general, video

The National: England (live at BAM)

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Did you watch the webcast of The National show from the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Saturday night? It was, predictably, amazing and made me long for an Arizona tour stop. The band hasn’t been to Arizona since October 2005, when it came to Modified on a co-headlining tour with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah in support of Alligator (a show I regrettably missed because of work). And to think: People were apparently leaving after CYHSY on nights The National played last – the same band that’s now selling out shows in mere minutes.

Hopefully, I’ll get the chance to see The National on a High Violet tour – either in this state or elsewhere – if only so I can see beauty of England in person. I hardly hesitate to say this is my favorite song of the year, a track that immediately grabbed me after the first few listens of the new album.

Like most great National songs, England swells slowly into a triumphant climax. Even then, it shows some wonderful restraint – never quite coming unhinged the way singer Matt Berninger now famously does during Mr. November. England takes you to the edge, but never jumps, and just the suggestion of a frenetic culmination is sometimes sexier than actually realizing it.

I’m not even sure what to make of the lyrics – someone please explain them to me – but for the time being they seem secondary to the glory of the music, aided here by strings, horns and Doveman on the piano.

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The Besnard Lakes: Albatross (video)

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I’m not even going to attempt to decipher this new video for the song Albatross by The Besnard Lakes, who are coming to Sail Inn on Friday night for a show I’ve long been anticipating.

There are spies and secret code, the sort of noir-like visual mystery you’d expect from this band. The video was directed by Kara Blake, who also gave us the Devastation video.

RELATED:
The Besnard Lakes on Jimmy Fallon
The Soft Province: One Was a Lie (Besnard Lakes side project)
The Besnard Lakes: Albatross

general

Frightened Rabbit: Stream Living in Colour
alternative version / remix

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living in colour

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.

RELATED:
Q&A with Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit
Frightened Rabbit: Swim Until You Can’t See Land (acoustic video)
Frightened Rabbit: Nothing Like You (video)
Frightened Rabbit on Daytrotter
Frightened Rabbit: Swim Until You Can’t See Land (video)

arizona, general

DJ HartBreaks: The Long Goodbye mixtape

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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.”

Stream the mix above and/or download it below.

The Long Goodbye tracklist:

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

covers, video

J.C. Brooks and the Uptown Sound cover Wilco

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I knew nothing about J.C. Brooks and the Uptown Sound until today, when I saw the video for their soul-style cover of Wilco’s I Am Trying to Break Your Heart on Boing Boing.

The group is from Chicago, so this comes off as a nice homage to their fellow Windy City dwellers. And let’s be honest: It takes some balls to tackle a song that’s become so sacred to Wilco fans, but these guys pull it off wonderfully, giving a bit of depressing indie rock a bright spin.

The cover is the B-side of a 45, available via Rabbit Factory.

general, video

The New Pornographers: Your Hands (Together) (video)

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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.”

arizona, hip-hop

Toki Wright: By the Time I Get to Arizona 2010

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With the call for protest songs to Senate Bill 1070 in full effect, it seemed like only a matter of time before someone – if it wasn’t Chuck D. himself – updated Public Enemy’s blistering 1991 MLK statement, By the Time I Get to Arizona.

Rhymesayers rapper Toki Wright did just that, writing new verses over the original track. Wright wrote a letter detailing how his version came about, paying due to the cadence and composition of the original while making an entirely new statement for our time.

arizona

Phoenix New Times puts out call for protest songs

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arizona_google

We’re quickly finding that the effects of the heinous SB 1070 immigration law aren’t limited to the political arena. Whether it’s sports protests or bands deciding to bypass Arizona, this law is going to touch each of us in one way or another.

As someone who is a bit embarrassed to claim Arizona these days, I understand the reaction of bands to reconsider playing shows in the state. But I don’t necessarily agree with it. I’m sorry, Stars, but all you’re doing is punishing and alienating your fans, most of whom probably have political beliefs that align with yours. Why don’t you actually come to Arizona and try to affect change? Better yet, why not reach out to fans to have conversation about it before making your decision, like some artists. (Thank you, Jonah Matranga and Damian Abraham.)

While I appreciate their desire to do something, I think it’s presumptuous for Stars to assume their absence would somehow have more of an influence on a government that’s never heard of the band than speaking directly to fans they can call on for action. Their heart’s in the right place, but it’s not like their decision would have the same economic impact on our state as possibly losing the 2011 MLB All-Star Game. Hey, if Shakira can make an appearance in Arizona, why can’t Stars?

Anyway, how about a more functional and direct approach to making a statement? Phoenix New Times music editor Martin Cizmar is asking local bands to put their music where their mouth is and write protest songs that he will make available for download.

Says Cizmar: “Arizona’s music community needs to battle against SB1070 in earnest. We need to tell our elected officials how absurd we think this law is, and how much harm it’s doing our state. There’s no better way to do that than by writing and recording a few good old fashioned protest songs.”

From what I can tell, he’s already got possible commitments from Source Victoria, Kinch and Dfactor, who also keeps a blog at Waved Rumor.

So if any local bands are reading this, I encourage you to join the effort.

(Image from Boing Boing.)

general, sports

The Baseball Project: Cubs 2010

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broadside_300

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.

arizona, hip-hop, video

Public Enemy: By the Time I Get to Arizona

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Sadly, almost 20 years later, this song is as relevant today as it was in 1991, when Arizona officials rejected a federal MLK holiday in this state. Now Arizona is back in the political spotlight for all the wrong reasons after the governor signed a bill that all but welcomes racial profiling under the guise of tough immigration reform.

I’m not one to take much of a public political stance, but this is shameful and embarrassing. I can only imagine what people who have never been to Arizona must think of it. Perhaps something like Chuck D. envisioned in 1991 …