Finally, after almost six years of writing this blog, I have reason to use John Stamos’ name in a post title. I expect my traffic to explode accordingly. People are Googling “John Stamos,” right?
But seriously, this is a pretty gorgeous video for Try to Sleep, the first single off Low’s newly released album C’Mon.
Turns out, Stamos, who looks very Mad Men-esque here, is a fan of the band: “I’m actually good friends with their producer Matt Beckley, and he had played me some of the record while they we’re making it, which I loved. Ironically it turns out I was a big fan of one of their older songs Cue the Strings … I’m a sucker for a well written song with great harmonies, and when it came time for them to cast the video, they asked if I’d like to be involved, I liked the concept I was happy to be a part of it. The new record is on all the time at my place. One of my favorite indie bands.”
Sometimes, these moments can be subtle, which seems to be the case on the new album build a rocket boys!, a mostly subdued but elegant offering. That said, I probably overlooked Open Arms upon my initial handful of listens. But then I saw a video of Elbow performing the song live for Comic Relief as part of Red Nose Day, and, well, when you add a children’s choir and put the song’s chorus – “We got open arms for broken hearts – in this context of helping the needy, it’s hard not to get wrapped up in the power of it.
The band also released an official video for the song (albeit an edited version, by about 40 seconds or so), featuring the artwork of Oliver East:
As we creep closer to Record Store Day on April 16, the announcements of the exclusive releases that will bankrupt me are coming faster. (Glad I held onto that Stinkweeds gift certificate I got for Christmas.)
The numbered cassettes were assembled by hand (proof!) and feature inserts screenprinted onto vintage paper stock along with a coupon for a digital download of the tracks.
Here’s the tracklisting, which appears to include the Twilight Sad covering Frightened Rabbit’s Be Less Rude:
SIDE A (Frightened Rabbit)
1. Be Less Rude
2. I Feel Better
3. Snake
4. Keep Yourself Warm
5. The Greys
SIDE B (The Twilight Sad)
1. 2d
2. 3iv
3. 2c
4. Be Less Rude
Now, the press release says the tracks are “previously unheard,” but if you look hard enough, FatCat has built a demo archive of the submissions it receives. That includes a page with three Frightened Rabbit tracks: An Incident, The Greys and Be Less Rude. There’s no telling if these versions of Be Less Rude and The Greys – finished versions of which appear on the band’s debut album Sing the Greys – are the same as on the cassette, but I’ll be on the hunt for that tape regardless. I knew I saved my Pioneer double-cassette deck all these years for a reason.
I’d like to think that Jim Putnam and his Radar Brothers had such a good time last July at our five-year anniversary show at Yucca Tap Room that they just couldn’t wait to get back to the Valley. Less than a year later, the band is returning to play Rhythm Room in Phoenix on April 24, via Stateside Presents.
Last year, Radar Brothers were touring in support of their 2010 release The Illustrated Garden (Merge Records). And now the band is already hard at work on a new album, which apparently will be titled Radar Brothers Family Magnetic.
According to a recent website posting: “As this is turning out the be the largest line-up of Brothers yet, (and maybe sisters??…who knows) it has been dubbed the RADAR BROTHERS FAMILY MAGNETIC.”
After bringing aboard new members Be Hussey and Stevie Treichel for Garden, Putnam has expanded the lineup to include three more cohorts: Dan Iead (guitars, formerly of the Broken West), Ethan Walter (keyboards, guitar), and Brian Cleary (keyboards, formerly of the Movies).
Tickets for the Easter-night extravaganza are $10 and available here. Photos from last year’s show can be seen here.
Considering Telekinesis’ 12 Desperate Straight Lines is probably my most-played album of the young year, it was disappointing, to say the least, that Michael Benjamin Lerner had to cancel his Feb. 26 date at Sail Inn due to illness.
He vowed via Twitter he’d return – and who doesn’t hold everyone to their tweeted promises? – and it looks like he’s making good on that, albeit in an opening slot for Portugal. The Man on May 8 at Martini Ranch.
Combine that news with Wednesday’s release of a new video for the song Please Ask For Help, and I’m getting excited all over again about the album, a 32-minute burst of infectious pop and tangled-up emotions. The new video follows a tumultuous evening for a potentially doomed couple whose large, papier-mached heads can’t hide the awkward tension between the two.
You didn’t have to be a baseball fan to appreciate what The Baseball Project was doing on Friday night at Martini Ranch, part of the band’s weeklong tour playing spring training parks around the Valley.
Oh, I could tell my wife about Curt Flood, Ichiro Suzuki and Ted Fucking Williams until her eyes glaze over. I could try to explain why the delicate storytelling and intricate details of Buckner’s Bolero – the nearly six-minute anchor on the new album Volume 2: High And Inside – gives me the chills. But I quickly realized during the band’s inspired set that the stories – for the non-baseball nerds among us – could be secondary to what was going on musically.
After all, we are talking about some indie-rock heavyweights: Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate), Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows, The Minus 5), Peter Buck (R.E.M.) and Linda Pitmon (part of Wynn’s Miracle 3). Buck’s affiliation is, of course, exploited at every promotional turn, and it’s almost amusing – if not totally bizarre – to think that a member of R.E.M., on the heels of a new album, was tooling around the greater Phoenix area in a van to play ballpark concourses. (That said, he looked to be nothing but cordial and generous in signing autographs and spending time with fans.)
The band reached full boil when it launched into songs by Dream Syndicate (Tell Me When It’s Over), the Miracle 3 (Amphetamine) and the Minus 5 (Aw Shit Man and Twilight Distillery). As Jason Woodbury noted in his review at the New Times, “It was all exuberance and sweat last night. Save the blues for the end of the season.”
It was a great way to warm up for Opening Day, and gain a better appreciation for the talent that was collected on one stage.
To celebrate both, here’s a video (with sound that turned out amazingly clear) I took of the group performing Past Time, the opener off its 2008 debut, Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails.
Somehow, Aloe Blacc can sing about an oppressive relationship – as he does on Loving You Is Killing Me – and still make me smile. You can’t watch this video and not smile. It’s impossible.
In an update on the album version of the song – a little faster and a little tighter with a sprinkle of hand claps – Blacc finds himself in a bit of a dance-off with one of the coolest kids I’ve ever seen. And if there was any doubt about that, his name is Baby Boogaloo and he has a Twitter page, on which he says he loves to “pop, lock & breakdance.” Do your thing, Baby Boogaloo.
Watch the video and then pick up Blacc’s standout album Good Things, which would be on a list of my favorite albums of 2010, if I ever got around to writing such a post.
Having posted about a new Rival Schools song in October, I nearly forgot that Pedals, the new 10-years-in-the-making album, was officially released on Tuesday.
I haven’t had a chance to dive in, but the band – fronted by former Gorilla Biscuits/Quicksand frontman Walter Schreifels – put out a video for the song Wring It Out, in which a rock-and-roll exorcism is performed on a sinister-looking gal. It’s totally safe for work, unless you find fake green upchuck potentially offensive.
And speaking of Schreifels and Quicksand, a 7-inch of the band’s debut EP (1990) – which features the amazing Omission – will allegedly be released on Record Store Day, April 16 (obviously, hitting Stinkweeds early that day). But I still dream of the day someone remasters/rereleases Slip, the Quicksand classic from 1993.
Phoenix band Kinch has an album done and I can only imagine that it must be burning a hole in their pocket. The Incandenza, the group’s second full-length, is in the can and awaiting release, which, of course, is the tricky part.
But Kinch couldn’t keep a lid on the new material completely, and that’s to our benefit. Thanks to a clever widget the band developed, you can not only grab the new song Once, I Was a Mainsail (for the cost of your e-mail address), but you can share it with friends via Twitter/Facebook/Cher/Shih Tzu/Stevie Nicks/mixtape/chocolate chip cookie/Stinkweeds/Skype show/postcard. I kid you not.
So, really, there’s no reason for you not to share it (unless you were holding out for the carrier pigeon method). In Mainsail, singer Andrew Junker takes the listener on a bit of mythological (and metaphorical) journey of a mainsail set adrift by temptation. Musically, the song builds appropriately, a buoyant bass line carrying it to its screaming finale. More impressive, Junker somehow manages to wedge the word “archipelago” into the first verse, a colorful use of the language that grabs the imagination.
