Volcanic ash kept Frightened Rabbit from flying and thus playing Tempe last month, but we won’t hold that against them (assuming they reschedule, that is).
The band eventually made it over to the U.S. to pick up its scheduled tour in support of The Winter of Mixed Drinks. In June, Frightened Rabbit will put out another single off that album, a three-song digital release for Living in Colour. The single includes an alternative version and a remix by band member Andy Monaghan.
All three are available to stream at the FatCat Records website.
Anthony Hart, aka DJ HartBreaks, technically unleashed his first mixtape – The Long Goodbye – earlier this year, but he’s throwing a proper release party on Tuesday from 7-9 p.m. at downtown gallery Phoenicia Association (821 N. Third St., Phoenix).
I have a ton of respect for people who work to make Phoenix a more inviting cultural/musical destination and Anthony is one of those guys. He’s a resident at the weekly Downtime night at The Lost Leaf and helps curate Civic Space Jam, a free monthly event (every third Sunday) at downtown’s Civic Space Park.
Couple that with an impeccable taste in music – I’ve seen Anthony at everything from the Wilco/Grizzly Bear show in Tucson to Gift of Gab in Tempe (among others) – and you have yourself a well-rounded DJ who has released a mix that he – and Phoenix – can be proud of.
As the title suggests, The Long Goodbye is a personal statement, “a love letter or ode, whatever you want to call it,” Anthony says. He also told me earlier in the year, when the mix first came out: “This is also a representation or document of a lot of my favorite songs of last year. Several of the songs on the mix were staples in my DJ sets that I just happened to have a really personal connection to, be it the content, or mood/theme.”
ACT I — DAY:
Honey Pie North of The Border Intro
Pariah – Detroit Falls Mixdown
Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks
Animal Collective – Daily Routine (Phaseone Remix)
Bullion – Are You The One?
Bibio – Fire Ant
Floating Points – For You
Exile – In Love
Blockhead – Trailer Love
Slum Village – The Look Of Love
DERT – The Light (Common w/ Erykah Badu) / Jose Gonzalez – Heartbeats
Common – The Light (acapella)
Oh No – Dr. No’s Ethiopium
Guilty Simpson – Man’s World (instrumental)
Daedelus – It’s Madness (Nosaj Thing remix)
DERT – Dert is Full Of Love
Mayer Hawthorne – Just Ain’t Gonna Work Out (Astronote El Camino remix)
ACT II — NIGHT:
The Gaslamp Killer – Birthday Music
Frankie Valli – Beggin’ (Pilooski re-edit)
Florence & The Machine – You’ve Got The Love (xx remix)
Hijak – Tears
M.R.K.1 – Ready For Love
Guido – Beautiful Complication
Iron Shirt – I Gave You All My Love (Matt Shadetek’s I Gave You All My Dub remix)
Von D. feat. Phephe – Show Me
Solange Knowles – Stillness Is The Move
2000F & J Kamata – You Don’t Know What Love Is
Chromeo – Night By Night (Skream remix)
DZ – What You Won’t Do For Love
It’s a big day for releases with new ones out today from Broken Social Scene, the Hold Steady and the New Pornographers, whose fifth album, Together, has been crystallizing beautifully in my head over the past couple of weeks.
I didn’t quite envision a Brazilian martial arts/dance routine as a visual accompaniment, but the new video for Your Hands (Together) seems to match the song’s power-pop punch. The group’s synth player/multi-instrumentalist Blaine Thurier directed the clip and tells Spinner:
“It’s 100 percent real. There’s no camera trickery. They are doing Capoeira. It’s this Brazilian mix of martial arts and dance. It was developed by slaves and because they had their hands shackled, they could only kick and use their legs.”
As promised, The Baseball Project has delivered the second song of its “Broadside Ballads” series, in which the band writes and releases a song each month during the baseball season.
This one deals with something near and dear to my ever-broken heart: the Cubs. I can’t say I’m as optimistic as Scott McCaughey, who makes one bold prediction after another on Cubs 2010: “This is the Cubs year, 2010 / 102 years, this drought has to end / everybody from 1908 is dead.”
As McCaughey suggests in the song and in an interview, there are plenty of ifs involved for the Cubs to end their – and my – misery. And McCaughey isn’t a Cubs fan, so he can afford to make these reckless proclamations – “this will be the year of no last-minute choke” – without that feeling of perpetual dread that something will derail their season.
I know, it’s an awful way to think, and McCaughey seems to be challenging that pessimism, dismissing all those mishaps and countless curses (he doesn’t even mention Bartman) and asking us to envision that glorious moment.
I’ll never stop believing, I just hope he has Cubs 2011 ready for next season.
With a new album – At Night We Live – due out on May 25, a reunited Far will help ring in the release with a show at Rhythm Room on May 24. Tickets for the all-ages show are $15 and can be purchased here. Dead Country and Phoenix’s Constellation Branch open.
The band is taking pre-orders for the album, coming out on Vagrant, at its site, where you can also stream the single Deafening.
Water & Solutions made a huge impact in shaping my tastes back in the day, but I never had the chance to see Far live in the band’s original go-round. So I’m excited for the second opportunity.
You’ve heard Bloodbuzz Ohio and seen The National perform Terrible Love on Fallon. Now, the New York Times is offering a full stream of the highly anticipated High Violet, due out May 11, to accompany an NYT Magazine feature on the band.
After a couple listens, I’d say Bloodbuzz Ohio, Afraid of Everyone and England are the initial highlights. Also, is it just me or does Matt Berninger’s voice seem to dominate the mix? I guess it’s sort of hard to tone down that baritone, which has become a trademark of the band.
Anyway, that’s a small quibble for what is sounding like an astounding album.
I had little hesitation choosing to see Japandroids on Monday over Beach House after our Frightened Rabbit plans were derailed by that damn volcano. And now I’m starting to think Mother Nature intended for me to be at the Japandroids show all along because it was a pulsating performance, already my favorite concert of the young year. (Now if Frightened Rabbit reschedules for Phoenix, then I’ll get the best of both worlds.)
I didn’t keep a setlist, but I’m almost certain the Vancouver duo – playing their first show in Phoenix – tore through all of Post-Nothing and then some, including Darkness on the Edge of Gastown, Art Czars and its 7-inch B-side, the Big Black cover of Racer X. (I took some video, but I think my digital camera’s feeble audio capabilities were completely devastated by the volume levels.)
Three days before the Phoenix show, the guys stopped by KCRW in Los Angeles for a session on Morning Becomes Eclectic in which singer/guitarist Brian King explained the not-so-subtle secret to success as a two-man band: “The amps, especially their size and quantity, is what it’s all about.”
Here’s the KCRW setlist:
1. Crazy/Forever
2. Sovereignty
3. Art Czars
**Interview**
4. Rockers East Vancouver
5. Wet Hair
6. Young Hearts Spark Fire
I recommend watching the entire session, but KCRW also uploaded Art Czars to its YouTube channel if you just want to watch that (and, man, I love this song):
Now that Record Store Day is over, I’m revisiting all the exclusive releases to see what I missed and what I can still find.
First on the list is a 7-inch by The One AM Radio for the new song Credible Threats, which includes a Mae Shi remix on the B-side. The limited-edition record – only 500 copies were pressed – also comes with a download code for both tracks and a bonus remix by Jogger and (here’s the best part) 3-D glasses to watch the video for the song.
The group and Dangerbird Records has kindly offered a free download of the song, but you’ll have to buy the 7-inch to get the other goodies.
The One AM Radio played this track when we saw them open for Titus Andronicus last month at Chyro Arts, and it’s a pop charmer, full of paranoid visions right from the opening line: “I’m never sleeping, I’m too busy keeping track of all the ways they say I might die.” I’m already sold on the song, but according to the teaser video, Busdriver appears on the Mae Shi remix/cover. Should be well worth tracking down that 7-inch.
Two months ago, Phoenix music fans were forced to make a tough concert-going decision for Monday night: Frightened Rabbit, Beach House and Japandroids were all playing in the Valley on the same date at different venues – an example of the annual spillover thanks to our proximity to Coachella. Unfortunately, the choice narrowed over the weekend after Frightened Rabbit was forced to cancel because of grounded flights in the UK due to the spewing ash from the Icelandic volcano.
That set off a domino effect in town: Stateside Presents has since moved Beach House from the previously sold-out Rhythm Room to the larger Clubhouse, where Frightened Rabbit was supposed to play. That means more tickets have become available. (The Middle East, originally opening for Frightened Rabbit, remains on as support for Beach House.) Likewise, Japandroids (with Avi Buffalo opening) have now been moved from The Trunk Space to Rhythm Room.
So with Frightened Rabbit sadly no longer an option – crushing our dreams of that potential laser show – I’ve chosen to check out Japandroids instead of Beach House, a decision some people find questionable. But the duo’s 2009 albumPost-Nothing gets heavy rotation, and I’ve been happily spinning my new Art Czars 7-inch that I picked up at Stinkweeds on Record Store Day.
As if I needed any motivation to purchase the 7-inch, Carrie Brownstein has an exclusive stream of the A-side, Dirty Thing, at her excellent NPR blog Monitor Mix. Brownstein also assures us the B-sides – Non-Toxic and The Drawback – “are just as snappy and sharp.”
