Tonight at the Hi-Dive

Langhorne Slim and hot Denver band Young Coyotes!

Wed, Aug 13th Radio 1190 presents
Langhorne Slim
w/ the Legendary River Drifters, Young Coyotes
at Hi-Dive
Doors at 8:00 PM / Show at 9:00 PM
21+ $10.00

The Electric Love Letter – Langhorne Slim
Momentary Drowning – Young Coyotes

Elvis Perkins in Dearland sings sacred songs

Elvis Perkins in Dearland melds old folk flourishes with a very relevant modern soul. Perkins’ gutting debut album last year was Ash Wednesday (XL Recordings), a chronicle of themes of love and loss in the most visceral and honest way. Many songs on the album deal with grief and stuggle, as his mom died on one of the 9/11 planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, and parts of this album were written after that occured. “While You Were Sleeping” seems to draw direct parallels to those events, that morning — watch his solo street performance of it on La Blogotheque then stay on that page for the spirited “All The Night Without Love” in a gorgeous French mall.

Weeping Pilgrim – Elvis Perkins in Dearland

From MySpace: We are excited to announce that our recording of “Weeping Pilgrim” by JP Reese will be featured on Teach Me To Sing, a compilation of contemporary artists performing songs from the shape note hymn book, The Sacred Harp, due out in September through Awake My Soul Productions.

“Weeping Pilgrim” became somewhat of a live standard for us over the last year or so. And after meeting Matt Hinton, director of “Awake my Soul”, the wonderful documentary on The Sacred Harp and curator of this project, at the Western Massachusetts Sacred Harp Convention we entered the clubhouse to put our rendition of the song down on tape. We hope you enjoy it…

This song is a traditional dirge of longing, of moving towards something down a dusty road of oppression. For a tune that totally could have been sung by Moses, it sounds pretty dang good.

Brand new “fun” from Nate Ruess of The Format

When Arizona intelli-pop band The Format broke up a few months ago, a little part of my heart broke. I loved those guys; the homemade “Format Sunny Supermix” is still a superstar on my car radio, all summer every summer.

Well, hooray hooray for some good news before this summer ends: lead singer Nate Ruess has a new band, called simply “fun.” Strike two on the not good for Googling, guys. They’re trying to undermine my whole system of band data gathering. Subversive.

But hey, this new demo is just great; he doesn’t care to be forgiven, he only wants to be forgotten. Read more about the formation of the new band in a blog post from Nate, and listen to this sweet tune. It’s good to hear his voice again.

Benson & Hedges (demo) – fun

Monday Music Roundup

On Friday night I had the special experience of watching Prince thrust maniacally on the (very) large screen out under heavy-laden rainy skies at Red Rocks. As part of their wonderfully conceived summer Film On The Rocks series, myself and hundreds of other vocally enthusiastic moviegoers got to bask in the glow of the tiny one’s sweaty brow, glistening chest hair, ruffled poet shirts, blindfolds, fancy studded purple jackets and wispy moustache in none other than (yes) Purple Rain. From the opening echoey benediction of “dearly beloved,” to the completely nonsensical plot and downright giggle-inducing sex scenes, to the triumphant final performance of the title song . . . wow, that was awesome. I needed a cigarette or something after all that. And I don’t even smoke.

Tunes for this week:

5:05
Paul Westerberg
Oh, delicious mystery. As previously mentioned on Fuel/Friends, our beloved favorite sloppy punk drunk Paul Westerberg recently released a new continuous single-mp3 album on Amazon called 49:00 for 49 cents. Problem is, when you downloaded it you found a somewhat baffling total length of 43:55. This led ‘Mats nerds everywhere to freak out quietly, wondering where the other 5:05 ran off to. A few days ago, the rest of that audio surfaced for purchase on TuneCore without much explanation. After an extended 45-second intro that sounds for all the world like Cartman, that trademark Westerberg strum and yowl begins and I’m happy (even as the song closes with the yelling of profanities — as it should be). If you haven’t already downloaded 49:00, well . . . I can’t help you with that either since it looks like the download link has been pulled, after solidly positive reviews on sites like Aquarium Drunkard and Pitchfork. Go figure.

Tu Es Ma Came
Carla Bruni
Why won’t anyone take Carla Bruni seriously? Oh, that. It’s hard having been a model in a former incarnation, dating rock stars and ultimately running off with the president of France. Yes, sultry songstress Carla Bruni is now married to Nicolas Sarkozy, and I’m gonna go out on a limb here and wager that her music is the most lovely, sexy, smoky music ever made by someone who was the first lady of anything. Following her surprisingly good 2002 album Quelqu’un M’a Dit, much of which she wrote herself, Bruni is back with a new album Comme Si de Rien N’Etait (out now on Downtown Recordings/US). This tune is a bluesy, intimate bedroom song that sounds like Bruni strumming her guitar on the corner of the comforter as she unwinds that bewitching alto.

Two Silver Trees
Calexico
While I was watching Prince gyrate on Friday, the classy people were in Boulder at the night festivities of the AAA Records and Radio Summit that I left earlier, watching eclectic Tucson foursome Calexico at the Fox Theatre. After being beamed into space as a wake-up song (in what sounds like an oddly fitting move), and recording those great contributions for the 2007 I’m Not There soundtrack, Calexico is finally releasing an anticipated new album Carried To Dust on 9/9 (Touch and Go Records). There are touches of Latin American influences all over this new album, after the band was finally able to do some long-desired exploring of Chile and Argentina in the past year. “Our last record was more political,” says vocalist/guitarist Joey Burns, “but this record reads more like a travel journal.” Sam Beam from Iron & Wine is also featured, following their gorgeous recent collabs.

No Deliverance
Toadies
So you totally remember that song “Possum Kingdom” from Fort Worth, Texas alt-rock band of 1994 Toadies, don’t you? Listen. You do. That aggressive riff still gets under my skin a little bit in a good way, and makes me feel instantly fifteen. Toadies are preparing to release their first album in 7 years, and this song is dirty and growly, reminding me of someone like Nick Cave or Jon Spencer. They’re out on tour, hitting Denver’s Gothic Theatre on September 24th, and No Deliverance is out August 19th on Kirtland Records. And I’m still not gonna lie, I won’t be a gentleman, behind the boathouse.

Song For The Magpie
Sea Wolf
Thanks to some dodgy anonymous tipster (it’s the Feds!) this new song from Los Angeles indie artist Sea Wolf popped into my inbox recently, as featured in Augusten Burroughs‘ new audio book A Wolf At The Table. The work is a collaborative effort between Alex Church of Sea Wolf, Patti Smith, Ingrid Michaelson (who I just saw Friday), and Tegan Quin (of Tegan and Sara). The musicians each read the book and came up with an original song for use in the audio version; a very cool intersection of reading and music (like this ole podcast). Sea Wolf’s contribution is a nuanced orchestral dirge that spreads like warm alcohol through my chest, with hints of Rufus Wainwright in the elegant and elastic waver of the verses.

The All-Wave recording movement

It was dorm move-in day of my sophomore year of college, hot as all get out. My lovely roommate Tricia was listening to Cher’s “Believe” on repeat for that entire week, the rest of September and all into October. The vocoder-superhuman effects of Cher asking me if I did, in fact, believe in life after love still echo through my head (somewhat painfully) to this day.

Cher’s hit of 1998 is cited as the start of a new era of widespread use of tech trickery and adjustments in the music which ultimately makes it through our headphones. In a classic case of “If we have it, why don’t we use it?,” modern music production is sometimes only a matter of only how crafty one can be with the knobs — not necessarily capturing the sounds actually emitting from instruments and vocal cords. Nowadays anyone can sound like, well, anything.

Along with producer Steve Albini, Kim Deal from the Breeders has been at the forefront of designing a forward-thinking, punk-ethos upholding concept pertaining to the recording of their (and hopefully more artists’) music in the years to come: The All-Wave Recording Movement.

Their creed is loosely stated as “everything should be an analog sound recording of someone playing or singing, rather than using a computer to generate or digitally manipulate sounds separated from the dimension of time in which they were performed. In short, to record All Wave one must use no computers, no digital recording, no auto-tuning, or any other mainstays of contemporary production. A parallel drawn with the realist film movement . . . is not inappropriate.” The 2008 Breeders album Mountain Battles was recorded using All-Wave philosophy, and Deal has even designed a pretty kickass logo (above) to shine as a beacon from the cases of those albums that would choose to adopt this philosophy as well.

The goal, Steve Albini writes, is to create a movement that is “at least as significant as the Ska revival, or perhaps the WNBA.” Ooh, godspeed with that one.

Bang On – The Breeders

Soundgarden Inadvertently Reunites At Area Cinnabon

via The Onion:
SEATTLE—”At first it was pretty awkward,” said one observer. “But then it was like, ‘Yes, Soundgarden is back.’ It was so intense.”

full article

(“…In turn, the 44-year-old lead singer responded by serenading Thayil with a version of the group’s hit song “Black Hole Sun” in which he replaced the titular phrase with the word “Cinnabon”…)

Sing along with the Fleet Foxes at the Hi-Dive

If you read my Fleet Foxes concert review from their show a few weeks ago at Denver’s Hi-Dive, you know how mightily impressed I was with their “gorgeous golden harmonies and near-ethereal shimmering songs, firmly rooted in a sort of Appalachian wilderness.” Luckily I’ve stumbled upon this bootleg of their set from a few months prior at the same venue, from when they played with Porlolo and Blitzen Trapper. For your distinct listening pleasure:

FLEET FOXES
APRIL 14, 2008
HI-DIVE, DENVER
Sun Giant
Sun It Rises
Drops In The River
English House
White Winter Hymnal
Your Protector
Oliver James
Mykonos
Blue Ridge Mountains

ZIP: FLEET FOXES AT DENVER’S HI-DIVE

[photo by the radtastic Laurie Scavo]

So I’ve heard that Pomegranates are good for your heart

So if you’re looking for flavonoids, drink that darkly-colored POM juice stuff from the grocery store. But if you’re looking for delightfully energetic pop-harmony music, listen to Pomegranates from Cincinnati instead.

Like that weird-looking fruit, these Pomegranates burst open with some serious richness, all purpley red and sweet shimmery. They’ve been getting excellent blog and indie radio notice in the last few months, and I’m preparing to see them at the Monolith Festival next month. My favorite thing they’ve done recently is the always-excellent Daytrotter session. In the accompanying write-up, Sean wrote, “this quartet of young buckeroos from Cincinnati drench their songs in sweet sugar water and let them hover around like hummingbirds, leaving behind a tail of sugar granules that are then picked off by greedy ears lusting for more of the stuff.”

Even though their music glimmers and catapults around inside my speakers, it also plumbs some depths on songs like the melancholy “In The Kitchen,” where the protagonist sings about how the table is set but she is not there for dinner.

MOKB writes that this is music for fans of Death Cab for Cutie, early Modest Mouse, Rogue Wave and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, and Pomegranates have recently toured with contemporaries like Islands, Ra Ra Riot and French Kicks. Their music evokes buoyantly blue summer skies, like this:

Whom/Who – Pomegranates
Thunder Meadow – Pomegranates
In The Kitchen (live on Daytrotter) – Pomegranates
The Southern Ocean (live on WOXY) – Pomegranates

Stream the full album Everything Is Alive.

[band photo credit Desiree Watkins]

Bat For Lashes covers The Cure :: “A Forest”

The layers of ambiance and the ineffable cool of the originals always make Cure songs a particularly sticky wicket to cover. That’s not stopping a bunch of folks including Bat For Lashes, The Muslims, Kaki King and The Dandy Warhols from trying their hand at it. This track is breathy, darkly shining, and atmospherically lovely.

A Forest (Cure cover) – Bat For Lashes

Perfect as Cats: A Tribute To The Cure is out on Manimal Vinyl on October 28th. Sales will raise money for the worthy Invisible Children campaign.

And yep, since you asked — pretty sure that’s one of the worst album covers this year. What’s goin on there?

Sensational sounds coming out of Denver right now

I return from the warm and open arms of the Denver Post Underground Music Showcase this weekend with an invigorated and genuine excitement about the music that is being made in this fine state. I heard some incredible stuff. Even if you live nowhere near Denver, take a listen to what my weekend was like because there are acts that I feel could be nationally noteworthy right now out of the Denver scene.

The festival was a screaming success on the sweltering hot streets. Even after going to about a jillion large-scale music festivals, I’ve never yet been to one that was so cohesive, well-constructed, and uniquely local. The model for this weekend should be recreated at cities around the world who don’t already have something like this in place. As they say, “because your life needs a soundtrack, and because your life is richer and more rewarding when that soundtrack reflects where you live.”

Just a few of the most vivid Fuel/Friends highlights of the weekend:

Young Coyotes at Indy Ink. The buzz on the street after this trio performed with no mics in a small independent print shop was deafening. Tipped by some as having the potential to be the next huge band out of Denver, the Young Coyotes were everything I’d hoped for and more, with their ferocious primal drum backbone (two guys playing), chimey melodies, and shout-out-loud vocals that made my blood pulse hot and happy. I was singing this song for the rest of the day:

When I Was In The Fire – Young Coyotes

Chain Gang of 1974 at the Rule Gallery of Contemporary and Modern Art. In a starkly cool setting, this duo transformed the room into a dance party where our biggest concern became trying not fall into the artwork. I’ve never danced in a gallery before, but this stuff was absolutely irresistible. The drummer from Young Coyotes reprised his awesomeness for this set too. Make sure to catch them at Monolith.

The Dirt – The Chain Gang of 1974

Hearts of Palm at the Hi-Dive. I was struck by how passionate and vocal a following this collective has, obviously due to how enthusiastically they give back to us all. The Hi-Dive was humid and electric, echoing along with everyone singing at the top of their lungs, “We have no water here and everybody knows it!!” That may have been the first time I’d seen a local band with that degree of communal singalong support. They played most, if not all, of their newest free EP and blew us all away.

No Water – Hearts of Palm

Everything Absent Or Distorted (plus friends) at the CarToys outdoor stage. Although it was a bit of bad news for my friends trying to coordinate this fest, the cops were called on the noise levels for the outdoor stage shortly before the Everything Absent Or Distorted collective came on with some additional members. But maybe it’s not really a party until someone calls the cops. EAOD played their widescreen, angular indie rock, those fluid melodies mixed with an on-edge sensibility. They then tantalized this cover-loving girl with a handful of great ones, including early Arcade Fire (a sound not too far removed from their own) and “Glad Girls” by Guided by Voices.

The Exit Parade – Everything Absent Or Distorted

Aaron Collins @ Rock The Cradle. A boutique that hawks Johnny Cash onesies, retro board games and Nine Inch Nails lullaby cover CDs, Rock The Cradle caters to the hip parent crowd. One of the first shows I saw on Friday afternoon was Machine Gun Blues’ Aaron Collins performing (clothed, so as not to scare the younguns) a melodic and charming solo set. His unselfconscious use of repeated words to underscore a kind of vocal percussion, along with his elegant and shimmering keyboard melodies made me hope that he continues in this vein even if Machine Gun Blues is almost defunct.

Rachael Pollard and friends at the Kabal Rug Kilm. Speaking of Nine Inch Nails covers, a highly unlikely one (“Down In It” done like a 1930s flapper?!) popped up at the most gorgeously cool venue of the weekend. This loft-like Persian rug gallery was temporarily converted into a singer-songwriter stage for solo artists and some fantastic collaborations, such as this one with Pollard, Gregory Alan Isakov and Julie Davis from Bela Karoli. While we lounged around on stacks of $35,000 rugs (don’t spill that beer), a steady stream of Colorado musicians plucked, strung, and hummed their lovely songs. It all took on a near-mystical air in that setting. The festival did an exceptional job of lining up original groupings of artists collaborating with those from other bands, which lent a great spirit of local pride and the making of something unique together.

Crazy For You – Rachael Pollard (charming little song)

Stop Making Sense flickering on a brick wall. Very late Saturday night, you could hear David Byrne’s voice ringing up and down the boulevard from the parking lot of an otherwise dark bank, forgotten at that hour of fiscal irresponsibility. The folks at the Denver Film Society arranged a guerilla screening of the Jonathan Demme classic, and it was simply beautiful. Until the sprinklers came on, and then everyone just moved back and it was still beautiful, just wet.

Burning Down The House (Stop Making Sense live version) – Talking Heads

Everyone who played in the South Broadway Christian Church. This was another gorgeous venue staffed by incredibly cheerful and kind church members. I almost expected a covered-dish potluck. The acoustics were crystalline, the surroundings divine. Using the church was a great idea, and I hear God totally didn’t even mind.

Sputnik Motown brunch and the Velvet Elvis pancake breakfast. A good festival loves you from the time you arrive until the time you leave, especially when you are at your most vulnerable. When the morning comes with its dreadfully bright light, you need a greasy breakfast — and you don’t want to have to work for it. Both days we ate like royalty, first at Sputnik with the DJ spinning a vast and amazingly impressive collection of Motown 7″ records, and then Sunday at 3 Kings with a live Elvis cover band, bottomless mimosas, and fresh-made pancakes from a little griddle behind the bar. O, that I could have my breakfasts soundtracked every morning by “Hunka Hunka Burnin Love” and “Hound Dog.” [pic via]

And as is always the case, there were dozens of bands I didn’t get a chance to see, and some I’ll be featuring in greater depth at a later date (many are playing the Meadowlark Fest Aug 21-23). Whew! I’m exhausted.

Let’s do it again next weekend.

VISUALS: All my pics with some commentary here and here, and ahh, look at all the *lovely* people!