If you don’t own Low’s 2007 release Drums and Guns (Sub Pop), the band is offering some nice incentive by making Murderer, one of the best songs on the album (maybe the year?) available as a download at its MySpace page.
And fear not, quasi-audiophiles: It’s a 192 kbps file.
Low was on my brain because I picked up a used 7-inch – A-side: Hatchet (Optimimi Version); B-side: Breaker (Dub Plate) – for 99 cents at Stinkweeds on Thursday.
Speaking of Low, the band is in Los Angeles this weekend for shows on Friday and Saturday at the Troubadour. Why would I, a Phoenician, care about such matters? Well, we’re going to LA on Friday to see the National (!) at the Wiltern. I know we’ll see this guy and maybe this guy.
We could see Low on Saturday or … hit this Neighborhood Festival with (oh, yeah) Spank Rock, A-Trak and Flosstradamus, among others.
For reasons far too boring to go into here, I have two copies of the 4AD-released Acid Test 7-inch (b/w non-album track A Temporary Fix) by Emma Pollock, formerly of the Delgados.
The powers that be at Beggars have given me the OK to give the extra away.
I don’t want to make anyone jump through hoops or answer questions or whatever. Just leave your name with e-mail address in the comments and I’ll throw the names in a hat (my sweaty, yellowing Chicago Bears hat, to be exact) and pick a winner. (I’ve turned off the option for which I have to approve comments … bring on the spam!)
This set from WOXY’s Lounge Acts couldn’t have come at a better time because we’re headed to Los Angeles this coming weekend to see the National on Sept. 28 at the Wiltern.
For some reason, the session was delivered through my podcast subscription even though the WOXY shows it airing today (Monday). Not that I’m complaining. I urge you to listen (2 p.m. eastern time) to hear the interview, as well.
The three-song session is acoustic with singer Matt Berninger and bassist Aaron Dessner, who were kind enough to treat us to the B-side You’ve Done It Again Virginia from the Lit Up single (buy here).
Boxer still stands as my favorite album of the year, and I imagine seeing the National live will only serve to reinforce that. It would take a mighty effort to unseat Boxer from its perch (the New Pornographers’ Challengers is rising fast, but I don’t think it will overtake Boxer).
The Besnard Lakes could play Devastation for an hour, and I’d be happy. For a second, it looked like they might on Thursday night. It was only the second song in the set, but with the fog machine blasting and feedback blaring, an already epic song was bubbling over in effects and distortion.
Ah, I suppose it had to end sometime. But Devastation, as I’ve noted before, is a monster, a runaway train, a cannonball, a raging bull, King Kong. You get the picture. The Besnards didn’t play it when they came through Phoenix in March, so it was mandatory they do it this time. I just didn’t expect it so early in the set. The song is so grand, I’d just assume it’s tailor made as a closer; that that task fell to And You Lied to Me, which ended in a cacophony of feedback, capped by Olga Goreas’ solo display of manipulated bass distortion/buzz/fuzz.
Everything about Besnard’s sound swirls and envelops. Three guitars – all sprawling and whammy bar-ed up – have me thinking that earplugs will be a wise investment for my next show. Drummer Kevin Laing actually apologized afterward, saying it was the worst he’s played. With a brick wall behind him and a wall of sound in front him, he said he couldn’t hear a thing. Their timing might have been a little disrupted during Disaster, but nobody would have been the wiser.
We were fortunate enough to be treated to a live rendering of the recently released 12″ single Casino Nanaimo (get it at eMusic), the first time the band has played it live, according to frontman Jace Lasek, who by the way, sorta looks like a cross between John Lennon and the Greatest American Hero. “As Frank Zappa said,” Lasek said, jokingly, “this song is hard to play.”
But if I’ve learned anything from the Besnard Lakes, it’s this: I want a fog machine. When I walk into work, boom!, fog. When I come home, roll the fog. Finish dinner? Fog. When the Besnard Lakes use it (pedal-activated, by the way), it doesn’t seem ironic or kitschy or jokey. It’s just like: We are about to play a huge eight-minute song with effects and distortion and loud guitars and we’re also going to blast fog all over this tiny space … that’s how we roll. I love it.
Anyway, more Canadians await Friday: We are driving to Tucson to see the New Pornographers, who reportedly are touring with Neko Case and Dan Bejar.
A lot has been said about Band of Horses licensing a song for Wal-Mart, an issue I’m still not totally for or against. It’s complex to say the least: Wal-Mart is evil, but indie bands need to make money, too.
I’m not here to rap about it too much or take a stand one way or the other. But I was surprised to see a pretty excellent lineup – if not the epitome of “blog buzz” – for an Oct. 20 show at this new mega-mall, Tempe Marketplace, opening later this month (OMG, they’re putting an H&M there!). The Southern Comfort (“SoCo” to me and you) Music Experience: Cold War Kids, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Girl Talk, Sick Puppies and Architecture in Helsinki.
Even better: It’s free. That can only mean one thing: Southern Comfort must be kicking in a shit-ton of cash (and booze) for the bands. I guess we should be up in arms about this? Does it even matter? Wilco licensed songs for VW then felt the need to defend the decision to do so.
My thoughts are a bit half-baked at the moment, but the whole holier-than-thou attitude toward this type of thing irritates me. I suppose 10 years ago I would have cried sell out, too. But now that I own a house, have bills, car payments, etc. … I can better understand the decision.
So, seriously, SoCo, if you’re reading … I’ll totally rename this blog – SoCo Much Silence? – for the right price. In the meantime, I’ll be at the show, drinking SoCo, of course.
What the hell … Cold War Kids video for Hang Me Up to Dry:
OK, I’m not a huge fan of covers. I’m even less of a fan when a band butchers a song by one of my favorite groups.
Luckily, Division Day does not incur my wrath on its cover of Sunny Day Real Estate’s Every Shining Time You Arrive. (I’m pretty sure the guys in DD were worried what I thought, too.)
The cover is part of an eight-week promotional assault – a new cover or unreleased track every week – by the band and Eenie Meenie, which is rereleasing Beartrap Island on iTunes Sept. 18 and in stores Oct. 2. (Look at what Bishop Allen started.)
Anyway, I can appreciate Division Day not taking the safe route here; I don’t believe I’ve heard Sunny Day covered before. Plus the song choice – Every Shining Time You Arrive – doesn’t really stand out as one of Sunny Day’s more popular/accessible tunes.
One of the unwritten rules of covers – at least in my head – is to not totally mimic the original. What fun is that? And Division Day obeys that, reimagining a drum-less Shining with more lo-fi, tempered vocals compared to Jeremy Enigk’s upper-register/dramatic style.
I’m here to say that I’m a fan of this cover (mark this date in history).
This is a busy week in the Phoenix/Valley area. It started Sunday night with Peter Bjorn and John at Marquee Theatre. (In brief, I was more impressed than I thought I would be, but there’s no effing way he whistled that part.)
Big thanks to Jeff Weiss, who filled in for me with a couple great posts while I was gone, walking fast and sometimes bumping into people as I tried to negotiate the NYC sidewalks. (Update your blogrolls, too, because Jeff has a killer new design as passionweiss.com.)
Speaking of blogrolls, my old blogspot address, somuchsilence.blogspot.com, somehow got hijacked and no longer has my content prior to the redesign and move to a fully hosted format. So, please update your blogrolls to somuchsilence.com. Thanks muchly.
What can I say about New York? It’s amazing, like no other place. We skipped most of the touristy destinations (museums, Statue of Liberty, etc.) and instead opted to get on the subways, get out and walk. (We did take in a Yankees game in which Alex Rodriguez hit two homers in one inning. Pretty great.)
Phoenix and New York could not be more different. Everything comes down to a matter of space. In New York, there is no space – not in between buildings, not in between people, not on the subway. In Phoenix – and much of the West – we love our space, our vast parking lots, our own houses, our fences between houses. The contrast is astounding.
I turned 30 on Friday and I wonder if my window of opportunity to do the New York thing has passed. I don’t even know how I’d handle living there – the hustle of it all is both awe-inspiring and anxiety-inducing. I’m pretty sure I’d be in excellent shape, though. Walking everywhere, scaling subway steps. For anyone who lives or grew up in a big city, this will sound ridiculous, but the ability to use public transportation is empowering. In Phoenix, mass transit is a bit of a joke, though the coming light rail could fix that.
Still, as much as I loved New York – and the thrill of being around good friends for a wedding helped – it was a relief to come home. Now I much catch up on sleep. A post with actual music is forthcoming.
Greetings, Jeff Weiss here again, filling in while Kevin re-enacts the classic film, The Muppets Take Manhattan. As of this morning, he has already stopped three muggings, disrupted two Broadway musicals with what patrons described as “boorish, drunken” behavior, and beaten up several Williamsburg residents for being a bit too hirsute for their own good. Rumor has it, Bloomberg is preparing him a medal of honor.
So you’re probably thinking, when did So Much Silence become a Def Jux fan-boy blog? Good question. But a wrong-headed one as the Blockhead album wasn’t released on Def Jux, it was released on Ninja Tune. I believe the word you’re looking for is “touche.”
Let’s talk Aesop Rock for a moment. Specifically, his latest and arguably greatest album None Shall Pass. I reviewed it for Stylus so if you’re looking for a more in-depth analysis, it can be found over there. But in short, it’s an outstanding, complex record from one of the most unsung and interesting artists making music in the 21st Century. Even if you disliked Aesop in the past, it’s worth checking for, considering it’s his most accessible work yet, a record that simultaneously manages to be avant-garde while staying true to the roots of hip-hop. Whatever that means in 2007.
Last week, None Shall Pass debuted at #50 on the charts, moving 13,200 units, making it perhaps the highest a Def Jux record has ever charted. Either way, it’s an incredible achievement for a guy who has paid his dues And in honor of the record’s release, I thought I’d leave some MP3’s from the new album for you guys to download, as well as a video retrospective of Aesop’s decade making music
Greetings y’all. This is Jeff Weiss, you might remember me from such blogs as The Passion of the Weiss, and my lesser known work on the True Secrets of the Pirates of the Carribbean blog and my work curating the Drew Carey fan-page (take that Bob Barker). I’ll be filling in here for the next few days while Kevin traipses and/or gallivants through New York City. I hope you enjoy my ramblings
see also the long-winded encomium to it that I wrote on Stylus).
Last week, Blockhead dropped another very strong effort, Uncle Tony’s Coloring Book, his third album of hip-hop instrumentals. Like its predecessors, Music By Cavelight and Downtown Science, UTCB is mostly wordless, save for the occasional inserted patch of cinematic dialogue. Blockhead once said that judging from the more spooky, brooding tone of his first two records, people think he sits in his room in the dark, lighting candles and burning incense.
In that vein, UTCB is a lighter affair than his previous efforts, more airy and organic, filled with patches of bright, twinkling keys and jazzy horn samples. At times it feels like a cross between the recent Black Moth Super Rainbow record crossed with RJD2’s Deadringer. If you like guys like Madlib, Wax Tailor, or RJD2, I highly recommend picking up a copy of this record and checking out the rest of his discography.
For reasons far too boring to go into here, I have two copies of the 4AD-released Acid Test 7-inch (b/w non-album track A Temporary Fix) by 
