Just spent some time catching up on the TiVo, which included this past week’s episode of CSI (we only watch the Vegas version in this household). In the episode, one of the deaths involved a left-hander using a chainsaw and actually killing himself from the kickback because the chainsaw was designed for right-handers. Gil Grissom, the Mr. Miyagi of the CSIs, tells visiting students to the crime lab that 2,500 left-handers die every year due to accidents related to mishandling of instruments made for right-handers.

Pretty scary statistic if you’re left-handed, which I happen to be. (Note to self: Don’t use chainsaw.) You righties just don’t get it. You don’t get pencil/pen smeared on your hand when you write. When I was young, I couldn’t use all the scissors the others kids used. No, I had “special” scissors. They had green rubbery material where you put your fingers; they said “lefty” on them. Branded for life. Those college desks attached to chairs? What side does the desk accommodate? Yeah, the right side. It’s a lonely existence. As this Wikipedia entry states: “Left-handed people are placed at a constant disadvantage by society.” (I bolded that for emphasis.)

Finally, a band comes along and empathizes. Names itself Scissors for Lefty. How can I not like them? They’re from San Francisco and have a four-song EP available in the U.S. and a full-length, Underhanded Romance, out in the U.K., which is sorta fitting because there’s a pretty heavy Brit-dance-pop feel going on here. They also just played a few dates with So Much Silence favorite Baby Dayliner, so you know it’s hot.

Scissors for Lefty | Ghetto Ways

Before we left for the Pitchfork Festival in July, I had Aug. 2 circled on my calendar because Pete Yorn was playing a show in Scottsdale. Somewhat surpisingly, that sold out weeks before the date (and before we got tickets), a rare occurrence in the Valley. Anyway, he also was slated to play an in-store at Zia Records in Chandler, which, if you live in Phoenix like I do, is a bit out of the way.

Because we had just returned from the festival, we decided we were too tired and music-weary to hike over to Chandler. Figured I’d catch him the next time around. But, ah, as fate would have it, I don’t have to regret missing it anymore. I was perusing my local Zia yesterday when I found an official CD release of that session. Apparently, Yorn recorded each of the in-store shows for a series in which individual CDs would be sold at the location at which it was performed (Lawrence Journal-World). The Arizona disc was a bargain at $2.98 with about five songs.

Pretty excellent marketing strategy, to boot. My guess is die-hard Yorn fans (hello, Heather) will want to collect all of these. But I have no clue how many are in the series. (Didn’t Pearl Jam do something like this with a string of live CD releases?) But aside from that, it’s a great way for Yorn to reach out to fans on a personal level and make them feel a part of these performances.

Here’s the track listing for the Zia Chandler CD from Aug. 2, 2006:
1. Intro
2. Undercover
3. For Nancy (Cos it Already Is)
4. Don’t Mean Nothing
5. Vampyre
6. When You See the Light

If anyone is really dying to get their hands on this, I’d be willing to go snap up a few at Zia. (Heather, you’re already spoken for.) So just holler at me.

In the meantime, here’s an acoustic taste of one of my favorite Yorn songs.

Pete Yorn | For Nancy (Cos it Already Is)
Acoustic, live at Zia Records (Chandler), 8/2/06

Related:
Pete Yorn tour dates (Oct. 23 at Rialto Theatre in Tucson).

Lots of good shows coming through Phoenix this week and the coming weeks. A quick rundown for this week:

• Monday brings us Rogue Wave with Jason Collett and Foreign Born at Martini Ranch in Scottsdale. (Visit Rogue Wave’s Web site to see how you can donate to help drummer Pat Spurgeon, who needs a kidney transplant.)
• Ratatat also plays Monday at Rhythm Room. I work on Monday. Boo.
• Tuesday, Maritime is playing Rhythm Room with Reubens Accomplice and Awake and Alert.
• Also on Tuesday, M. Ward is playing the Clubhouse in Tempe.
• On Wednesday, Supersystem plays Modified with Zombi and locals Get Down to Brass Tacks.

I’ll be hitting Maritime on Tuesday for a couple reasons: 1) I enjoy Maritime’s latest, We, The Vehicles; and 2) I still haven’t seen locals Reubens Accomplice, which, frankly, is embarrassing.

Maritime | The Future is Wired
Download Maritime’s Daytrotter session.

J. Robbins (formerly of Jawbox and Burning Airlines) has his fingerprints on so many projects I like – and even more I like that, until recently, I never knew he took part in (namely, production and mixing on Maritime’s Glass Floor and Jets to Brazil albums). His resume, particularly on the production end, is extensive.

Channels is his latest musical vehicle, a three-piece on Dischord Records that released its debut full-length Waiting for the Next End of the World in August.

Like his writing in Burning Airlines, Robbins straddles a line of paranoia with Channels that leaves you edgy and uncomfortable, a trait he shares with Jets to Brazil frontman Blake Schwarzenbach (see also, Orange Rhyming Dictionary). Robbins doesn’t meddle in the ways of love and heartbreak; his songs are the soundtrack to media and government fearmongering.

To the New Mandarins, the opener on Waiting for the Next, sets the tone of his dread laced throughout the album:

“new mandarins, your color-coded bulletins /
are doing my poor head in /
while you place bets on what I’m most dreading /
so well-informed, I don’t know where the truth begins /
I grew up on science fiction /
that doesn’t mean I want to live in it”

Robbins is a protest writer in a more indirect sense, in the way Blade Runner and THX 1138 envision a dehumanized society. Paranoia drives Robbins, and that makes him compelling: misinformation, Big Brother, technophobia. He’s asking you to think about this for yourself and consider the consequences.

Burning Airlines’ Mission: Control! (1999) clocked me over the head when I first heard it after graduating from college. (Looking back, the band’s name even seems eerily prophetic; Robbins almost changed the band name.) I didn’t know what to make of these lyrics and ideas: “The medicine show comes around / to peddle a prescription now / to medicate mistrust of crowds.” Whoa, whoa. This wasn’t about missing your girlfriend or feeling homesick anymore. For me, Robbins was expanding what songwriting could be – an expression of fear or concern in a way not related to mopey love.

Channels carries the tradition, even if the post-punk musical styling feels dated. Though I’d argue that the unnerving guitars and Robbins’ ever-so-slightly distorted vocals contribute to the message in the writing.

Channels | To the New Mandarins
Channels | Storytime (In the Street of Spies)
(From 2004 EP Open)

Related:
J. Robbins recently shuffled his iPod for the Onion and is slightly humiliated when it turns up a Burning Airlines song.
MP3s of Robbins’ work (via JRobbins.net)

In a first for this blog, my wife, Annie, is going to post something. In fact, I’m going to write this little introduction and leave the room and let her write. Now I know what it’ll be like on the other side, when she’s in bed, long asleep, while I’m still clacking away at the keyboard. Enjoy!

Hi. Right now Kevin is looking in the mirror saying, “Hi, I’m 29” over and over. That’s right it’s my favorite blogger’s birthday. He was a little shy in telling everyone so here I am. Don’t worry it’s not going to be a totally cheesey confession of my love for him, nor am I going to try and post on my own musical tastes. I wouldn’t want the traffic of people googling “chick + rock + ok + lesbian” coming to sms. But, I will let all of you know that Kevin has been letting people know what he’s listening to and what is really good music for quite some time. When we first started dating back in the summer of ’96 he made me a little mix tape to sweeten the relationship. I was expecting the usual slow dance Alphaville-ish music that boys use to tell girls how they really feel. Granted, Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On was the first song but there were so many other gems on there. So this post is a little tribute to the guy that had me at Good, Passin Me By and 100 Ways. I still have that cassette somewhere in a box labeled KEVO that has traveled with me since. Happy Birthday, Kevin.

Morphine | Good
The Pharcyde | Passing Me By
Porno for Pyros | 100 Ways

Plus, since I’m such a good wife I got him this for his birthday!

UPDATE: Whoa. That was awesome. I watched the end of Die Hard with a glass of Stella Artois in hand: “Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.” I should let Annie post more often.

I can’t believe I put that Marvin Gaye track on there. What a tool. What can I say? I needed to cut to the chase.

As hip-hop labels go, few are as progressive and forward-thinking as Quannum (once known as Sole Sides), home to DJ Shadow, Blackalicious, Latyrx, etc. The label already pushes the bounds of hip-hop and lately Quannum is branching beyond that.

Did you miss the great General Elektriks album Cliquety Kliqk last year? Boo on you. Herve Salters (he’s French; sorry, accent on the second ‘e’ in Herve) was the man behind that piece of snyth-driven electro-hop; the track Central Park, with dense layers of beats, synths and abstract nuances, is a gem.

Salters is now pushing his side project, Honeycut. On The Day I Turned to Glass, Salters still cuts/pastes/experiments, but the arrangements take on a more traditional pop-song form, fleshed out by soul-inspired vocals (Bart Davenport) and drum programming (Tony Sevener). Live strings and horns also come into play.

The first single, Shadows, weaves strings in and out of Davenport’s near-falsetto voice and driving drums. It’s an invigorating tune that leaves the potential for remixes wide open.

The Day I Turned to Glass comes out Sept. 26 on Quannum Projects.

Honeycut | Shadows

This likely will be a woefully short post because it’s late and it’s my Friday night (I’m off work on Wednesday and Thursday) … but let me tell you that Mobius Band, from Brooklyn, is opening some West Coast dates for the National. The shows also include So Much Silence favorite Baby Dayliner. Need I say more?

I’m going to do my damndest to make it out to LA for either the Oct. 9 or Oct. 11 show at the Troubadour. Mobius Band seamlessly meshes electronica into crisp guitar lines, leaving The Loving Sounds of Static as a song to which I’ve slowly, surely become addicted.

You can pick up Mobius Band’s album, The Loving Sounds of Static, on eMusic.

Mobius Band | The Loving Sounds of Static

Video: The Loving Sounds of Static

In anticipation of the new Badly Drawn Boy album, Born in the UK (due on Oct. 17 on Astralwerks), I dusted off his back catalog over the weekend to reacquaint myself.

No matter what Badly Drawn Boy (born Damon Gough) does from here forward, he’ll always be a sentimental favorite for me; Annie and I chose his song The Shining for her walk down the aisle at our wedding more than two years ago.

But I’ll be interested to see how his new album is received. He doesn’t strike me as the type of artist that will stir much buzz among the blogs.

Talented as I think he is, Badly Drawn Boy does just as much to befuddle me. We saw him in Tempe, Ariz., in support of his last album, One Plus One Is One, a couple years back. For some reason, BDB insisted – somewhat stubbornly – on playing only new songs for the first half of the show, as if he had some point to prove. I’m sure there was some deep, artistic interpretation to what he was doing, but it didn’t seem like the best way to ingratiate himself to the crowd.

Musically, One Plus One Is One threw me a bit as well. It felt – and still does – dense and overdone. The song Year of the Rat is a great example. I love what that song should be; instead, there’s timpani drums, a disrupting ride cymbal and a chorus sung by children. His arrangements seem headed toward exaggerated levels that wash out his more introspective sincerity, which is what drew me to him in the first place. Though, he’s always been prone to unironic (cheesy?) grandioseness: “The keys to your heart open the door to the world” (opening line on the title track to Have You Fed the Fish?). Yipes. Yet, I still get chills listening to You Were Right, which lays on the cheese factor pretty heavy.

So I’m curious just enough to see what he has in store on Born in the UK, a pretty obvious play off Born in the USA. An homage to his home country, the title track, a straightforward rocker, references Sid Vicious, John Lennon and the Union Jack among others.

Video: Born in the UK
Real Player: High | Low
Windows Media: High | Low

I’m trying to secure an mp3 from the new album. Until then:
mp3: The Shining (The Avalanches Good Word for the Weekend Remix)