I announced this show, which I’m helping curate, previously, but the venue has moved. We are official now: Source Victoria, Birdmonster and Traindead on March 8 at Yucca Tap Room in Tempe. No cover (as always at Yucca). 21 and over. Remember, Yucca is a cash-only bar.
Bring your friends. And their friends.
I love Stinkweeds. It’s the one record store in town that will sell albums on Monday that are due out Tuesday.
Such was the case yesterday when I bought the new Nada Surf album, Lucky. Even better, it came with a four-song bonus disc: Whose Authority (acoustic); I Like What You Say (acoustic); I Wanna Take You Home (feat. Juliana Hatfield) and Everyone’s On Tour. See? There really are benefits of still buying a CD (get it at Barsuk). And I haven’t even devoured what looks to be an intriguing set of liner notes.
Remember: Nada Surf at the Clubhouse on March 17 (via Stateside Presents). That same night is Born Ruffians and Cadence Weapon at Rhythm Room and Living Legends at the Brickhouse. Good lord! But now I see Sea Wolf is opening for Nada Surf, which could tip the scales in the favor of that show. You really can’t go wrong at any of them.
Check out the Nada Surf ecard, which has the Whose Authority video and in-studio clips.
UPDATE of the utmost importance!:
Happy 5th birthday to my niece Quinn! I can’t believe it. She was pictured on this blog in 2005, when she was 2. Of course, she’s not reading this (but her dad might be). Time flies, and I cannot believe Niece No. 1 is already 5 years old (and the big sister of two more beautiful girls). I am sure that big things await Quinn, who was a major reason I moved back to Phoenix (from Texas) in 2002 — and I’m so glad I did. Happy birthday, Quinn-o!
I’m hesitant to post a remix of a track when I’m guessing a majority of people haven’t even heard the original. But in case you missed it, Arrested Development (no, not this one) came back last year with the appropriately titled Since the Last Time, the group’s first release in more than 12 years. Mr. Wendal. Tennessee. Yes, that Arrested Development.
Like you might expect, Arrested Development – specifically, frontman Speech – spends a good portion of the first few songs getting reacquainted with the listener. On Miracles, Speech raps: “But 10 years later / back in the game / come on, push up the fader / if you believe in miracles.”
It all makes for an interesting quandary: Is the group just a piece of nostalgia for us now or can AD be relevant again? I guess there’s no right answer, but I think about some of the hip-hop groups that reunited recently – Digable Planets, A Tribe Called Quest (however briefly), etc. It seems these comebacks could possibly spoil whatever legacy was left behind.
That said, Since the Last Time (available on eMusic) is hardly some one-off piece of fluff. The messages of unity, peace and pride are still there, a natural continuation of 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life Of… , the album that put Arrested Development at the forefront of hip-hop (and pop music, for that matter) in the early ’90s.
I gotta say, it’s nice to have them back.
Video for Miracles:
Details are sketchy on this one. But the guys at Faux Show appear to be bringing Diplo to Phoenix on March 1.
It’s an 18-and-over show at some venue called Area, which is new to me. The venue’s MySpace page says Area is “a high-end, state-of-the-art industrial event space.” But they fail to include, you know, an address and stuff.
Well, that didn’t take long. There’s already a video for the first single from Elbow’s forthcoming record, The Seldom Seen Kid, that I posted about (with mp3) the other day.
Oh, boy. This has the potential to be either (a) amazing or (b) a trainwreck … or (c) an amazing trainwreck.
The last time I saw Destroyer was late last year in Tucson when he toured with the New Pornographers. It’s fair to say he was a little inebriated. And make no mistake: Destroyer plays on songs Destroyer writes. No more, no less. And I sorta picture Destroyer talking about himself in the third person, this image of a character a friend and I conjured up after seeing him stumble on and off the stage.
I haven’t taken to his solo material as much as his contributions to the New Pornographers (and the Hello, Blue Roses project), but there’s not a chance I’m missing this show.
If you come here regularly, then you already know I’m a fan of Jimmy Eat World, hometown pride aside. (I’ve already shared my feelings on the haters.)
Anyway, here’s the group’s new video for Always Be, the second single off the album Chase This Light. Looks like the Museum of Natural History, in which case I already prefer this video to the last time I saw the museum as a backdrop.
You can find the video for the first single, Big Casino, right here.
I stumbled across this hilarious bit of parody-meets-social commentary while listening to a mix that DJ Z-Trip put together for a radio station and posted for download.
When I heard the chorus – “hipsters are the new jocks / it don’t take much to realize that” – I had to have it.
This is what I know: The track is by an artist/graf writer called MESH from Brooklyn. And what better city from which to derive inspiration for a hipster-hating anthem. (As MESH says on his YouTube page, Williamsburg is hipster capital.)
The video (below) adds a nice visual twist of the knife, too. Check the beginning when Mesh asks a guy and a girl for a smug look, and the girl says she doesn’t want to do it: “Am I hitting too close to home?” Asymmetrical haircuts, skinny jeans, ironic mustaches. Ooooh, I can feel my blood pressure rise. You can win a game of hipster bingo just watching the video.
And is it just me or does Mesh sound a little like Shock G from Digital Underground?
Zane Lowe of BBC’s Radio 1 debuted the new single from Elbow, Grounds for Divorce, last week on his show. The song comes off the forthcoming record, The Seldom Seen Kid, due out in March on Fiction Records.
Singer Guy Garvey told BBC Radio’s 6 Music what to expect from the record:
“MP3 culture and download culture has meant that songs are sold on an individual song basis – on the quality of an individual song.
“But we very definitely wanted to make one last ‘album,’ if you know what i mean, in terms of – we are an album band, very definitely, and even if it’s picked apart it’s meant to be listened to start to finish.”
Well, until I get the full album, I’m going to have to survive on this radio rip of Grounds for Divorce, a blues-injected stomper that reveals the album’s title within the lyrics (“Mondays are for drinking to the seldom seen kid” … ?).
Around mid-March, the concert calendar really picks up, with bands either going to or coming from South by Southwest in Austin. So if I can’t go to SXSW, I’m happy to at least absorb the residual effects.
The Helio Sequence, whose new record on Sub Pop, Keep Your Eyes Ahead, comes out Jan. 29, is coming through with another Sub Pop band, Grand Archives. Place: Rhythm Room. Time: 8 p.m. Tickets: Right here.
I haven’t had the good fortune to get my hands on Keep Your Eyes Ahead, but I’ve enjoyed the lead single by the same name. If it’s any indication, the duo has lost a little of its electronic leanings for a more polished, traditional approach. I missed ’em the last time they came through, so this one’s circled on the calendar.
Stream Keep Your Eyes Ahead in its entirety at the group’s MySpace page.
WHILE WE’RE AT IT, Sub Pop has released for download a second single off Band of Horses’ fantastic Cease to Begin, and No One’s Gonna Love You is, without question, my favorite song on the album.
Its misleading title makes the payoff of the chorus all the more sweet: “No one’s gonna love you / more than I do.” I feel like BoH probably should have employed parentheses for the title in this case: No One’s Gonna Love You (More Than I Do). I’m sure they appreciate my input.