Long before I started doing this blog thing, I was booking bands at house parties and other disreputable venues on the westside. Even a bunch of Tech kids getting drunk in a backyard can be valuable exposure to young bands just starting out, so I've always done everything I can to help bands that I thought had potential. The whole point behind both this blog and those parties was to give art an audience. Connect people to good music. You know, "Those who can't do, teach."
So recently one of the local outfits that I've been rallying for reached out to me for help in booking another band. The band needing some help turned out to be Royal Bangs, and has been one of my favourite discoveries of this year. It is mind boggling to me that none of the very talented booking agents around this city didn't nab a band of this caliber (I mean they're playing at Bonnaroo) before me, but I hadn't heard of them before this either, so I guess I just got really lucky. It's so nice to have great music just dropped in your lap.
The record I now have on my heaviest of rotations was actually self-released by the band back in 2006, but Black Keys' drummer Patrick Carney scooped these guys up for a re-release on his label, Audio Eagle, last month. What I love about this album most is its balance. It has such a ridiculously accessible sound and remains so engaging at the same time. It pays tribute to the roots of rock 'n' roll while at the same time successfully co-opting progressive and somewhat experimental musical ideas seamlessly. Each song holds its own, but the album has a distinct structure to it. They get get hard, fast and wail on the guitar, or they can do soft, sweet melodies. I think you could easily draw comparisons between this band and just about any important band over the last 20 years. You'll find these various different comparisons on the multiple other blog-hype posts across the Internet. Don't let that fool you. It doesn't come off as some generic hybrid of other peoples styles, but rather they have tapped into some strangely transcendental sound.
So I recommend going and picking it up. If you're going to Bonnaroo, be sure to catch them late tomorrow night. If not, they will be playing at WonderRoot a week from tonight. In addition to Royal Bangs, we have also gathered two of Atlanta's best young bands for you to check out, This Piano Plays Itself and a solo, acoustic set from Nomen Novum. Come down and party with us next week!
The greatest discovery I made at SXSW came the very first night. I scored a great spot up front by the stage at the Brooklyn Vegan showcase. I decided to chill there for the next act, whom I didn't recognize, to be up front for Kaki King later on. My expectations were low, because something about the tired "Frontman's Name" and "The Band's name" formula always seems to lead to a bad act unless the frontman previously was part of a great band. Jeffrey Lewis and The Jitters was an exception to this, and ever since catching that show, I have been enthralled with him.
It has been an extremely long time since I discovered a new personal music hero, and it is rare indeed that a person I hadn't even heard of a few months ago could earn such respect with me, but Jeffrey Lewis is just that amazing. Lewis is the paradigm of an artist. Not only does he make great music, but he also draws cool comics, and in both endeavors they are completely about unrestrained self expression. He is the greatest incarnation of the DIY ethos I have ever heard. His songs are powered by extremely clever lyrics, but the music captures the perfect simplicity that reminds me of the magic of Daniel Johnston, or Nirvana's Unplugged album, or Beck or Neil Young stripped down acoustic songs. I will always be more impressed about taking the most basic of music structure and making it stand out above everything else rather than the almost athletic nature of playing scales and rhythms faster than anyone. I like those who can do both best, but if I have to choose one, music is about art first to me, and at this point, I can't think of anyone else that does music purely in that realm better than Jeffrey Lewis.
On a completely personal level, I couldn't have discovered him at a better time in my life. I'm at a point where I'm making some serious life choices that are intended to allow me to live my life on my own terms. I want to pursue a life centered around art and self-expression and writing, and Jeffrey Lewis's back catalog is a very reassuring and pertinent soundtrack to this new, weird and mysterious road I'm traveling on. Get obsessed with me:
Jeffrey Lewis : Tapes From The Crypt : Gravity Sue
Last week we caught the Atlas Sound show at The Drunken Unicorn (2/19/08). For those who don't know yet, Atlas Sound is the solo project of Deerhunter's Bradford Cox. He just released his first full-length album, Let The Blind Lead those Who Can See But Cannot Feel, but it is far from the first material he has put out under the Atlas Sound name. On his blog, Cox regularly puts out material he makes over a weekend, or old stuff he did when he was a kid, or all sorts of interesting music available to everyone for free. To me, his blog is a revolutionary medium for musicians. While there certainly have been plenty of extremely prolific artists before him, Bradford is able to have a much more intimate experience with his audience, regularly giving away his material to his fans directly, and so far, there is no one else who is pulling this off so successfully. As the Internet continues to steer the world of music into interesting directions, Mr. Cox has embraced these trends and utilized them to enhance his art.
What's even better is that almost all of his material that I have listened to in this way is good. I'm still jamming out the Orange Ohms Glow EP constantly that he put on his site weeks ago. The new proper LP is stunning too, a very different beast than Cryptograms.
For the live shows, Bradford has put together a nice collection of musicians to form the Atlas Sound Music Group. He came on stage repping a No Age T-shirt. Another thing I love about him is how he manages to team up with and support many of the other great new musicians in their prime right now. The Atlas Sound performance struck me very differently than the many Deerhunter shows I caught last year. When writers talk about Bradford, they aways bring up things like the dress wearing and all of the supposedly obscene blogging he was doing last year. He is always billed as a spectacle because of this and he sort of became a polarizing figure. While I'm sure that many of the things he did also functioned as attention grabbers, it always felt like they were more about forming a barrier of inaccessibility between him and the audience. As if it were more a distraction from the fear of putting himself and his work out their in an honest and naked way for all to see. Even at the end of the year when he ditched most of the stage act, he would always feel distant on stage, and this Atlas Sound show was the first time to me that he seemed to have a very inviting demeanor and open up. He seems to be more comfortable with putting all of his being on display and for a fan like me, it was pretty amazing to see.
Biggie C got some photos:
I got some videos, "Recent Bedroom" (I love this song so much):
"Quarantined":
"Scraping Past":
"Winter Vacation":
"Requiem For All The Lonely Teenagers With Passed Out Moms":
Sloan Simpson taped the entire show and you can find that here at Southern Shelter.
White Rainbow is is on tour with Atlas Sound, in fact the one man loop-fest badass is in the Atlas Sound Music Group. His set was really cool too, you can listen to it at Southern Shelter also. A couple pics from Biggie C:
Yesterday I stopped by Criminal Records and got a copy of the new Mars Volta record, The Bedlam In Goliath. I discovered that indie record shops like Criminal are bundling the record with a bonus disc, that is actually a half CD, half vinyl disc. Behold:
Each side contains a cover of Pink Floyd's "Candy And A Currant Bun" and the Cd side also contains a video of "Wax Simulacra". So if you are in the ATL, I suggest running over there if only to have this first of its kind media. They have other media release tricks up their sleeve too. You can buy the album on a 1 gig flashdrive here. The flashdrive also has the album artwork and the "Wax Simulacra" video, and, what's really cool is, on the 29th of each month for the rest of the year, when you plug your flashdrive into your computer, it will download all sorts of TMV goodies like b-sides, webisodes, exlcusive tracks, etc. It even looks cool:
So, now let's get to the music itself. The typical bad TMV reviews have already started rolling in from the usual suspects (we'll wait to see if Pitchfork gives it more or less than the 3.5 they gave my 2006 Album of the Year, or maybe they'll be too cool to even review it). So far I've only listened to the album twice, so this will be more my first reaction to the album than an in-depth analysis. The first thing that sticks out in my mind is that Thomas Pridgen seems to fit in perfectly. The popular sentiment among TMV fans over the last year was that he was too overbearing and "showy" but on the recording all I hear is finesse and perfectly placed badassity. I love Jon Theodore, but I think they found the best possible replacement.
I like how the album just takes off from the beginning, like you're starting right in the middle of a song. It's like when a movie starts off in a huge action scene. I'm not sure if I'm just over-analyzing or not, but it feels like the album musically is sort of two chapters split up in the middle, where the first one is more hard rocking and the second part it gets really crazy. I haven't quite gotten into the lyrics yet, but with all of them printed in the CD book, I'll be diving into that next.
Overall, my first impression is that this album is just as impressive as all the rest so far, and that I've yet to become too sick of their sound or what they do yet. The album is packed full of new twists and turns that are very fun to ride out. TMV is elite and probably the best band to emerge from this decade. Where they may not have the biggest influence on other artists right now and will be totally misunderstood by 90% of the indie rock journalist bourgeoisie, there's no doubt in my mind that they have made some of this decade's greatest albums.
Stream the bonus song:
The Mars Volta : Candy And A Currant Bun (Pink Floyd)
As I eagerly await my In Rainbows discbox, I want to talk about the way it was released. If you are slacking and haven't got a copy of it, go get it now because the free download site closes tomorrow. Radiohead has yet to release any real numbers on how this album release experiment has gone, but all indications from the band members themselves point to it being successful on their terms. The debate that has raged since this all began is what kind of impact will this have on the music industry? There are a few dimensions to this that I want to break down. The first question to be asked is: Can this exact model work for anybody else but Radiohead?
A counter argument that Lily Allenmade about this model is that what Radiohead are doing will hurt smaller artists: “They’ve got millions of pounds. It sends a weird message to younger bands who haven’t done as well...” I'm not sure Lily, who got big in the music industry because of her famous parents, can really relate to struggling bands, but let us take her point seriously. So far only Trent Reznor, who has been hating on the record industry for a while and currently not on a label, has tried this experiment with the new Saul Williams album he produced. The model is slightly different (you can choose between getting it free at 192 Kbps or pay $5 to get a higher quality format), but basically it is the same idea. Numbers have not been disclosed from that either, but even when they do, it's unclear how much of the big picture is going to be revealed. An artist like Saul Williams, relatively obscure compared to Radiohead, may reach a larger audience through this distribution model and the publicity surrounding it and this may increase sales of his music, tickets to shows, and merchandise down the road. But even Saul Williams is backed by Trent Reznor, who is pretty famous and rich himself. Radiohead's response to this argument, in this great interview you should read, is:
Ed: 'But the thing is, so much good music is now free anyway.'
Jonny: 'Yeah, the download culture is there anyway. It's King Canute - you can't pretend the flood isn't happening. This friend of mine bought the Muse album. And his 12-year-old son was just looking at it - "Wow, the real thing!" His son had the album already, he knew the songs, but he'd never held a CD. He just found it a curious object. That's kind of how it is now.'
This is the reality of the situation, and barring an invasion of Sweden, there really isn't much anyone can do to stop piracy altogether. It would be fairly difficult, in my opinion, to find a single album that came out this year that wasn't available somewhere on the internet. The next question, then, is: Does this exact model even have to work for anyone else to be successful?
Another naysayer of the Radiohead model has been Gene Simmons: “That’s not a business model that works. I open a store and say ‘Come on in and pay whatever you want.’ Are you on fucking crack? Do you really believe that’s a business model that works?” Well, maybe this model can't work for everybody, but it could change the game enough to find a better model than exists now. Two smaller bands that no one had heard of a few years ago but now have the potential to emerge as two of the greatest bands to come out of this decade, Deerhunter and Grizzly Bear, each have a blog where they release mp3s of their material for free. They've certainly had a ton of help from Pitchfork and the blogosphere in blowing up, but the reason they have received such a big buzz is completely about the music and performances they do, not because a record label is pushing them to play on the radio. In the current climate of the music world, anybody who makes amazing music can get that music out to the masses, and once they achieve a large fanbase, they can cash in on that success with tours, merch, and the people who still want a physical copy of the album.
Even if giving your music away doesn't end up being a viable economical model, just showing the current model doesn't work may be enough to get a better model together. When the music pirating site OiNK got shutdown recently, Trent Reznorhad this to say about it:
"I'll admit I had an account there and frequented it quite often. At the end of the day, what made OiNK a great place was that it was like the world's greatest record store. Pretty much anything you could ever imagine, it was there, and it was there in the format you wanted. If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but there isn't the equivalent of that in the retail space right now. iTunes kind of feels like Sam Goody to me. I don't feel cool when I go there. I'm tired of seeing John Mayer's face pop up. I feel like I'm being hustled when I visit there, and I don't think their product is that great. DRM, low bit rate, etc. Amazon has potential, but none of them get around the issue of pre-release leaks. And that's what's such a difficult puzzle at the moment. If your favorite band in the world has a leaked record out, do you listen to it or do you not listen to it? People on those boards, they're grateful for the person that uploaded it -- they're the hero. They're not stealing it because they're going to make money off of it; they're stealing it because they love the band. I'm not saying that I think OiNK is morally correct, but I do know that it existed because it filled a void of what people want."
The music industry doesn't know what the consumer wants. They have not adapted the way they should have to changes in the market. One music company that does get it is Emusic. I've recently become a subscriber to their service and I have to say I've been enjoying it. I pay $25 a month, and I can download 100 songs in high bitrate MP3s that are DRM free. Now the downside of Emusic is that the selection consists primarily of non-major label artists and it can be difficult to find things that aren't obscure, but just think if someone with the money and power in the industry could create a site that combined the Emusic model with the vast selection of OiNK. It would be a great start.
The final question to ask is: What if there is no model that works? The worst case scenario is pirating cannot be stopped and everyone stops paying for albums. In terms of the quality of music, would this necessarily be a bad thing? I mean, I doubt if you read this blog regularly you would think that those that have spoken against this model like Lily Allen, Gene Simmons, and Oasis have made better music than Radiohead and Trent Reznor, right? Viewing music completely as a commodity is not having a full understanding of what music is. I think free-market capitalism is some great stuff in most arenas, but with art, it doesn't seem to do anything but dilute the quality. If people can't make tons of money making music, that doesn't mean music is just going to stop getting made, it means that the people making music will do it for the love of music, not for the money. Now, I want to see the bands I love make money for their work, and I believe they can even in this worst case scenario, but at the end of the day, what matters most to me is hearing great music, and as the industry has been in a tailspin, I feel like I've been hearing more and more great music than ever in my life, so I'm pretty optimistic.
To sum it all up, Radiohead rules.
Here is the first test webcast, Entanglement:
Part 1:
Part 2:
Here is the complete 2 and half hour webcast of Thumbs Down in all its glory:
Now that i've become so familiar with the new stuff, it is cool to go back and listen to the live versions of the songs from last year. Here's a torrent of a show you can download losslessly here, but I've got all the new songs for you to listen to here:
Radiohead 6/14/2006 The Theater at Madison Square Garden New York, NY
Taper: scb Source: DPA (B&K) 4022s > Sound Devices 722 @ 24/96 722 > Apple MacBook Pro > Spark XL 2.8.2 (normalize, resample to 44.1khz, dither to 16 bit) > xACT 1.58 > shn Location: Dead Center, about 20 feet from the stage
Disc 1
01 Intro 02:04.14 02 The Gloaming 03:49.38 03 The National Anthem 05:07.31 04 15 Step 04:31.24 05 Arpeggi 04:33.13 06 Kid A 03:56.39 07 Dollars And Cents 05:22.70 08 Videotape 05:09.07 09 Nude 04:38.49 10 I Might Be Wrong 04:39.20 11 Paranoid Android 07:11.60 12 Bangers 'n Mash 03:46.45 13 Pyramid Song 04:50.39
Disc 1 Total: 59:40.74
Disc 2
01 My Iron Lung 05:31.26 02 Bodysnatchers 04:40.09 03 Myxomatosis 04:24.19 04 No Surprises 04:19.28 05 Everything In Its Right Place 08:36.23 Encore 1: 06 A Wolf At The Door 03:50.30 07 Down Is The New Up 05:28.06 08 Like Spinning Plates 03:10.41 09 Spooks 01:31.27 10 Idioteque 06:41.04 Encore 2: 11 Just 04:28.12 12 The Tourist 06:01.32
Since rarely do I discover two albums that totally amaze me at the same time, I've decided to combine two of my regular segments to convince you to check these albums out:
Akron/Family
The Akron/Family show i caught at the Earl early this year blew my mind and is still one of my top 3 favourite shows of the year. Ever since catching them live, I've searched out as much of their material as possible. While i did find some really good stuff, none of their previous studio work felt anywhere near the intensity level their live show was at, and I had pretty much assumed that they were just a band that was much better live. Their newest release, Love Is Simple, has totally changed my mind. In addition to every song being a stand alone hit, the album takes you on a journey through every emotion and dimension this band has mastered. They are anchored in conservative musicology like The Beatles and Grateful Dead but find extremely interesting places to go with that foundation. I consider these guys the greatest jamband going right now, and i doubt most of the wooks and bro-skies have ever heard of these guys. Check them out:
Thurston's latest solo offering might be the most accessable Sonic Youth related release ever. While the masses of SY followers are making experiment and noise more mainstream every day, Thurston and Company have spent most of this decade crafting stunning pop songs, and Trees Outside The Academy is no exception. For a huge fan like me, this album feels like a greatest hits of Moore's riffs and sound effects stripped down and scultped into a completely unique and original piece of work. Don't miss this one:
Earlimart is a band that I've heard about and listened to a little but never really knew and every chance I had to see them just hadn't worked out yet. But since getting Mentor Tormentor, their new album, it is all I have been listening to. I have a feeling this is going to sit high atop my best of 2007 albums. The sound is very heavily Elliot Smith influenced (who was a friend and mentor to the band) but i also hear alot of the Yo La Tengo and Autolux vibe. Check it out for your self:
"Math rock" is a genre that I always kind of understood, but could never really explain until I read up on wikipedia after hearing this album. Whatever you call it, this avant-garde supergroup is amazing. I had been listening to some really great albums lately, but this is such a standout. Listen to these tracks and then go buy their album, Mirrored.
The Besnard Lakes : The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse
This Montreal six-piece centers around husband and wife Jace Lasek and Olga Goreas. Lesak has produced albums for acts such as Wolf Parade and Islands. This second album as The Besnard Lakes contains pieces and parts of countless genres and styles while managing to create a unique sound which is difficult for a band that spans so much. There's a lot of bands that you could reference their sound to, but I'll go ahead and go with a nice mix of the Beach Boys, My Bloody Valentine, Grizzly Bear, Sigur Ros and a little Pink Floyd. Guest appearances on the record include members of The Dears, Stars, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Listen for yourself:
2007 has been slinging us some great records. So far, i think there has been two standouts: Of Montreal's Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? and Deerhunter's Cryptograms. But last night I stumbled across what is now my favourite album of 2007 so far: Marnie Stern's In Advance Of The Broken Arm:
Ok, think Sleater Kinney meets The Mars Volta with a little Sonic Youth. Marnie Stern is a badass chick who can shred like a mofo. Keep in mind when listening to this that every part on this record is recorded by Stern with the exception of drums done by Hella's Zach Hill, who also produces this record. Unfortunetly I discovered this album a few days late because she was in Atlanta last weekend. Here's a few tracks to listen to, but i highly recommend picking up this album because it is incredible from front to back. When she blows up, remember where you heard this first:
Since first hearing Grizzly Bear's Yellow House I just can't stop listening to it. I'm starting to feel that ranking it as 9th on my top 50 albums of 2006 way underrated it. So, first, check out this video that J Pizzle tipped me off to: The best music video I've seen in years.
Ok, wanna hear more? Check out this show they did on KEXP last week: Grizzly BearKEXPSeattle,WAFebruary 16, 2007
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