensational lineup of music.
I’m pretty sure that this is the first new Nationalsong unveiled since Boxer, in its debut performance earlier this week at The Vega in Copenhagen, Denmark. This mp3 is just a rip from the video above (more pics from the taper here), but for us addicts I suppose it will do temporarily. The title could also be “Believe Me.” Swirling atmosphere and sonorous horns . . . I can’t wait to hear a clean copy of this.
It’s good times for new music. Wilco has recently been playing a few new songs at their shows these last two weeks. Here are recordings of two of them from Indianapolis on August 4th. Thanks to Cusa for digging these up at my behest, since I’ve been too busy with work to be a proper scout of anything lately.
One Wing (called a “WIP” at Lollapalooza by Jeff – a work in progress) is bittersweet, and heartbreakingly lovely, but builds into those jaw-dropping crescendos that they do so well. The opening minutes have that moody and wistful Fleetwood Mac-ish guitar riff. Sunny Feeling is feisty and evokes what the title describes (even though that feeling is taken away, sadly, by the chorus).
My friends who’ve caught Wilco in action lately say they look “dang good in those Nudie-meets-Sgt Pepper outfits…” Well yes, they always do. High class! I have a Tweedy & Co date next weekend at the Outside Lands Festival in golden SF. I will hope for these tunes to make an appearance, and any other new ones they care to bestow. Sounds like Nels is still as busy melting faces as ever.
With the eyes of everyone in the world on Beijing right now (except me, much to my mother’s horror), what with all the synchronized diving and underage gymnasts, this video from VBS.tv is very timely. I had no idea that China had a burgeoning punk scene — very cool. They say:
“We hitched up with some cool kids who sounded like they knew what they were talking about and they dragged us all over the Beijing’s underground music scene, into dirty alleys and dirtier bars so we could get a taste. Even though we were thousands of miles away from NYC in a foreign land, some things really are just universal. Like partying in a basement at 3am and flinging beer all over the place and rocking your face off. We liked these three bands the most.”
The first song on The National‘s 2005 album Alligator is also one of my favorites by them, ever. There is an ineffable quality to “Secret Meeting” that I never tire of listening to — the fantastic percussion that firmly anchors the song to bedrock as the luminous guitar chords dance and skitter above it. But in the midst of the beauty it has a darker chaos thrumming just beneath the surface, as with so much of their music. Berninger sings agitatedly about spies, sharks, and paranoia, all the second-guessing and questioning that forces a retreat to this secret meeting in the basement of his brain.
And the song feels exactly like an internal monologue warring. The indistinct yelling in the background builds towards the end to echo all our anxieties. But you can’t quite tell what they are so urgently telling him to do, like that dream where you can blindly feel around the edges of coherency but can’t quite grasp where you’re running or the mission you are supposed to be fulfilling. Are they yelling just drop the dice and roll it? Don’t draw the ace and fold it?How are you supposed to place your bet, to play your game, when it sounds like this inside your head? But I know exactly what that feels like; I think we all do.
The song builds into gorgeous chaos as everything degenerates and clamors inside before that final chord, the crash of the cymbal, the curtain fall and the lights out.
If you’ve never listened to The National, or never heard this song, I find it really hard to not love.
i think this place is full of spies i think they’re onto me didn’t anybody, didn’t anybody tell you didn’t anybody tell you how to gracefully disappear in a room i know you put in the hours to keep me in sunglasses, i know
and so and now I’m sorry I missed you i had a secret meeting in the basement of my brain it went the dull and wicked ordinary way it went the dull and wicked ordinary way and now i’m sorry i missed you i had a secret meeting in the basement of my brain
i think this place is full of spies i think i’m ruined didn’t anybody, didn’t anybody tell you didn’t anybody tell you, this river’s full of lost sharks i know you put in the hours to keep me in sunglasses, i know
and so and now i’m sorry i missed you i had a secret meeting in the basement of my brain it went the dull and wicked ordinary way
it went the dull and wicked ordinary way
What I would have given to be here for this moment, this electricity:
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.
As the Outside Lands Festival wraps up here in San Francisco (more on that soon!), things are just heating up in the city I return to, as Denver plays host this week to the Democratic National Convention. Our capital city is submerged in a deluge of politicians, parties, speeches, rallies, and of course, the random famous people.
Name: Heather Browne
