I enjoy reading Kern's music corner articles and would like to extend an invite to Damfino to write a similar series of movie review/commentary articles. The Kreitners just watched Million Dollar Baby last night via Netflix and very much enjoyed it. Who else would enjoy movie insight from Damfino...I'm all in.....
sheriff
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Listen! Listen...!!!, etc.: Just Deux It.-Part 4
Duos. Brilliant. Overlooked. Ok? Ok.
Air: Moon Safari
Looking back on the week's reviews, it seems that the bands I picked were all very "Rock" in their own way, even Quasi, whose instrumentation is quite atypical for a rock band. For my last review of the week I wanted to shift gears a little bit and end this particular theme on a more mellow note. Enter J.B. Dunckel and Nicholas Godin, better known to their faithful followers as Air.
Air owes a great deal to the lounge-y sounds of the Sixties and Seventies, opting for a certain "Swingers In Space" vibe, picking up the paisley trail where groovy synth giants such as Jean Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley left off. Though this album was released in 1998, it has a certain retro-modern flair. It sounds like the music of a future people envisioned perhaps thirty years ago or more, and perhaps it is this precise reason why it doesn't sound dated to me seven years after the fact. Everywhere you turn on the album, there are traces of Moog fluttering and sputtering in the background as the warm insistent bass steadily drives the pace. There are slightly Bacharachian touches with horns and strings, which are most effective on the album's darker journeys such as "Talisman". And while the bulk of the album makes for colorful, yet sedate tunes to gaze at the ceiling by, songs like "Sexy Boy" and "Kelly Watch The Stars", with their bouncier passages and vocoded lyrics could almost be classified as (gasp!) Mid-tempo!
One of the best surprises on the album, however, are two tracks sung in English by the silky voice of Beth Hirsch. There are the suprisingly folkish guitars augmented by the subtle twinkles in the background and the other phasing in and out of the Fender Rhodes and slight moan of an organ underneath in "All I Need", as well as the simulated claves and melancholy harmonica break toward the end of "You Make It Easy".
Despite the fact that Air has grown up some in the past few years, and their sound with it, this is the album that still stands out as their finest in my opinion, if for no other reason than the fact that it proves that sometimes the term Easy Listening can be applied and taken literally without it sounding like an insult.
Key Tracks: Sexy Boy, All I Need, Kelly Watch The Stars, Talisman
I will be back next week with an abbreivated round of more reviews for your reading pleasure.
See you soon!
Air: Moon Safari
Looking back on the week's reviews, it seems that the bands I picked were all very "Rock" in their own way, even Quasi, whose instrumentation is quite atypical for a rock band. For my last review of the week I wanted to shift gears a little bit and end this particular theme on a more mellow note. Enter J.B. Dunckel and Nicholas Godin, better known to their faithful followers as Air.
Air owes a great deal to the lounge-y sounds of the Sixties and Seventies, opting for a certain "Swingers In Space" vibe, picking up the paisley trail where groovy synth giants such as Jean Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley left off. Though this album was released in 1998, it has a certain retro-modern flair. It sounds like the music of a future people envisioned perhaps thirty years ago or more, and perhaps it is this precise reason why it doesn't sound dated to me seven years after the fact. Everywhere you turn on the album, there are traces of Moog fluttering and sputtering in the background as the warm insistent bass steadily drives the pace. There are slightly Bacharachian touches with horns and strings, which are most effective on the album's darker journeys such as "Talisman". And while the bulk of the album makes for colorful, yet sedate tunes to gaze at the ceiling by, songs like "Sexy Boy" and "Kelly Watch The Stars", with their bouncier passages and vocoded lyrics could almost be classified as (gasp!) Mid-tempo!
One of the best surprises on the album, however, are two tracks sung in English by the silky voice of Beth Hirsch. There are the suprisingly folkish guitars augmented by the subtle twinkles in the background and the other phasing in and out of the Fender Rhodes and slight moan of an organ underneath in "All I Need", as well as the simulated claves and melancholy harmonica break toward the end of "You Make It Easy".
Despite the fact that Air has grown up some in the past few years, and their sound with it, this is the album that still stands out as their finest in my opinion, if for no other reason than the fact that it proves that sometimes the term Easy Listening can be applied and taken literally without it sounding like an insult.
Key Tracks: Sexy Boy, All I Need, Kelly Watch The Stars, Talisman
I will be back next week with an abbreivated round of more reviews for your reading pleasure.
See you soon!
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Listen! Listen...etc.!!! : Just Deux It.-Pt. 3
Just Deux It.-This week's examination of musical pairings that may have slipped beneath your radar.
The Black Keys: The Big Come Up
It must have been kind of difficult for the guys in The Black Keys when The White Stripes became popular. On paper, one could run down the checklist and call them a rip-off. Look at the stats: Two people in the band, check. Midwesterners, check. Garage-y blues influenced sound, check. Name which uses the complete lack of color and its inverse, check. One could see how frustrating this situation might have been for Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, and perhaps enough to make them hang up the fuzz pedal and turn out the lights in the garage, but instead they continue to put out some of the best Amps-to-Eleven, balls to the wall, juke joint shaking blues you've most likely never heard.
Hailing from the small town of Akron, Ohio, this pair plays it raw and raucous, emulating the shack shaking Southern bluesmen whom they seem to idolize. Men like T-Model Ford and R. L. Burnside, whose Fat Possum record label has exported to the rest of the world the slinky electric style that has been setting dancefloors aflame all over the great state of Mississippi for decades. The most notable attribute that Auerbach seems to have nailed after studying his more "authentic" counterparts, is his deep gravelly bark. He is able to command, cajole and seduce, and to go from weary growl to exuberant howl in a matter of breaths. The grit in his vocal style is well met by the extra-crunchy fuzz and wah effects he chokes from his guitar that chug, quake and sometimes stomp across each of the songs. For his part Carney is an excellent match. The beats are loose, without being inconsistent or buck wild, which some bands with stripped down sounds try to excuse away as being "authentic". The pair seem to fare best with songs that have a more defined structure, such as the near perfect "The Breaks", which balances the wounded animal wail of Auerbach's guitar during the verse with the head snapping throwdown between he and Carney during the chorus. While they sometimes bring a definite bit of rock to the proceedings, their take on the blues definitely bows more deeply to the old school.
After listening to The Big Come Up, it's damn clear these guys are no White Stripes. They don't have a dynamic twist on blues sounds like them, they certainly don't look like them, and it's almost a sure thing they'll never be as popular as them.
But they're cool with that.
And so am I.
Key Tracks: Busted, Countdown, The Breaks, Heavy Soul
The Black Keys: The Big Come Up
It must have been kind of difficult for the guys in The Black Keys when The White Stripes became popular. On paper, one could run down the checklist and call them a rip-off. Look at the stats: Two people in the band, check. Midwesterners, check. Garage-y blues influenced sound, check. Name which uses the complete lack of color and its inverse, check. One could see how frustrating this situation might have been for Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, and perhaps enough to make them hang up the fuzz pedal and turn out the lights in the garage, but instead they continue to put out some of the best Amps-to-Eleven, balls to the wall, juke joint shaking blues you've most likely never heard.
Hailing from the small town of Akron, Ohio, this pair plays it raw and raucous, emulating the shack shaking Southern bluesmen whom they seem to idolize. Men like T-Model Ford and R. L. Burnside, whose Fat Possum record label has exported to the rest of the world the slinky electric style that has been setting dancefloors aflame all over the great state of Mississippi for decades. The most notable attribute that Auerbach seems to have nailed after studying his more "authentic" counterparts, is his deep gravelly bark. He is able to command, cajole and seduce, and to go from weary growl to exuberant howl in a matter of breaths. The grit in his vocal style is well met by the extra-crunchy fuzz and wah effects he chokes from his guitar that chug, quake and sometimes stomp across each of the songs. For his part Carney is an excellent match. The beats are loose, without being inconsistent or buck wild, which some bands with stripped down sounds try to excuse away as being "authentic". The pair seem to fare best with songs that have a more defined structure, such as the near perfect "The Breaks", which balances the wounded animal wail of Auerbach's guitar during the verse with the head snapping throwdown between he and Carney during the chorus. While they sometimes bring a definite bit of rock to the proceedings, their take on the blues definitely bows more deeply to the old school.
After listening to The Big Come Up, it's damn clear these guys are no White Stripes. They don't have a dynamic twist on blues sounds like them, they certainly don't look like them, and it's almost a sure thing they'll never be as popular as them.
But they're cool with that.
And so am I.
Key Tracks: Busted, Countdown, The Breaks, Heavy Soul
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Kern visit names
All great events are given a grand name...."The Rumble in the Jungle", "Wrestlemania", "Saved by the Bell, the new class"...and it is in this vein that I feel an appropriate title should be given to the valiant arrival of the Kern to the DM on friday.....I propose:
"KERN RETURNS...THIS TIME IT'S NOT BY COURT ORDER"
all thoughts welcome.....
good things.....maza, maza
"KERN RETURNS...THIS TIME IT'S NOT BY COURT ORDER"
all thoughts welcome.....
good things.....maza, maza
Hallowed Be Thy Game
Hey everyone. After going to Queen B's blog the other day and seeing another one of her masterpieces, I became inspired to post another piece of artwork that I finished for better or worse the other day. It's based on a short story that is yet unwritten about an unorthodox missionary taking a diverging path from his dead con-man father, who now rides from town to town gambling with the beliefs of people in a higher power in cribbage matches. The stakes are his classic GTO against their pledge of belief in a higher power, which does not neccesarily have to be God.
The work was not painted, as I am not that talented yet. I did this entirely in Photoshop, which is where I so far do my best work. For the curious, the Latin at the bottom is a rough translation of the headline at the top. Hope you dig it.
The work was not painted, as I am not that talented yet. I did this entirely in Photoshop, which is where I so far do my best work. For the curious, the Latin at the bottom is a rough translation of the headline at the top. Hope you dig it.
Stella..... STELLA!!!!
I got me a roomate - his name is Jerry. Jerry likes to slurp food and not worry about dirty dishes for days on end... all of which drives me to the point of killing my dear brother (I like Jerry too much to harm him - besides, he lets me be the big spoon - so I got that going for me)!
BUT - Jer does a helluva good job at keeping me up on cool new stuff on the dish. Like for instance, STELLA, this new show on Comedy Central. It is a nutty half hour of totally absurd stories that barely hold together - but leave you laughing yer arse off! A new ep is on tonight at 9:30 - check it out if you can.
Now - who do I half to kill to keep this supersweet tan I got going on?
...this is the strange creature known only as Josh to most of us... note the odd gap between his head and the back of the cap... an nutty one is he!
hee... heee......... nut.......
eww.
Yo
Monday, July 11, 2005
Listen! Listen...!!!:Just Deux It. Part 2
Just in case anyone forgot, this week's theme deals with the excellent music which is created by some of the most grossly overlooked duos. On with the show...
Death From Above 1979: You're A Woman, I'm A Machine
It's pretty common these days to run across the standard variety twosome in music. There's the guitar and drums model, the ever popular two acoustic guitarists setup(the Simon and Garfunkel), and sometimes the odd piano/keyboard and drummer combination(your Quasi's and Dresden Dolls and what have you). Sebastien Grainger and Jesse F. Keeler bring another flavor to the table. Electric bass and drums. A subtle difference, but intriguing.
This is where anything resembling subtlety takes one look at these two, wets itself, and then runs like hell out the side door.
From the air raid screams of the Moog synthesizer that open the first track "Turn It Out", we brace for an all out assault on the senses. Grainger's overdriven bass sounds more like an army of riffing madmen exploding from the trenches than one man with an effect pedal, and Keeler's loose shuffling drums slide seamlessly through the gladiatorial wall of bass. Things only get hotter from there as the bulk of these tunes incorporate Grainger's sultry, bluesy wail shooting skyward and divebombing in perfect synchronicity with the alien sounding synths in a series of screaming, soulful sine waves. It is a difficult task for many bands as heavy as this to be able to be anything more than, well, heavy.
In the case of DFA1979, the thick distorted chords don't mask the infectious groove which is prominently displayed in each of the songs. Just witness the sweet underlying Gang of Four-esque cowbell in the slow building tear "Black History Month" and the background bongo bounce and crisp handclaps of "Sexy Results" that somehow manage to bring to mind the 80's chestnut "Electric Avenue" and at the same time more recent groove-punk favorites The Rapture(related to a completely different Death From Above, but that's a whole story in and of itself). It's as though one has walked into some twisted futuristic disco where half of the patrons were never informed that punk was dead.
Part robotic, part sexy, and all attitude, You're A Woman, I'm A Machine is smoldering makeout music for sweaty, hot pants cyborgs, and quite possibly one of the most original albums I've heard in the last year and without a doubt, one of my favorites.
Key Tracks: Romantic Rights, Blood On Our Hands, Black History Month, Sexy Results
Death From Above 1979: You're A Woman, I'm A Machine
It's pretty common these days to run across the standard variety twosome in music. There's the guitar and drums model, the ever popular two acoustic guitarists setup(the Simon and Garfunkel), and sometimes the odd piano/keyboard and drummer combination(your Quasi's and Dresden Dolls and what have you). Sebastien Grainger and Jesse F. Keeler bring another flavor to the table. Electric bass and drums. A subtle difference, but intriguing.
This is where anything resembling subtlety takes one look at these two, wets itself, and then runs like hell out the side door.
From the air raid screams of the Moog synthesizer that open the first track "Turn It Out", we brace for an all out assault on the senses. Grainger's overdriven bass sounds more like an army of riffing madmen exploding from the trenches than one man with an effect pedal, and Keeler's loose shuffling drums slide seamlessly through the gladiatorial wall of bass. Things only get hotter from there as the bulk of these tunes incorporate Grainger's sultry, bluesy wail shooting skyward and divebombing in perfect synchronicity with the alien sounding synths in a series of screaming, soulful sine waves. It is a difficult task for many bands as heavy as this to be able to be anything more than, well, heavy.
In the case of DFA1979, the thick distorted chords don't mask the infectious groove which is prominently displayed in each of the songs. Just witness the sweet underlying Gang of Four-esque cowbell in the slow building tear "Black History Month" and the background bongo bounce and crisp handclaps of "Sexy Results" that somehow manage to bring to mind the 80's chestnut "Electric Avenue" and at the same time more recent groove-punk favorites The Rapture(related to a completely different Death From Above, but that's a whole story in and of itself). It's as though one has walked into some twisted futuristic disco where half of the patrons were never informed that punk was dead.
Part robotic, part sexy, and all attitude, You're A Woman, I'm A Machine is smoldering makeout music for sweaty, hot pants cyborgs, and quite possibly one of the most original albums I've heard in the last year and without a doubt, one of my favorites.
Key Tracks: Romantic Rights, Blood On Our Hands, Black History Month, Sexy Results
... and your mother smelt of eldeberries!
Helloooooo folks,
Ah - how nice it is to return to a desk from a weeks long vacation and find you have zero messages on your phone... it is a very nice way to ease back into things.
Camp was zwonderful! Tanning - swimming - no fish caught... no skiing either. But we had a ball. Two books read; "a Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by David Webb... and Richard Ford's "Multitude of Sins." Both were superior reads... trying to get through "On the Road."
Pics!!
This is the beautiful lake, Big Island Lake!
This is the dock - late at night after a sauna.
This is the cabin - lovely view of the lake.
This is a bar we went to called Rendezvous... loads of amazing kareoke!
Wait - here is a better view of the lake itself... ain't it pretty!!
And finally - here is the entrance to Frye Camp. There is some odd flare going on with the image... not sure what.
Sad to leave... but thrilled to be back and looking forward to some upcoming fun.
Pce!
Yo
(please note that the images were chosen at random and are a small part of the collection from the week)
Ah - how nice it is to return to a desk from a weeks long vacation and find you have zero messages on your phone... it is a very nice way to ease back into things.
Camp was zwonderful! Tanning - swimming - no fish caught... no skiing either. But we had a ball. Two books read; "a Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by David Webb... and Richard Ford's "Multitude of Sins." Both were superior reads... trying to get through "On the Road."
Pics!!
This is the beautiful lake, Big Island Lake!
This is the dock - late at night after a sauna.
This is the cabin - lovely view of the lake.
This is a bar we went to called Rendezvous... loads of amazing kareoke!
Wait - here is a better view of the lake itself... ain't it pretty!!
And finally - here is the entrance to Frye Camp. There is some odd flare going on with the image... not sure what.
Sad to leave... but thrilled to be back and looking forward to some upcoming fun.
Pce!
Yo
(please note that the images were chosen at random and are a small part of the collection from the week)
Listen! Listen, Listen,Listen,Listen,Listen!!!: Just Deux It.
Throughout history, the world has been blessed with the lasting legacies of several famous pairs of persons who have left their indelible mark on our pop culture consciousness. Abbott and Costello. Batman and Robin. Starksy and Hutch. Simon and Simon...the list could go on forever.
While it's a fact that there are many well known power couples in the world of music, the truth is that for every Carpenters and White Stripes that we know and love, there are several twosomes who never seem to break the seal of the mainstream. So this week, I've decided to bring you some music involving some lesser known duos who I think are absolutely amazing and deserving of more attention. So with apologies to Nike, and to the audience as a whole for this week's lame ass theme title, I'll get on with the show...
Quasi: R & B Transmogrification
What do you get when you take a bass player from the legendary Portland band Heatmiser(the one with Elliot Smith) and marry him to the drummer from Olympia based Riot Grrrl band Sleater-Kinney? No, not the premise for a wacky, yet ill-fated sitcom. You get the real life husband and wife group Quasi. Though Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss are no longer married, they managed to keep the band together. Wow.
Wow is also an apt exclamation to describe this record. Much like the Fiery Furnaces, these two have really carved a niche for themselves with strange instrumentation and wild keyboard driven grooves. What makes Quasi different than the Furnaces however, is that Sam is not playing the piano, or even any kind of garden variety synth. His main weapon of choice is the little known electrified harpsichord known as the Roxichord. With it, he lays down thick distorted carpets of indescribable sounds that buzz and float over the top of Weiss' insistent drumming which gallops like a wild mustang drinking from a trough of Red Bull. Vocally, he doesn't try to falsely convince the audience that he's some kind of golden throated dynamo, sticking to a slightly nasal, slightly devil may care attitude.
While this probably sounds bad in print, when coupled with the incisive and razor sharp wit in his brilliant lyrics, the whole package sparkles. Coomes takes on such disparate topics as mortality(the dirge-y When I'm Dead, My Coffin), robots(The Ballad of Mechanical Man) and especially love gone awry(Sugar, Chocolate Rabbit). My vote for possibly one of the best "screw you, person who broke my heart!" songs goes to "Chocolate Rabbit" for lines like "On Easter, got a chocolate rabbit/biggest one I ever had/you never know till you've bitten off the head/that it's hollow and the chocolate's bad". Snap, baby! You just got served!
Um, anyhow...if this review is a short one, it's only because this is one of those rare times where a band has concocted a sound so totally unique and engaging, I don't think there's anything a person can do to grasp it without listening to it for themselves.
Key Tracks: When I'm Dead, Chocolate Rabbit, Clouds
While it's a fact that there are many well known power couples in the world of music, the truth is that for every Carpenters and White Stripes that we know and love, there are several twosomes who never seem to break the seal of the mainstream. So this week, I've decided to bring you some music involving some lesser known duos who I think are absolutely amazing and deserving of more attention. So with apologies to Nike, and to the audience as a whole for this week's lame ass theme title, I'll get on with the show...
Quasi: R & B Transmogrification
What do you get when you take a bass player from the legendary Portland band Heatmiser(the one with Elliot Smith) and marry him to the drummer from Olympia based Riot Grrrl band Sleater-Kinney? No, not the premise for a wacky, yet ill-fated sitcom. You get the real life husband and wife group Quasi. Though Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss are no longer married, they managed to keep the band together. Wow.
Wow is also an apt exclamation to describe this record. Much like the Fiery Furnaces, these two have really carved a niche for themselves with strange instrumentation and wild keyboard driven grooves. What makes Quasi different than the Furnaces however, is that Sam is not playing the piano, or even any kind of garden variety synth. His main weapon of choice is the little known electrified harpsichord known as the Roxichord. With it, he lays down thick distorted carpets of indescribable sounds that buzz and float over the top of Weiss' insistent drumming which gallops like a wild mustang drinking from a trough of Red Bull. Vocally, he doesn't try to falsely convince the audience that he's some kind of golden throated dynamo, sticking to a slightly nasal, slightly devil may care attitude.
While this probably sounds bad in print, when coupled with the incisive and razor sharp wit in his brilliant lyrics, the whole package sparkles. Coomes takes on such disparate topics as mortality(the dirge-y When I'm Dead, My Coffin), robots(The Ballad of Mechanical Man) and especially love gone awry(Sugar, Chocolate Rabbit). My vote for possibly one of the best "screw you, person who broke my heart!" songs goes to "Chocolate Rabbit" for lines like "On Easter, got a chocolate rabbit/biggest one I ever had/you never know till you've bitten off the head/that it's hollow and the chocolate's bad". Snap, baby! You just got served!
Um, anyhow...if this review is a short one, it's only because this is one of those rare times where a band has concocted a sound so totally unique and engaging, I don't think there's anything a person can do to grasp it without listening to it for themselves.
Key Tracks: When I'm Dead, Chocolate Rabbit, Clouds
Friday, July 08, 2005
Listen! Listen...!!!: Worth A Thousand Words Pt. 3
To refresh everyone's memory, the theme this week is Worth A Thousand Words, a look at Instrumental Rock.
Explosions In The Sky: the earth is not a cold dead place
Back in 2001, a flare went up somewhere above Austin, Texas. Like a bright star falling from the sky, it became evident that this was only a figurative beacon. A warning shot had been fired by a group of four impassioned individuals who were coming to stake their claim on the territory that had been claimed for several years by post rock giants such as the orchestral Montreal collective Godspeed! You Black Emperor and Scottish dynamo Mogwai. For those of you unfamiliar with both GYBE! and Mogwai, they are both instrumental bands with very few vocals if any, and a penchant for taking the listener on a reverse bungee ride of sonically dynamic valley and peaks. To some it seems like as much a standard device as if they were any other band using an A-B-A style verse-chorus-verse format, but somehow the knowledge that these bands use the lull of sedate guitar passages to draw you in, only to be bashed with walls of crashing dissonance still keeps many of us coming back for more. If these bands are the reigning champs of this style, then Explosions In The Sky are the dark horse entries who truly deserve the crown. EITS have the quiet/loud thing down to be sure, but one thing I love about this album is that they don't feel that they need to use it constantly to be effective. In fact, one of the key elements that makes The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place so effective is their choice of less full on bombast and more tension.
Another excellent point about the album, is the textual interplay between the titles of songs and their contents. As I mentioned with Dirty Three's Ocean Songs earlier this week, the titles are not mere badges of identification for the songs, but an actual thematic anchor with which the listener can use as a basis of context in lieu of lyrics. Songs like "Six Days At The Bottom of The Ocean" for example, rely on skeletal guitar lines with accent notes, which drop out and give way to muffled drums and the faint echoes of notes, which are reminiscent of water rippling. The whole tune is given a dark, frenetic feel. Towards the end one can feel the palpable claustrophobia hinted at in the song's title. The same can be said of the opening track, "First Breath after Coma", in which the the steady, insistent bass is like a human heart, riding on shimmering cymbals in a dream like state, until the slow build up of the instruments into a steady burst of increasing melodic feedback and volume, like someone fitfully waking from an actual coma.
Throughout the album, the guitars shimmer and weave ethereal patterns that seem to spiral upwards from nowhere, backed by the steady bass and militaristic precision evident in the double stroked drumbeats that could have been lifted from a drum corps marching band.
In short, this band puts their heart, pathos, and joy into several mortars, aims to the heavens and puts on the best Goddamn fireworks display you'll never see.
Key Tracks: First Breath After Coma, The Only Moment We Were Alone, Six Days At The Bottom of The Ocean
Explosions In The Sky: the earth is not a cold dead place
Back in 2001, a flare went up somewhere above Austin, Texas. Like a bright star falling from the sky, it became evident that this was only a figurative beacon. A warning shot had been fired by a group of four impassioned individuals who were coming to stake their claim on the territory that had been claimed for several years by post rock giants such as the orchestral Montreal collective Godspeed! You Black Emperor and Scottish dynamo Mogwai. For those of you unfamiliar with both GYBE! and Mogwai, they are both instrumental bands with very few vocals if any, and a penchant for taking the listener on a reverse bungee ride of sonically dynamic valley and peaks. To some it seems like as much a standard device as if they were any other band using an A-B-A style verse-chorus-verse format, but somehow the knowledge that these bands use the lull of sedate guitar passages to draw you in, only to be bashed with walls of crashing dissonance still keeps many of us coming back for more. If these bands are the reigning champs of this style, then Explosions In The Sky are the dark horse entries who truly deserve the crown. EITS have the quiet/loud thing down to be sure, but one thing I love about this album is that they don't feel that they need to use it constantly to be effective. In fact, one of the key elements that makes The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place so effective is their choice of less full on bombast and more tension.
Another excellent point about the album, is the textual interplay between the titles of songs and their contents. As I mentioned with Dirty Three's Ocean Songs earlier this week, the titles are not mere badges of identification for the songs, but an actual thematic anchor with which the listener can use as a basis of context in lieu of lyrics. Songs like "Six Days At The Bottom of The Ocean" for example, rely on skeletal guitar lines with accent notes, which drop out and give way to muffled drums and the faint echoes of notes, which are reminiscent of water rippling. The whole tune is given a dark, frenetic feel. Towards the end one can feel the palpable claustrophobia hinted at in the song's title. The same can be said of the opening track, "First Breath after Coma", in which the the steady, insistent bass is like a human heart, riding on shimmering cymbals in a dream like state, until the slow build up of the instruments into a steady burst of increasing melodic feedback and volume, like someone fitfully waking from an actual coma.
Throughout the album, the guitars shimmer and weave ethereal patterns that seem to spiral upwards from nowhere, backed by the steady bass and militaristic precision evident in the double stroked drumbeats that could have been lifted from a drum corps marching band.
In short, this band puts their heart, pathos, and joy into several mortars, aims to the heavens and puts on the best Goddamn fireworks display you'll never see.
Key Tracks: First Breath After Coma, The Only Moment We Were Alone, Six Days At The Bottom of The Ocean
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Congratulations!!
I just want to say congratulations to my lovely wife Holly for accepting a new position with the Meredith Corporation. Not only is she now making almost double what I make, but she is working downtown too. I am extremely jealous, yet proud as hell. Congratulations Holly!
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Listen! Listen...!!!, etc.:Worth A Thousand Words Pt. 2
This week's theme is Worth A Thousand Words, a look at instrumental rock/post-rock music. In the case of today's band, the rock element is not very obvious at all.
Rachel's: Systems/Layers
Los Angeles. New York. Seattle. Louisville.
Which of these things seems out of place here? Considering the first three all have all had explosive music scenes attached to them at one time or another, the first response one would most likely get would be that Louisville seems like the obvious answer. Not me.
In the early 1990's after the explosion of the "grunge scene" in the Pacific Northwest, musicians became jaded as the world began watching for the next big thing to blow onto the scene. Jaded, there was a backlash brewing against the very cornerstones of traditional rock music as we knew it. A movement to use the instruments of "Rock" to make something that eschewed little things like structure and hooks. To begin making artistic, challenging new pieces of music by taking down the monument of the old guard using the very tools that had built it. It was then that post rock was born. In unassuming little Louisville, KY, two bands with an deep and nearly invisible cascade of influence that has run through more bands than one could count, came together. Slint, whose Spiderland is possibly one of the most criminally overlooked albums that influenced experimental music today, as well as Rodan, who released the album Rusty.
Rodan, whose album was nowhere near as well known or influential as Slint's, had two principal members who have gone on to do some incredible work. Guitarist Jeff Mueller formed math-rock outfit June of 44, while bassist Jason Noble went on to form Rachel's, and both of them play together in another Post-Rock band called The Shipping News. Of these bands, I believe the most unique and interesting is Rachel's. Rachel's is not actually a post-rock band per se. It's a chamber music group. Noble, along with pianist Rachel Grimes, and Violist Christian Fredericksen formed the core Rachel's group in 1995, naming themselves after the name Noble had given to his Toyota Corolla. While the music itself is of a classical nature, the approach is anything but. What makes this special is the outside the box ethic that served Noble so well during the tenure in his post-rock bands, and how it is applied to what could be traditionally dry material.
Though the group has put out several albums, all of them wonderful, I chose to present Systems/Layers which came out in 2003. This work shows the group at one of their most experimental stages, writing this particular album for the SITI Company, a New York based theatre group. In the formative stages of the album, the members of Rachel's encouraged their fans to send in tapes of any kinds of ambient sounds that were present in their daily lives so that they might actually incorporate them into music. The results are stunning. The album is a bit of an emotional roller coaster, taking the listener from joyous bouncing peaks urged on by enthusiastic piano phrases, to grand and melancholy whispers of the viola that could bring one to tears. There is a grandness to the scope of the work, not quite cinematic as is their debut album Handwriting, but dramatic in a far different way. When one can hear conversational bits culled from real people punctuating the sad undulating strings or the mutitracked vocals over clanging ethnic percussion present on the track "Reflective Surfaces" and especially the heart-stopping guest appearance of Shannon Wright on "Last Things Last", it is easy to quickly realize this is not your parents' chamber music.
Key Tracks: Water From The Same Source, Aterial, Esparanza, Last Things Last
Rachel's: Systems/Layers
Los Angeles. New York. Seattle. Louisville.
Which of these things seems out of place here? Considering the first three all have all had explosive music scenes attached to them at one time or another, the first response one would most likely get would be that Louisville seems like the obvious answer. Not me.
In the early 1990's after the explosion of the "grunge scene" in the Pacific Northwest, musicians became jaded as the world began watching for the next big thing to blow onto the scene. Jaded, there was a backlash brewing against the very cornerstones of traditional rock music as we knew it. A movement to use the instruments of "Rock" to make something that eschewed little things like structure and hooks. To begin making artistic, challenging new pieces of music by taking down the monument of the old guard using the very tools that had built it. It was then that post rock was born. In unassuming little Louisville, KY, two bands with an deep and nearly invisible cascade of influence that has run through more bands than one could count, came together. Slint, whose Spiderland is possibly one of the most criminally overlooked albums that influenced experimental music today, as well as Rodan, who released the album Rusty.
Rodan, whose album was nowhere near as well known or influential as Slint's, had two principal members who have gone on to do some incredible work. Guitarist Jeff Mueller formed math-rock outfit June of 44, while bassist Jason Noble went on to form Rachel's, and both of them play together in another Post-Rock band called The Shipping News. Of these bands, I believe the most unique and interesting is Rachel's. Rachel's is not actually a post-rock band per se. It's a chamber music group. Noble, along with pianist Rachel Grimes, and Violist Christian Fredericksen formed the core Rachel's group in 1995, naming themselves after the name Noble had given to his Toyota Corolla. While the music itself is of a classical nature, the approach is anything but. What makes this special is the outside the box ethic that served Noble so well during the tenure in his post-rock bands, and how it is applied to what could be traditionally dry material.
Though the group has put out several albums, all of them wonderful, I chose to present Systems/Layers which came out in 2003. This work shows the group at one of their most experimental stages, writing this particular album for the SITI Company, a New York based theatre group. In the formative stages of the album, the members of Rachel's encouraged their fans to send in tapes of any kinds of ambient sounds that were present in their daily lives so that they might actually incorporate them into music. The results are stunning. The album is a bit of an emotional roller coaster, taking the listener from joyous bouncing peaks urged on by enthusiastic piano phrases, to grand and melancholy whispers of the viola that could bring one to tears. There is a grandness to the scope of the work, not quite cinematic as is their debut album Handwriting, but dramatic in a far different way. When one can hear conversational bits culled from real people punctuating the sad undulating strings or the mutitracked vocals over clanging ethnic percussion present on the track "Reflective Surfaces" and especially the heart-stopping guest appearance of Shannon Wright on "Last Things Last", it is easy to quickly realize this is not your parents' chamber music.
Key Tracks: Water From The Same Source, Aterial, Esparanza, Last Things Last
Vintage Rides and Burnt Hides
As I probably mentioned yesterday, I went with my Dad to the Vintage Races at Pacific Raceways in Auburn, WA on Sunday. I had been before, but this was the July 4th run, and it's quite a bit busier and more exciting than some of the other events held during the year. It also taught me a valuable lesson, which is that if you are the type of person who never goes in the sun, either continue that streak, or wear SPF 1000000. I, dumbass that I am, wore nothing. I am paying the price, let me tell you. Anyhow, this story would really be worthless without pics so without further ado(I'm sorry Damfino is missing these, by the way)...
Ford GT40(I think they used to drive these in the 24 Hours of Le Mans)
Shelby GT 350 Mustang(Year Unknown)
Formula V(Small Racecar with VW powerplant)
Corvette Roadster Year 1960-something
Ford Falcon
Ok, this bad boy is the one I was telling you about last week. It's my Dad's 1966 Shelby GT 350. It's currently being worked on, which is why it's on a hydraulic lift. This thing sounds like Satan. Nothing polite about the engine whatsoever. It roars.
Hopefully, I will be able to get some more pics up once it comes back, or it's not up on the lift, one of the two.
Anyhow, thought you guys might get a little kick out of the vintage goodness. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Ford GT40(I think they used to drive these in the 24 Hours of Le Mans)
Shelby GT 350 Mustang(Year Unknown)
Formula V(Small Racecar with VW powerplant)
Corvette Roadster Year 1960-something
Ford Falcon
Ok, this bad boy is the one I was telling you about last week. It's my Dad's 1966 Shelby GT 350. It's currently being worked on, which is why it's on a hydraulic lift. This thing sounds like Satan. Nothing polite about the engine whatsoever. It roars.
Hopefully, I will be able to get some more pics up once it comes back, or it's not up on the lift, one of the two.
Anyhow, thought you guys might get a little kick out of the vintage goodness. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Listen! Listen, Listen, Listen, Listen, Listen!!!: Worth A Thousand Words
Hi everyone. In light of last week's little f**k up in which I singlehandedly crashed the Damfinoblog, I began thinking about doing a test run of a new format of the column. I'm thinking of introducing the theme at the beginning of the week and doing 4 or 5 daily reviews, rather than adding them all up and having a giant column at the end of the week that might blow up, we get a little taste everyday. Sound good?
I find that one of the most underappreciated pockets of the rock universe is that of instrumental rock. I find that usually instrumental rock is either greatly enjoyed, or thoroughly reviled. I, for one, cannot get enough of the stuff. Interestingly enough, even though this particular genre is pretty remote already as the mainstream listener goes, it splits and subdivides even further still. From dreamy electronics and keys and jazzy, spiraling explorations to baleful fiddles and post-rock chamber music, it takes many colors to paint a full picture of instrumental rock.
The Album Leaf: In A Safe Place
Jimmy LaValle is one of the driving creative forces of the dreamy, sedate band Tristeza. Apparently, one project was not enough for the guitarist, who began his own one man project which expanded the scope of his work with Tristeza into a subtle smattering of ambient sounds and his masterful guitar work. While touring in support of his 2001 album One Day I'll Be On Time, he opened for Icelandic powerhouse Sigur Ros. This was a fortuitous turn of events for LaValle, as his friendship with Sigur Ros led him to their studios in Iceland, where members of the band sat in with him as he recorded the 2004 album, In A Safe Place.
The sound of In A Safe Place gains a lot from its Icelandic surroundings. There is a certain amount of the same spacey wonder that comes from the trippy, layered sounds of both Sigur Ros' Agaetis Byrjun and their oddly titled ( ) albums. Glitchy beats and skittering electronic touches fall slowly on top of tense strings and bells, building a bridge between serene folkish textures and the 21st Century. It is perhaps the aural equivalent of watching a flurry of 0's and 1's dust a calm Norman Rockwell scene that paints itself in our minds. Overall, this album is a strange encapsulation of timeless sounds for a fantastic location that has and never will exist anywhere else but outside our dreams.
Key Tracks: Thule, On Your Way, The Outer Banks, Streamside
Dirty Three: Ocean Songs
There comes a time in the life of some classically trained musicians where the culmination of their hard work and study puts them on the map and they begin getting a fair amount of prestige and begin playing concert halls and such. Warren Ellis was not one of those.
Yes, he was a classically trained violinist. But instead of taking the straight and narrow, the creative and enterprising Ellis placed guitar pickups on his violin and teamed up with two former band mates, guitarist Mick Turner and drummer Jim White, to form the trio Dirty Three. The group slowly became one of the most interesting exports from Australia since Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds.
1998's Ocean Songs was a slight departure in the band's sound from 1996's more raucous Horse Songs. Turner's sparse echoing guitar lines and the subtle scampering brushwork on the drums by White leave spaces as open as the high seas themselves for Ellis' violin to color in those expansive tableaux of blue. And color it does. There are the mournful bayings of violin strings on "Sirena". The ingenious way in which the instrumentation on "Restless Waves" roll in with increasing levels of intensity from smooth to turgid. What Ellis and company accomplish is important: a seamless integration of the album's tone. This is less like a collection of separate songs and more like one contiguous work.
Possibly the easiest of Dirty Three's work for beginners, it is accessible and calming, unlike some of the crashing, dissonant crescendoes that are prevalent in some of their other work.
Key Tracks: Sirena, Deep Waters, Restless Waves, Sea Above/Sky Below
I find that one of the most underappreciated pockets of the rock universe is that of instrumental rock. I find that usually instrumental rock is either greatly enjoyed, or thoroughly reviled. I, for one, cannot get enough of the stuff. Interestingly enough, even though this particular genre is pretty remote already as the mainstream listener goes, it splits and subdivides even further still. From dreamy electronics and keys and jazzy, spiraling explorations to baleful fiddles and post-rock chamber music, it takes many colors to paint a full picture of instrumental rock.
The Album Leaf: In A Safe Place
Jimmy LaValle is one of the driving creative forces of the dreamy, sedate band Tristeza. Apparently, one project was not enough for the guitarist, who began his own one man project which expanded the scope of his work with Tristeza into a subtle smattering of ambient sounds and his masterful guitar work. While touring in support of his 2001 album One Day I'll Be On Time, he opened for Icelandic powerhouse Sigur Ros. This was a fortuitous turn of events for LaValle, as his friendship with Sigur Ros led him to their studios in Iceland, where members of the band sat in with him as he recorded the 2004 album, In A Safe Place.
The sound of In A Safe Place gains a lot from its Icelandic surroundings. There is a certain amount of the same spacey wonder that comes from the trippy, layered sounds of both Sigur Ros' Agaetis Byrjun and their oddly titled ( ) albums. Glitchy beats and skittering electronic touches fall slowly on top of tense strings and bells, building a bridge between serene folkish textures and the 21st Century. It is perhaps the aural equivalent of watching a flurry of 0's and 1's dust a calm Norman Rockwell scene that paints itself in our minds. Overall, this album is a strange encapsulation of timeless sounds for a fantastic location that has and never will exist anywhere else but outside our dreams.
Key Tracks: Thule, On Your Way, The Outer Banks, Streamside
Dirty Three: Ocean Songs
There comes a time in the life of some classically trained musicians where the culmination of their hard work and study puts them on the map and they begin getting a fair amount of prestige and begin playing concert halls and such. Warren Ellis was not one of those.
Yes, he was a classically trained violinist. But instead of taking the straight and narrow, the creative and enterprising Ellis placed guitar pickups on his violin and teamed up with two former band mates, guitarist Mick Turner and drummer Jim White, to form the trio Dirty Three. The group slowly became one of the most interesting exports from Australia since Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds.
1998's Ocean Songs was a slight departure in the band's sound from 1996's more raucous Horse Songs. Turner's sparse echoing guitar lines and the subtle scampering brushwork on the drums by White leave spaces as open as the high seas themselves for Ellis' violin to color in those expansive tableaux of blue. And color it does. There are the mournful bayings of violin strings on "Sirena". The ingenious way in which the instrumentation on "Restless Waves" roll in with increasing levels of intensity from smooth to turgid. What Ellis and company accomplish is important: a seamless integration of the album's tone. This is less like a collection of separate songs and more like one contiguous work.
Possibly the easiest of Dirty Three's work for beginners, it is accessible and calming, unlike some of the crashing, dissonant crescendoes that are prevalent in some of their other work.
Key Tracks: Sirena, Deep Waters, Restless Waves, Sea Above/Sky Below
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Good Morning!
I hope everyone had a fun and safe Holiday weekend!
The wife, family and I all checked out Oceans of Fun this weekend and had a grand time. We even brought something back to Iowa for us to enjoy and pamper at our leisure: Sunburns. Ugh. When we first arrived it was raining and cold with no sign of it letting up, but eventually it subsided and everyone had a wonderful day. I would have liked to post some pics, but when we were packing we realized we loaned it to Jed so Hopefully he's putting it to good use in Minnesota.
Speaking of Damfino- he called yesterday as we were leaving to check out some fireworks and seems to be doing well and having fun. It was kind of hard to really tell due to the cell phone constantly cutting out, but I would assume ( I know, I know it's the mother of all fuck ups) he wouldn't call unless he wanted to rub in how much of a good time he was having at camp.
Also, we all checked out the Urbandale fireworks show last night and although it kind of sucked (which is unusual for Urbandale) there was an amazing ending. They started the finale and all of a sudden the fireworks started shooting into the crowd. Everyone that was laying in the grass jumped to their feet and started running. It was actually pretty scary and I hope nobody was hurt, but I'm truly doubting it.
How was everyone else's?
If you're girl steps up
I'm smacking the Ho
Old School Rap Baby
The wife, family and I all checked out Oceans of Fun this weekend and had a grand time. We even brought something back to Iowa for us to enjoy and pamper at our leisure: Sunburns. Ugh. When we first arrived it was raining and cold with no sign of it letting up, but eventually it subsided and everyone had a wonderful day. I would have liked to post some pics, but when we were packing we realized we loaned it to Jed so Hopefully he's putting it to good use in Minnesota.
Speaking of Damfino- he called yesterday as we were leaving to check out some fireworks and seems to be doing well and having fun. It was kind of hard to really tell due to the cell phone constantly cutting out, but I would assume ( I know, I know it's the mother of all fuck ups) he wouldn't call unless he wanted to rub in how much of a good time he was having at camp.
Also, we all checked out the Urbandale fireworks show last night and although it kind of sucked (which is unusual for Urbandale) there was an amazing ending. They started the finale and all of a sudden the fireworks started shooting into the crowd. Everyone that was laying in the grass jumped to their feet and started running. It was actually pretty scary and I hope nobody was hurt, but I'm truly doubting it.
How was everyone else's?
If you're girl steps up
I'm smacking the Ho
Old School Rap Baby
Friday, July 01, 2005
Plans For the 4th?
Hey everyone. I saw there was no post up yet, so I thought I would throw something up for the hell of it. I think I might be attending the Vintage Races this weekend with my Dad, but other than that, I have no clue.
What's everyone else doing this weekend? Anything fun?
What's everyone else doing this weekend? Anything fun?
Thursday, June 30, 2005
and... i'm spent!
Alrighty folks - I am off to see the grand lands of the great north. The fam is loading up the truckster and heading to Frye Camp for a week of fun in the sun... and bat swatting included.
I will return triumphantly on July 11th with tons of pics and tales of wooed woman and conquered cropie! I will miss you all.
Continue to damfinoblog your way to happiness... and don't be weary... your fearless leader shall return!
ONWARD!
yo
I didn't get a Hrumpf outta that guy!
Ok lads and lass'... I have republish Kern's super read in the hope that the site will come back up for most of you. Alex, I pulled the links to the cd's and you lost your font changes. This blog site is mighty simplistic - reign it in a tad muh man!
To all - I am shamed that I did not receive one comment for my Kong post... very un Yo.
Yo
To all - I am shamed that I did not receive one comment for my Kong post... very un Yo.
Yo
Listen take 2
Ah, Summer. No, not the cocktail waitress I flimsily made a pass at in Vegas, the actual season. While I eat, sleep and breathe music 365 days a year(and 366 on leap years), for some reason there is something different about music in the summertime. It's a time to pick exuberant tunes while riding in the car after work and on the weekends with all of the windows down and nodding and singing along quite badly. A time for rocking songs with extra huge hooks, and a contagious energy that make you happy it's warm and able to savor what few minutes you have to be relatively free.
This time out of the box, in increasing order of rowdiness, I thought I would choose some of the albums that just scream "It's Summer! Let's F**k!"
Wait...sorry, that was Dennis Hopper.
The albums I picked just make me grin like a lunatic and/or run around and shake my ass in the sunshine. Readers: Please note that your results may vary.
Astrud Gilberto: Astrud Gilberto's Finest Hour
As the season grows warmer, this young man's fancy turns to the summery sounds of Bossa Nova. For the uninitiated, Bossa Nova was a style of Latin music brought to fruition by Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim in the 1950's. This novel blending of improvisation borrowed from West Coast jazz with the breezy, relaxed rhythms of Brazilian music really caught fire in the States when the trio of respected Tenor Sax player Stan Getz teamed with Jobim and the relatively unknown up to that point, Joao Gilberto. While recording the smash hit, "The Girl From Ipanema", there was a desire to get a verse in English to make the song somewhat more accessible to American audiences. Neither Jobim nor Joao Gilberto felt they had a good enough grasp of English to do it, so they asked Gilberto's wife Astrud to give it a shot. The honey voiced ex-housewife's unassured, but sweetly crooned vocals were the missing link in that song which shot the Getz/Gilberto album to the number five in the Jazz and Easy Listening charts in the middle of 1964.
The rest was history.
This particular collection puts together a batch of some of the best material of her career. One of Astrud's greatest talents is the relative ease with which she can fit her voice to the material. She can be introspective and almost borderline melancholy on songs such as "Corcovado" and "Who Needs Forever" whose flourishes of languid strings swell and crash underneath her shy, unassuming voice, as smooth horns weave deftly in and out of the waves. On other cuts, however, she can be sassy and playful, such as the almost go-go influenced swing of "Canto de Ossanha(Let Go)" and the bouncy, snappy "Crickets for Anamaria". My only complaint about the album is the lack of the song that brought her to the forefront, "The Girl From Ipanema". Part of me, however, likes to believe that this is because this collection wanted to bring some of her other equally brilliant work to light, rather than focusing on the one hit that everyone knows.
Her voice carries the warmth of Rio and the easy flow of a tropical breeze, and her golden tones have just enough come hither to be sexy without resorting to tired diva posturing or being overtly slutty.
If summer were a woman, I'm damn sure it would be Astrud Gilberto.
Key Tracks: Corcovado, Wish Me a Rainbow, Canto de Ossanha, Trains and Boats and Planes
The Kinks: The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society
In the midst of the English Invasion, not all of those who descended upon American soil made as large an impression on our youth as The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. The Kinks led by Ray Davies, was one of the bands who were seemingly swallowed up in the shadow of those aforementioned bands. Initially, The Kinks had a very hard-charging guitar fuzzed treatment of the American R & B groups they had idolized and studied growing up. The result was a collection of lean, powerful and easily likeable pop tunes which served them well as American teens clamored for more of that New British sound. Somewhere after their American tour in 1965, they were not allowed entry into the US for causes unknown. It was during this time that Ray Davies decided to focus more on writing new songs which were both more personal and Anglocentric than any of his previous work. This led to some of The Kinks best output, releasing a string of highly creative and brilliant albums beginning with Face to Face in 1966 and ending with 1970's Lola Vs. Powerman And The Money-Go-Round.
In particular, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society is possibly the best of them. If one had to describe the overall tone of the album, that word would potentially be pastoral. It's difficult to really explain it, but there is a feeling of English countryside that permeates the album, even through the harder edged rock numbers. Davies' songwriting is self-assured, building beautiful harmonies and melodies with strings and brushes of harpsichord, rather than relying on the crunch and distortion of some of their late Sixties contemporaries. The songs here are allowed to stretch out and breathe, imbued with an adequate dose of humor and reverence for their homeland. From lovely ballads to dark, hazy guitar freakouts, the album is a good balance of calm, sweet portraits of persons and places and fuzzier, bombastic rock moments without losing the overall cohesive feel of the album as a whole. God save the Village Green, indeed.
Key Tracks: Do You Remember Walter, Picture Book, Big Sky, Wicked Annabella
The Minders: Cul-de-Sacs & Dead Ends
If the lead singer of Portland, Oregon's The Minders sounds kind of British...it's because he actually is. Originally hailing from over the pond, Martyn Leaper transplanted himself in Colorado where he enlisted the first lineup of The Minders before packing up and reforming in Portland. His spunky, candy coated jaunts drew the attention of Robert Schneider of the band Apples in Stereo, and braintrust of a loosely affiliated group of like minded neo-psychedelic artists known as the Elephant 6. This collective is home to such bands as Jeff Mangum's Neutral Milk Hotel, Phil Elvrum's Microphones, and Kevin Barnes' Of Montreal to name a few.
The Minders spin sweet strands of perfect pop. Like a slightly trippier, self effacing version of The Hollies or Herman's Hermits, they are energetic without being rowdy, pleasant without being cloying, and their songs are just quick enough to make you sad they aren't longer. Leaper and company's lo-fi antics play perfectly into the sunny throwback sounds that they have crafted. Replete with bizarre "Space Age" sound effects, effervescent guitars, and background "oohs" and "la la la"'s, Cul De Sacs & Dead Ends will hula hoop around your heart and make your spirit soar.
Key Tracks: Chatty Patty, Paper Plane, Now I Can Smile, Hand Me Downs
The Shins: Chutes Too Narrow
The Shins are perhaps best known from their two contributions to the Garden State soundtrack(New Slang, Caring Is Creepy) which lifted them to a slightly higher plateau of semi-obscurity. The band straddles two decades, looking back to the blissful sounds of late Sixties rock, but in contrast to the Minders, seem to pay homage to the bright, snappy material without attempting to emulate it. Mercer's voice is passionate against the backdrop of the loose freewheeling rhythm section, and is a great compliment to the bright guitars that bounce and gallop through the uptempo numbers(So Says I, Kissing The Lipless), and sound just mournful enough on the ballads(Pink Bullets). The use of clever lyrics and subtle touches of quiet, cascading keyboards and other quirky sounds coupled with lofty harmonies allow The Shins pull off a very difficult highwire act. By taking the best of their influences(The Beach Boys-circa Pet Sounds, and psychdelic folk bands like the Byrds) and infusing it with a certain moderninity that serves to remind us that they while they are indeed a band of their own making
Key Tracks: Kissing The Lipless, So Says I, Pink Bullets, Fighting In A Sack, Turn A Square
The Fiery Furnaces: Gallowsbird's Bark
In the year 2003, The White Stripes were the hottest brother and sister musical duo in memory. But as we all now know, they weren't brother and sister at all, but a pair of divorcees.
Enter the real, honest-to-God brother and sister team Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger, hailing from Brooklyn, NY. Calling themselves The Fiery Furnaces, the siblings released this collection of warped, raucous tunes in the fall 2003. To describe the sounds of The Fiery Furnaces to someone who has not already heard them is difficult at best. They probably have a fair amount of influences, but none of them are immediately perceptible, and finding any sort of contemporary musical reference is even more futile.
The songs themselves are witty, crazy slices of boozy blues admiring themselves in a hall of funhouse mirrors. Similar to Jack White's unique screaming guitar sounds, Matthew is able to charm some of the wildest talk from his instrument I think I've ever heard. It's as though his parents left him in a guitar shop, and he was raised by a wild pack of wah-wah pedals. Eleanor's voice, which sounds almost strangely Victorian in some almost imperceptible way, matter of factly sprinkles her charmingly bizarre lyrical material as she rides over the top of the whole affair on antiquarian piano chords and dirty squelching and squiggling synth lines. For the most part Gallowsbird's Bark is filled with spirited merrymaking, but when the time comes to slow down and and be earnest, they never falter. The whole package is wrapped up with a giant wink and a grin to the audience as though they don't know exactly what the hell they've done either, but they know it's damned good; music for grandparents writ hip in a Bizarro universe. I don't know that it could honestly be pigeonholed into a genre, even if pressed. Hmm...um....
Er, Vaudeville Garage Rock, anyone?
Key Tracks: I'm Gonna Run, Inca Rag/Name Game, Don't Dance Her Down, Bow Wow, Rub-Alcohol Blues
The Go! Team: Thunder, Lightning, Strike
I've saved the wildest album this week for last, and Christ on a Cracker, it's a bloody barnburner.
First the bad news: Right now this album is only on import, and won't be released domestically(read: at a normal price) until a certain amount of remixing is done in order to get around some sample difficulties in the US. The good news is: The rest is
This is another album that is difficult to explain to people because of the sheer amount of different genres that comprise it. In this case however, rather than them being so subtle you can't quite place them, the members of The Go! Team practically put them on a t-shirt and wear it while standing outside on your lawn doing jumping jacks. Thunder, Lightning, Strike is a bombastic box of sugary cereal, though rather than little marshmallow bits and frosted nuggets, we get Vince Guaraldi-esque piano lines(the guy who did Charlie Brown), brisk drumming, double dutch chant vocals, turntable scratches and harmonica riffs seemingly lifted from your favorite ABC Afterschool Specials from the 70's. Dig further and find uplifting Rocky horn stabs and sugar sweet breakbeats.
This is an infectious Insta-Smile. Tunes enriched with enough kitsch and groove to make even the thorniest wallflowers bloom into rump shaking wildmen(or women). Simply put, it's magic.
Or better yet, it's like watching Saturday morning cartoons while eating a bowl of Fruity Pebbles where someone has secretly switched the milk with E and wonders whether you'll notice.
And for my part, I would trade this album for that shitty decoder ring at the bottom of the box any day of the week.
Key Tracks: Ladyflash, Feelgood By Numbers, The Power Is On, Junior Kickstart
I hope these albums inspire people to get loose and really take advantage of the short, sweet time we only get once a year. Just remember, there's always mopey, depressing rock come September...
This time out of the box, in increasing order of rowdiness, I thought I would choose some of the albums that just scream "It's Summer! Let's F**k!"
Wait...sorry, that was Dennis Hopper.
The albums I picked just make me grin like a lunatic and/or run around and shake my ass in the sunshine. Readers: Please note that your results may vary.
Astrud Gilberto: Astrud Gilberto's Finest Hour
As the season grows warmer, this young man's fancy turns to the summery sounds of Bossa Nova. For the uninitiated, Bossa Nova was a style of Latin music brought to fruition by Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim in the 1950's. This novel blending of improvisation borrowed from West Coast jazz with the breezy, relaxed rhythms of Brazilian music really caught fire in the States when the trio of respected Tenor Sax player Stan Getz teamed with Jobim and the relatively unknown up to that point, Joao Gilberto. While recording the smash hit, "The Girl From Ipanema", there was a desire to get a verse in English to make the song somewhat more accessible to American audiences. Neither Jobim nor Joao Gilberto felt they had a good enough grasp of English to do it, so they asked Gilberto's wife Astrud to give it a shot. The honey voiced ex-housewife's unassured, but sweetly crooned vocals were the missing link in that song which shot the Getz/Gilberto album to the number five in the Jazz and Easy Listening charts in the middle of 1964.
The rest was history.
This particular collection puts together a batch of some of the best material of her career. One of Astrud's greatest talents is the relative ease with which she can fit her voice to the material. She can be introspective and almost borderline melancholy on songs such as "Corcovado" and "Who Needs Forever" whose flourishes of languid strings swell and crash underneath her shy, unassuming voice, as smooth horns weave deftly in and out of the waves. On other cuts, however, she can be sassy and playful, such as the almost go-go influenced swing of "Canto de Ossanha(Let Go)" and the bouncy, snappy "Crickets for Anamaria". My only complaint about the album is the lack of the song that brought her to the forefront, "The Girl From Ipanema". Part of me, however, likes to believe that this is because this collection wanted to bring some of her other equally brilliant work to light, rather than focusing on the one hit that everyone knows.
Her voice carries the warmth of Rio and the easy flow of a tropical breeze, and her golden tones have just enough come hither to be sexy without resorting to tired diva posturing or being overtly slutty.
If summer were a woman, I'm damn sure it would be Astrud Gilberto.
Key Tracks: Corcovado, Wish Me a Rainbow, Canto de Ossanha, Trains and Boats and Planes
The Kinks: The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society
In the midst of the English Invasion, not all of those who descended upon American soil made as large an impression on our youth as The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. The Kinks led by Ray Davies, was one of the bands who were seemingly swallowed up in the shadow of those aforementioned bands. Initially, The Kinks had a very hard-charging guitar fuzzed treatment of the American R & B groups they had idolized and studied growing up. The result was a collection of lean, powerful and easily likeable pop tunes which served them well as American teens clamored for more of that New British sound. Somewhere after their American tour in 1965, they were not allowed entry into the US for causes unknown. It was during this time that Ray Davies decided to focus more on writing new songs which were both more personal and Anglocentric than any of his previous work. This led to some of The Kinks best output, releasing a string of highly creative and brilliant albums beginning with Face to Face in 1966 and ending with 1970's Lola Vs. Powerman And The Money-Go-Round.
In particular, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society is possibly the best of them. If one had to describe the overall tone of the album, that word would potentially be pastoral. It's difficult to really explain it, but there is a feeling of English countryside that permeates the album, even through the harder edged rock numbers. Davies' songwriting is self-assured, building beautiful harmonies and melodies with strings and brushes of harpsichord, rather than relying on the crunch and distortion of some of their late Sixties contemporaries. The songs here are allowed to stretch out and breathe, imbued with an adequate dose of humor and reverence for their homeland. From lovely ballads to dark, hazy guitar freakouts, the album is a good balance of calm, sweet portraits of persons and places and fuzzier, bombastic rock moments without losing the overall cohesive feel of the album as a whole. God save the Village Green, indeed.
Key Tracks: Do You Remember Walter, Picture Book, Big Sky, Wicked Annabella
The Minders: Cul-de-Sacs & Dead Ends
If the lead singer of Portland, Oregon's The Minders sounds kind of British...it's because he actually is. Originally hailing from over the pond, Martyn Leaper transplanted himself in Colorado where he enlisted the first lineup of The Minders before packing up and reforming in Portland. His spunky, candy coated jaunts drew the attention of Robert Schneider of the band Apples in Stereo, and braintrust of a loosely affiliated group of like minded neo-psychedelic artists known as the Elephant 6. This collective is home to such bands as Jeff Mangum's Neutral Milk Hotel, Phil Elvrum's Microphones, and Kevin Barnes' Of Montreal to name a few.
The Minders spin sweet strands of perfect pop. Like a slightly trippier, self effacing version of The Hollies or Herman's Hermits, they are energetic without being rowdy, pleasant without being cloying, and their songs are just quick enough to make you sad they aren't longer. Leaper and company's lo-fi antics play perfectly into the sunny throwback sounds that they have crafted. Replete with bizarre "Space Age" sound effects, effervescent guitars, and background "oohs" and "la la la"'s, Cul De Sacs & Dead Ends will hula hoop around your heart and make your spirit soar.
Key Tracks: Chatty Patty, Paper Plane, Now I Can Smile, Hand Me Downs
The Shins: Chutes Too Narrow
The Shins are perhaps best known from their two contributions to the Garden State soundtrack(New Slang, Caring Is Creepy) which lifted them to a slightly higher plateau of semi-obscurity. The band straddles two decades, looking back to the blissful sounds of late Sixties rock, but in contrast to the Minders, seem to pay homage to the bright, snappy material without attempting to emulate it. Mercer's voice is passionate against the backdrop of the loose freewheeling rhythm section, and is a great compliment to the bright guitars that bounce and gallop through the uptempo numbers(So Says I, Kissing The Lipless), and sound just mournful enough on the ballads(Pink Bullets). The use of clever lyrics and subtle touches of quiet, cascading keyboards and other quirky sounds coupled with lofty harmonies allow The Shins pull off a very difficult highwire act. By taking the best of their influences(The Beach Boys-circa Pet Sounds, and psychdelic folk bands like the Byrds) and infusing it with a certain moderninity that serves to remind us that they while they are indeed a band of their own making
Key Tracks: Kissing The Lipless, So Says I, Pink Bullets, Fighting In A Sack, Turn A Square
The Fiery Furnaces: Gallowsbird's Bark
In the year 2003, The White Stripes were the hottest brother and sister musical duo in memory. But as we all now know, they weren't brother and sister at all, but a pair of divorcees.
Enter the real, honest-to-God brother and sister team Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger, hailing from Brooklyn, NY. Calling themselves The Fiery Furnaces, the siblings released this collection of warped, raucous tunes in the fall 2003. To describe the sounds of The Fiery Furnaces to someone who has not already heard them is difficult at best. They probably have a fair amount of influences, but none of them are immediately perceptible, and finding any sort of contemporary musical reference is even more futile.
The songs themselves are witty, crazy slices of boozy blues admiring themselves in a hall of funhouse mirrors. Similar to Jack White's unique screaming guitar sounds, Matthew is able to charm some of the wildest talk from his instrument I think I've ever heard. It's as though his parents left him in a guitar shop, and he was raised by a wild pack of wah-wah pedals. Eleanor's voice, which sounds almost strangely Victorian in some almost imperceptible way, matter of factly sprinkles her charmingly bizarre lyrical material as she rides over the top of the whole affair on antiquarian piano chords and dirty squelching and squiggling synth lines. For the most part Gallowsbird's Bark is filled with spirited merrymaking, but when the time comes to slow down and and be earnest, they never falter. The whole package is wrapped up with a giant wink and a grin to the audience as though they don't know exactly what the hell they've done either, but they know it's damned good; music for grandparents writ hip in a Bizarro universe. I don't know that it could honestly be pigeonholed into a genre, even if pressed. Hmm...um....
Er, Vaudeville Garage Rock, anyone?
Key Tracks: I'm Gonna Run, Inca Rag/Name Game, Don't Dance Her Down, Bow Wow, Rub-Alcohol Blues
The Go! Team: Thunder, Lightning, Strike
I've saved the wildest album this week for last, and Christ on a Cracker, it's a bloody barnburner.
First the bad news: Right now this album is only on import, and won't be released domestically(read: at a normal price) until a certain amount of remixing is done in order to get around some sample difficulties in the US. The good news is: The rest is
This is another album that is difficult to explain to people because of the sheer amount of different genres that comprise it. In this case however, rather than them being so subtle you can't quite place them, the members of The Go! Team practically put them on a t-shirt and wear it while standing outside on your lawn doing jumping jacks. Thunder, Lightning, Strike is a bombastic box of sugary cereal, though rather than little marshmallow bits and frosted nuggets, we get Vince Guaraldi-esque piano lines(the guy who did Charlie Brown), brisk drumming, double dutch chant vocals, turntable scratches and harmonica riffs seemingly lifted from your favorite ABC Afterschool Specials from the 70's. Dig further and find uplifting Rocky horn stabs and sugar sweet breakbeats.
This is an infectious Insta-Smile. Tunes enriched with enough kitsch and groove to make even the thorniest wallflowers bloom into rump shaking wildmen(or women). Simply put, it's magic.
Or better yet, it's like watching Saturday morning cartoons while eating a bowl of Fruity Pebbles where someone has secretly switched the milk with E and wonders whether you'll notice.
And for my part, I would trade this album for that shitty decoder ring at the bottom of the box any day of the week.
Key Tracks: Ladyflash, Feelgood By Numbers, The Power Is On, Junior Kickstart
I hope these albums inspire people to get loose and really take advantage of the short, sweet time we only get once a year. Just remember, there's always mopey, depressing rock come September...
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
No no Kong!
So it is finally here - the first brief glimpses of Peter Jackson's KING KONG. Check out the trailer.
My first reaction is... ugh.
My second is... UGH!
I am completely dismayed by Jack Black and his narration - it just does not hold up the ominous mood that is supposedly being set. Some of the island stuff looks cool - the voodoo scenes are semi-creepy.
I am just not sure anything is really working for me here. Especially that shot tracking out of the cave when you hear Kong growl... lame!
And they toss in a shot of Kong in the city before the trailer even sees Kong for the first time. Just don't make no sense.
"My cousin was in Jurassic Park - he said Spielberg is a d*ck!"
Watts is a fine choice.
I can dig the imagery...
...but not so sure of Kong's constipated look.
Check it out for yourself... this sure aint no Lord of the Rings.
Yo
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