Category Archives: vinyl

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John Vanderslice: “The Kingdom” (vinyl-only track)

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Leave it to John Vanderslice, one of the most accessible musicians to his fans, to take a vinyl-only track and make it available as a digital download – encoded at 256 kbps (VBR), no less. The Kingdom is (er, was) a vinyl-only addition to the Pixel Revolt LP, available on lovely 180-gram vinyl. (Seriously, 180-gram is beautiful; those records are as thick as dinner plates and probably more durable.)

In an interview with The Red Alert, Vanderslice called The Kingdom, a pretty piano ballad, “a song about someone who finds a way to live in post-apocalyptic America.” Obviously, the war weighed heavily on his mind during the writing of Pixel Revolt:

“there’s no way to win a shadow war
when every radical you stab excites a hundred more
there’s a place, the rust belt, I’ve heard it’s free
it was hardest hit, we were busy fighting the wrong enemy”

(Also notice when you download the song, JV tagged the genre as “Hip Hop/Rap” … nice.)

John Vanderslice | The Kingdom (via www.johnvanderslice.com)

vinyl

The National: “Warm Singing Whores”

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No matter what my favorite album of this year ends up being – and I’ve got a couple in mind (isn’t the suspense killing you?) – it probably won’t hold a candle to last year’s top pick: Alligator by the National. It’s an album I’m still absorbing and poking around, checking out its nooks and crannies and trying to make sense of the lyrics. Coming back to it so often is justification to myself that it wasn’t just a cheap affair I had with Alligator.

Yet it makes me eager for the follow-up, which, I’ve heard, the group is diligently recording. The evolution of the hype may be most interesting to follow – build-up, leaks, response, backlash? Maybe the next album will be the one to launch the National into major-label territory (knowing nothing of its contract with Beggars, of course).

Ah, too much to speculate. That’s why I was thrilled to get my greasy fingerprints all over this Abel 7″ with its glossy cover and previously unreleased B-side, Warm Singing Whores, which, although short at about two-and-a-half minutes, would have fit comfortably on Alligator. If a track like this was left for life as a B-side, it seems to suggest the National reached a pretty healthy creative streak during the recording of Alligator.

The National | Warm Singing Whores

Alligator is available at eMusic, along with the rest of the National catalog.

general, vinyl

Calexico: “Lucky Dime” (alternate version)

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Is it just me or did Calexico’s Garden Ruin seem to come and pass without much excitement? The reviews have been pretty favorable, despite (or maybe because of?) the band losing a bit of its mariachi stylings for a more streamlined sound.

Even if you don’t like a band or musician’s shift in style, you have to at least appreciate a willingness to push their bounds of what’s comfortable. Ultimately, it would be pretty boring if a band ended up copying itself over and over. Besides, I think Garden Ruin takes a little patience, especially if you’ve built any preconceived notions of Calexico (and we probably all have).

This alternate version of Lucky Dime is the B-side of a 7″ from City Slang, the group’s European label. (Bisbee Blue is the A-side.) The 7″ version pushes the tempo of the original and brightens the sound with electric guitar accents. As for the song’s lyrics, I can’t but help think of Jimmy Eat World’s Lucky Denver Mint – this theme of hoping/wishing about the unknown or assigning luck to an inanimate object. Are these things really lucky or do we just want to believe so bad they are that we’re willing to convince ourselves of it? When Joey Burns sings on Lucky Dime, “Hoping to see a sign or a lucky dime,” it feels like he’s forcing himself to believe something that doesn’t exist. Just like on Lucky Denver Mint, when Jim Adkins sings, “A dollar underwater keeps on dreaming for me.” It feels a little hopeless and out of their hands.

Calexico | Lucky Dime (alternate version)

Also, City Slang has an acoustic version of the powerful Garden Ruin closer, All Systems Red.

Calexico | All Systems Red (acoustic)

Lastly, Garden Ruin is available at eMusic. And iTunes has a live session EP (released Sept. 12) with four songs.

arizona, vinyl

Trunk Federation: “History of Dead Ends”

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I haven’t converted nearly enough tracks from my constantly growing vinyl collection around here in recent months. My recent jaunt to LA, where I scored a load of 7″ gems, is reason to get back in the habit.

This selection from a 7″ by Trunk Federation counts as a great find in a depressing sort of way: I plucked it from the massive 7″ sale bin at Amoeba Records. Nothing would seem so humbling to a musician as those clearance bins – records upon records reduced to nothing more than a store’s effort to get them the hell out of its way. Of course, I’m happy to oblige.

Like so many great bands never to be heard from, Trunk Federation should have been big. The group emerged from that fertile Tempe, Ariz., music scene in the ’90s but preferred a sound that colored outside the lines a bit more than the somewhat sterile pop-rock that seemed to rule.

This 7″, Hi-Fi for Small Fry, was one of the first products Trunk Federation put out. But I can’t help but think that, after listening to History of Dead Ends on the A-side, the group already was making some statement about the scene:

“This city’s pitiful/
Been talkin’ to myself/
Up here you look so small/
This city makes you ill.”

Trunk Federation released three records, including the great The Curse of Miss Kitty, which recently found new life in Tim Fite’s Gone Ain’t Gone (available at eMusic). Fite constructed samples for his album only from CDs in which he found in the dollar bins. The Curse of Miss Kitty happened to be one of them.

Trunk singer Jim Andreas and drummer Chris Kennedy are now in relatively new Phoenix band LetDownRight, which is opening for Silversun Pickups and Viva Voce at Modified on Sunday.

Trunk Federation | History of Dead Ends
(From Hi-Fi for Small Fry 7″, 1995)

Related:
Tim Fite resuscitates Trunk Federation.

hip-hop, vinyl

Lupe Fiasco: “Pop Pop” (2003 promo single)

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I was pretty excited to go out yesterday and buy Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor. Coincidentally, the CD/record/DVD haul I brought home from Los Angeles included a promo 12″ from Lupe for the song Pop Pop. I can’t reveal my sources of this vinyl donation, but it was the first thing I put on the record player when we walked in the door.

All I could find out about the song came from the Wikipedia entry on Lupe, which says Pop Pop was the only tangible output from a short stay at Arista in 2003. It also might have appeared on the Lupe the Jedi mixtape, though I can’t confirm that. Can anyone help out?

Dearth of information aside, it’s a little surprsing this track didn’t find its way to mainstream ears (or maybe it did?). At the very least, the club-friendly beat covers some of Lupe’s lyrical inadequacies of his greener days: “I’m knowin’ I ain’t the hottest nigga out / got that fire though / you gonna have to put your hottest nigga out.” Shouldn’t rhyming the same word – or in this case, the same three words – in a verse be outlawed at this point?

Lupe Fiasco | Pop Pop
Lupe Fiasco | Pop Pop (instrumental)
Lupe Fiasco | Pop Pop (acapella)

Also, Rogue Wave is holding a benefit show Sept. 30 at the Independent in San Francisco for its drummer, Pat Spurgeon, who needs a kidney transplant. According to a MySpace bulletin, there will be performances by Rogue Wave, Ben Gibbard, Matthew Caws (Nada Surf) Ryan Miller (Guster) and John Vanderslice.Buy tickets here. Or you can make a donation via PayPal through the group’s Web site.

general, vinyl

New Earlimart: “Answers and Questions”

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This should be all over the Web in a matter of minutes. Typically, I try to avoid the herd mentality on mass e-mails disguised as personal letters (“Hey … you! I have a song for … you!” Recently, I’ve gotten e-mails addressed to someone named Michael; it’s that extra, personal touch that really counts.). In this case, I like Earlimart, so just call me a lemming.

Pitchfork reviewed this track, the A-side of a 7″ for Suicide Squeeze (order it here). Answers and Questions follows the dreamy pop the band put forth on 2004’s Treble and Tremble. It’s a soothing track that builds up until the bottom falls out at about the 3:26 mark with a sudden, startling pause that gives way to the peaceful (or eerie?) sounds of birds chirping.

The song will be included on the group’s forthcoming LP.

Earlimart | Answers and Questions

general, vinyl

Jonah Matranga/Frank Turner split 12″

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Jonah Matranga has worn many hats in his musical career: He’s the former frontman for groups Far, Gratitude and New End Original, and he’s also recorded solo under the moniker Onelinedrawing. I own just about everything he’s done (Far’s Water and Solutions probably cracks an all-time top 20), including his latest CD/DVD compilation There’s A Lot In Here.

Matranga finds creative and surprising ways to reinvent himself, so I shouldn’t be surprised by his newest project: a split 12″ with Frank Turner (formerly of Million Dead), a transatlantic collaboration with each artist covering two songs. Matranga takes on U.K. writers: Billy Bragg’s great A New England and Babybird’s All I Want; Frank Turner, of the U.K., returns the favor with renditions of the Lemonheads’ The Outdoor Type and the American standard You Are My Sunshine.

The timing of this is particularly eerie because I just found Bragg’s Life’s a Riot With Spy vs. Spy, which includes A New England, on vinyl about a week ago. Anyway, Matranga’s rendition, with his soft voice (sans English accent, of course), is a little slower and more delicate than its original. He also takes a little poetic license with the translation: “I love the words you wrote to me, but that was bloody yesterday” becomes “I love the words you wrote to me, but that was fucking yesterday.” All in all, a gracious cover of an artist deserving of the attention.

Pick up the 12″ at Welcome Home Records.

Jonah Matranga | A New England (Billy Bragg cover)

Related:
Lupe Fiasco/Jonah Matranga “Never Lies”
Jonah Matranga live CD/DVD “There’s a Lot In Here”
(w/comment from Jonah himself)
Billy Bragg on KEXP from SXSW

remix, vinyl

The Comeback: Big Slippa Mix by Ratatat

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Ratatat is all the rage of late. Don’t believe me? Click. Click. Click. Click. So who am I not to ride the gravy train?

As soon as I saw all the posts, I went right for my vinyl collection, in which I have a 12″ of the Shout Out Louds’ fantastic The Comeback, (thanks to one very cool blogger). It includes the Big Slippa Mix by (who else?) Ratatat and Tommy Sunshine’s Radio Edit.

The Ratatat mix segues from stuttering guitar lines in the verse to stretched-out organ lines for the chorus. A really great transition, tense to loose. Tommy Sunshine’s Radio Edit mix is a little more clubby – push those BPMs and dance!

Now that I’m perusing Shout Out Louds’ Web site, looks like the Combines EP, which includes the Ratatat mix, is available in the UK and the iTunes music store here. More remixes (including one from Architecture in Helsinki) and a new track, I Meant to Call. You can stream ’em at the band’s Web site here. (Anyone in the UK wanna hook a Yankee up with the physical copy of the EP???)

Shout Out Louds | The Comeback (Big Slippa Mix by Ratatat)
Shout Out Louds | The Comeback (Tommy Sunshine’s Radio Edit)

sports, vinyl

Spoon: “I Turn My Camera On” (demo)

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I swear sometimes when I go to record stores, I don’t find vinyl … it finds me. I’ve had pretty decent luck lately – or it just could be that I scour the same few shops so often that something is always bound to turn up.

Either way, it’s always great when a little labor pays off. Turning up a worthwhile 45 or LP after slogging through piles of dusty stacks makes the work worth the trouble. It’s even better when it’s 99 cents, like this Spoon I Turn My Camera On 7″ I found at the Zia in Tempe.


The A-side is the album version of the song; the B-side is a stripped-down demo. (I suppose that’s repetitive.) The demo, sans drums, is great because you can really get a feel for the origin of the song – how the rhythms develop, how the bass sounds, where the drums eventually will fit. Better yet, Britt Daniel and Co. rock a xylophone in the demo shot.

And don’t worry: A little analog static is on me.

Spoon | I Turn My Camera On (demo)

About that punch …

I’d be remiss if I didn’t add my two cents on the Cubs-White Sox scuffle from the weekend.

Quick recap: White Sox base runner A.J. Pierzynski bowls over Cubs catcher Michael Barrett on a (perfectly legal) play at the plate on Saturday. Pierzynski is safe and slaps the plate with his hand for good measure. He walks by Barrett, presumably to pick up his helmet, when Barrett grabs him and reportedly says, “I didn’t have the ball, bitch” – in other words, telling Pierzynski a slide into home plate would have sufficed.

Nevertheless, Barrett loses his mind and coldcocks Pierzynski pretty squarely (as detailed in the photo above) in the face. Benches empty, more punches thrown, etc.

In the aftermath, and having seen the highlights at least 40 times by now, there’s no defending Barrett in this, even as a lifelong Cubs fan. Pierzynski, tagging up from third base, never could have known Barrett didn’t have the ball – or at least wasn’t going to receive the throw by the time he was going to reach the plate.

However, I will say it was oddly cathartic (if not kind of surreal) to see it all go down. The Cubs have been underperforming this season and the frustration must be at a boiling point. Of course, that’s no excuse to throwing punches willy-nilly. Barrett deserves whatever suspension is coming his way. But damn, that was exhilarating. If it jump-starts the Cubs to some semblance of a winning streak, then maybe Barrett knew what he was doing.

It should be noted that Pierzynski is not very well-liked among some of his peers. Sporlitics has a rundown of why more than a few people probably took a little joy out of Barrett’s knuckle sandwich (via Deadspin).

contests, remix, vinyl

The Streets vinyl contest

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The folks at addVice wanna hook someone up with a copy of the Streets’ new album The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living on vinyl. And I’m always one to promote the collecting of vinyl. Chris was running a similar contest, so if you didn’t win there, you get another chance.

Before that, anyone have any well-constructed thoughts on the new album? I find myself listening to it in small doses at a time – sort of digesting two or three tracks at a time and then moving on. I’m not sure why. My wife, upon hearing about the first four tracks, thought it sounded like a British musical. (I can just see it: ” … Starring Mike Skinner in the stage version of Oliver Twist … “.)

My initial (and probably hasty) feeling on The Hardest Way is that I’m attracted more to Skinner’s production and beats than his writing and rapping. The title track and Memento Mori are my faves so far.

I think we can all agree that Skinner’s heavy (maybe exaggerated?) British accent gives him a unique voice among hip-hop acts.

About that contest … because I’m a bit uninspired and don’t feel like making anyone jump through hoops, just email me with “The Streets” in the subject line and your address in the body (in case you win) to somuchsilence@gmail.com. A winner will be randomly selected by my wife out of my favorite Cubs hat. Entry deadline is Sunday night.

Now, it’s time to head over to the Vice Records blog for your Streets mp3 fix:

The Streets | When You Wasn’t Famous (Professor Green remix)