Category Archives: general

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Wilco meets Popeye: Dawned On Me (video)

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dawnedonme

Everything is coming up Wilco lately.

There’s nothing quite like a 2 1/2-hour set — stuffed with a catalog-spanning 26 tracks (check the pie chart!) — to gently remind you of the greatness that exists in my Wilco collection. Since Saturday’s show at Gammage Auditorium, I’ve gone on a little Wilco bender, from watching the band’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert in October to falling in love with Summerteeth all over again. (Their newest rendition of “Via Chicago,” which morphs from hushed acoustic stillness to a chaotic blur of drumming/noise behind it, was startling and spectacular.)

On Wednesday, the band released its first video since 1999 — an animated take for “Dawned On Me,” starring Popeye and friends. Naturally, frontman Jeff Tweedy has his sights set on Olive Oyl. It’s a fun, if not totally senseless, collaboration, and you can poke around www.wilcospinach.com for more.

Setlist for Wilco at Gammage Auditorium, Jan. 21, 2012:
One Sunday Morning
Art of Almost
I Might
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart
One Wing
Bull Black Nova
(Was I) In Your Dreams
Black Moon
Impossible Germany
I’ll Fight
Hotel Arizona
Jesus, Etc.
Born Alone
Capitol City
Handshake Drugs
I’m Always In Love
Dawned on Me
Hummingbird
Shot in the Arm

ENCORE:

Via Chicago
Whole Love
Box Full of Letters
California Stars
Heavy Metal Drummer
Walken
I’m The Man Who Loves You

general, video

Portugal. The Man: So American (video)

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Portugal. The Man

I’m still taking inventory on 2011, though I’m not committed to posting a year-end favorite albums list – something I also didn’t do last year, and at this point, does anybody really care?

I think it’s fair to say that Portugal. The Man’s In The Mountain In The Cloud would land in my mythical Top 10, an album that I came to late in the year (despite its mid-summer release) and dominated my listening habits in the final months of ’11. In no time at all, as if by osmosis, I would hear my wife humming Portugal tunes out of nowhere.

In truth, I had listened to In the Mountain not long after it was released. But like so many albums, I first spun it while I was working and it was doomed to fade into the background lest it fracture my focus. Then the band played the song “So American” on Conan in September, and it wasn’t long before I hopped back on the wagon.

I loved the 2007 album Church Mouth, so it wasn’t a stretch to think I’d like this one. Turns out, I really liked it. “So American” ended up on the year-end mix CD I make – a post on that process soon, I think – and it’s one of the songs that’s generated a lot of positive feedback from friends.

I’d never stopped to think about the Elton John-like influence on this song (and most of the album) until my wife said something (she’s really the one who should be blogging here). And it’s a comment that’s been repeated a couple times by friends.

So in the better-late-than-never department, here’s the video (released in October) for “So American,” with the guys in the band flaunting their pale bods (to be fair, they are from Alaska) bro-ing down at the beach and a campfire.

Coincidentally enough, after typing out this post on Sunday night, the band announced dates Monday morning for the Jagermeister Music Tour, including an April 6 stop at Crescent Ballroom. A limited number of tickets, with waived fees in some cases, can be purchased through the band here.

And here they are performing an acoustic version of the song:

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PAPA: A Good Woman is Hard to Find EP

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It might be helpful if, before I go to a show, I do a little homework on the opening band. Then I’d probably know if said band was any good. I’d also probably know if it was led by someone that’s in another fairly popular band. But then, sometimes it’s nice to be surprised. And that was the case with PAPA, which opened for Handsome Furs on Wednesday night at Crescent Ballroom.

Led by Girls drummer Darren Weiss (who also sings – a feat of coordination not often seen), PAPA had me at the first song of its set, “Collector,” which I frantically tracked down the next day. It’s part of a five-song EP, A Good Woman is Hard to Find, that was released in October on Hit City U.S.A./Psychedelic Judaism. Seriously, I want to amend the year-end mix CD I make for friends to include “Collector,” a pop earworm that winds up and really lets loose around the 2:40 mark, with Weiss working up from a whisper before hollering, “I just want to be quiet now!” It was a great moment live, and a wise choice as an opening song.

Stream the EP below and pick it up on limited-relase vinyl at Hit City U.S.A.

Here’s the video for “I Am the Lion King”:

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New Miniature Tigers: Female Doctor (plus album release date, tracklisting)

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It was about four months ago that we heard “Boomerang,” the first bit of material from the forthcoming Miniature Tigers album Mia Pharaoh.

Now there’s a release date (March 6 on Modern Art), an album cover (above), a tracklisting (below) and another new tune (“Female Doctor”) as the New York-by-way-of-Phoenix band follows up on 2010’s Fortress.

Spin premiered “Female Doctor,” along with its (possibly NSFW?) cleave-teasing video that was spliced together from clips of Eastern European reality TV. As for the song itself, “Female Doctor” makes a grab for glam-pop, with its infectious synth lines and danceable beat.

Stream the song and watch the video at Spin.

Mia Pharaoh tracklisting:
1. Sex On The Regular
2. Female Doctor
3. Cleopatra
4. Afternoons With David Hockney
5. Easy As All That
6. Flower Door
7. Boomerang
8. Ugly Needs
9. Angel Bath
10. Husbands and Wives

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Digital Leather: Young Doctors in Love

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As usual every January, I’ve barely wrapped my head around the previous year while new songs and albums are emerging for what will likely make for another promising 12 months of music.

The first song to grab my attention for the new year comes from the Yuma, Ariz.-born Shawn Foree (aka Digital Leather), whose forthcoming full-length, Modern Problems, will be released Feb. 14 on FDH Records. The album is Foree’s first since the death of his good friend Jay Reatard last January and, in his own words, “is a narrative of the grieving process.”

“Lyrically, this is personal stuff. I’m letting it all hang out – the beautiful as well as the hideous. I was conscientious about the lyrics, but not to the point of tedium.”

The first leak, “Young Doctors in Love,” immediately pulls you into Foree’s fuzzed-out synths and emotional state of mind. He says he created an alter-ego, writing the album from the vantage point of a character who lost a loved one, and “Young Doctors” expresses that from the opening lines: “Just for one more night, let’s relive the past / You and I both know it’s disappearing fast.” (Later, he sings, “Hey, I think we’re alone now,” a coy nod to a recognizable refrain.)

Modern Problems, the follow-up to 2009’s Warm Brother (Fat Possum), is available for pre-order at FDH.

This post also reminds me that I’ve never written anything about Digital Leather’s 2009 cover of MGMT’s “Time to Pretend,” a brooding, lo-fi rendition that (I dare say) I prefer to the original. You can still grab it at Stereogum.

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Light in the Attic reissues Morphine’s Cure for Pain on vinyl

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Not to overly fetishize the notion of vinyl, but if any album belongs on wax — with all its clicks and pops and dusty imperfections — it has to be Morphine’s sophomore breakthrough, Cure for Pain. Other than a rare, 20-year-old Brazilian pressing (copies of which fetch $200-plus on eBay), the 1993 album has previously never been pressed to vinyl in the U.S.

But Light in the Attic — the Seattle-based label that specializes in reissues — has stepped up to fill the void, releasing a remastered, 180-gram version on its Modern Classics Recordings imprint. The reissue includes new liner notes and interviews with surviving band members.

It was, tragically, in July 1999 that frontman Mark Sandman collapsed on stage in Italy and died of a heart attack at the age of 46. (I had a ticket to see Morphine and Soul Coughing on Aug. 1 of the same year in Austin.) Between this reissue and the documentary, Cure for Pain: The Mark Sandman Story (read a Q&A with the filmmakers here), the off-beat Boston trio could reach a new/wider audience, and deservedly so.

Without the use of and need for an electric guitar, Morphine branded its form of “low rock” around Sandman’s homemade two-string slide bass, accompanied by Dana Colley on sax (long before Destroyer, Bon Iver and the like found it cool) and Billy Conway on drums. Almost twenty years later, Cure for Pain sounds as moody and original as it did when I was 16 years old — but now, in my mid-30s, Sandman’s lyrics feel a little more real.

I can’t wait to get my hands on this reissue and my eyes on the documentary. Check out the trailer for it below:

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The Twilight Sad: Never Tear Us Apart (INXS cover)

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I’ve long pestered my brother about his band doing an INXS cover – preferably something off Welcome to Wherever You Are (such a good album) and preferably the song “Not Enough Time.”

Maybe that’ll happen in the future, but in the meantime The Twilight Sad is offering a dark, lo-fi version of the INXS song “Never Tear Us Apart,” from the equally excellent 1987 album Kick. It’s available as a free Christmas gift – inspired by its appearance on the soundtrack to Donnie Darko, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary – though the typically bleak and simmering emotions from these angry Scots will undoubtedly dampen your holiday spirits.

Head to the band’s site to send an e-card to that special mope in your life.

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Mayer Hawthorne: Dreaming (video)

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rockafire

Looking back, is there anything more terrifying than The Rock-afire Explosion, the animatronic house band from Showbiz Pizza Place back in the day?

I had heard about the documentary that was made about the band and a man’s nostalgic quest to purchase his very own Rock-afire Explosion. And now Mayer Hawthorne’s new video for the song “Dreaming” has reminded me to add the movie to our Netflix queue.

Nostalgia was a key theme to Hawthorne’s video for the song “A Long Time,” also off his new album How Do You Do. For “Dreaming,” Hawthorne takes two girls on a pizza date before joining Rock-afire on stage.

It never dawned on me as a child, but why the hell is there a cheerleader in the band?

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Jimmy Eat World headlines Wooden Blue records reunion/benefit: Dec. 23 at Crescent Ballroom

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I’ve been fortunate to hang around the Phoenix/Tempe music scene long enough to meet creative and ambitious people from every angle – musicians to promoters to writers and more. And inevitably in Phoenix, being the small big town that it is, paths cross. It usually makes for an enlightening game of six degrees of separation: This band has a guy who played in that band with so and so from another band … and on it goes. I’ve often thought of what a local music family tree would look like – probably a sprawling but familiar web of so many talented names.

And still there are stories and memories untold. I’ve known Jeremy Yocum and Joel Leibow – founders of Wooden Blue Records – for some time now, but it dawned on me that I’m woefully lacking in my history of their label, which they ran from the early to mid ’90s. I don’t recall the specific time – I likely didn’t meet them until my years at Arizona State, a few years after Wooden Blue’s time – but I know I met them through my brother, who was in a band with a guy who lived with a guy who … yeah, you get the idea.

For one night, Wooden Blue is getting the band(s) back together. Jimmy Eat World (who put out its self-titled debut, a 7-inch and a split 7-inch on Wooden Blue), Haskel, Aquanaut Drinks Coffee (whose Ryan Kennedy now plays with Reubens Accomplice), Halema’uma’u and possibly more will play a show on Dec. 23 at Crescent Ballroom in a benefit for Phoenix Children’s Hospital. It’s $15, and you can buy tickets here, assuming it hasn’t sold out by the time you’ve read this.

I’ve already talked with Jeremy about a possible Q&A in advance of the show. In the meantime, you can dig through the Wooden Blue MySpace page for music, flyers and photos. And just to make sure the connections continue, I’ve been in touch with the man responsible for designing that great flyer you see above, Kevin Lane, about a new logo/design for this site.

Also, Aquanaut Drinks Coffee has a whole host of active mp3s, including this one dedicated to Yocum:

Jimmy Eat World: “Splat Out of Luck” (from self-titled debut):

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The National: High Beams (demo)

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Brassland, the label founded by Alec Hanley Bemis and twin National guitarists Aaron and Bryce Dessner, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month by giving away a song a day in November.

Now, I’m only about 19 days late on this, but there’s still time to get free goodies – and you can easily find some of the tracks Brassland already has given away.

The National, now playing to some 18,000 people these days, got its start from the New York-based label, and any fan (new or old) should take the time to explore the band’s early work on Brassland (not to mention other artists on the label like Baby Dayliner, Doveman and more). On Nov. 3, the label’s giveaway was a song called “High Beams,” which apparently is one of the earliest known demos by The National and has been out of circulation for five years (its last likely appearance coming on a 2005 Music For Robots compilation).

I believe the download link has vanished, but it’s still available to stream via SoundCloud below. As a demo recorded in 2000, this is obviously not the polished product we know now. But it’s great that the National and Brassland have offered it up, letting us trace the band back to its humble beginnings. Still, even in an early demo (and with the benefit of 10 years of material to compare it to), it’s pretty clear to see where the National was headed.

Pitchfork posted Brassland’s giveaway schedule, which includes another National track on Monday (“Mr. November” perhaps?).

Another of my favorites of the batch has been the Baby Dayliner track “When I Look Into Your Eyes,” a new song that is exclusive to the giveaway. New Baby Dayliner is always good in my book. Or as one commenter once said: “Baby Dayliner is pure tits.” I think that works well as a promotional quote for the next album.