Archive for 2003

Essay Time: Camper Van Beethoven.

My Favorite Band. By Grant Balfour.

My favorite band is Camper Van Beethoven. I think they are really, really good.

They made music in the 1980s, and now they are making music again. This makes me very happy. Like, stupid happy.

Why does this make me so happy? I am glad you asked. Here are some of the reasons why….

_{(Note: all these mp3s are available for free from the Camper Van Beethoven website. You just have to find the “More” area and then keep hitting “Refresh” to find these and a whole lot more.)}

Telephone Free Landslide Victory (1984):

The Day Lassie Went to the Moon.

Yanqui Go Home.

II & III (1986)

Sad Lover’s Waltz

Telephone Free Landslide Victory was their first album. The big hit was “Take the Skinheads Bowling” – a song so laden with mid-80s cultural references (mod-ska dancing, skateboarding to the Circle Jerks) and so full of a goofy, joyful punker-than-thou attitude, it was tailor-made for that era’s college radio fans. This was the same scene that made REM into a supergroup, but CVB was still a little too “weird” to pack arenas. They were from California, and it showed. You could kind of tell that when REM would go home and listen to The Byrds, the boys from Camper would go home and listen to Captain Beefheart… if you even knew who Captain Beefheart was. And in the days before “world music” had its own racks in the record store, the whole ethnic ska thing was considered a little odd, too. But, as the track from II & III shows, they were obviously more than just a novelty act. I got my first Camper Van Beethoven record from an avid REM fan who didn’t know exactly what to do with it.

Camper Van Beethoven/”Led Zep Zoso” (1986):

The History of Utah.

This was that album. I took it from the REM fan mainly because there was a cover of “Interstellar Overdrive” on it, and I was in love with Syd Barrett. But for me, the standout track was “The History of Utah,” which is sort of a folk song about Mormonism, and sort of Western rockabilly, and sort of a dream about UFOs and teenage friends. After I’d listened to this song three times, I was hooked. The Pink Floyd cover was good, too… but this was good in a whole different way. Was it folk rock? Was it psychedelia? What WAS it?

Then, two years after the first time I heard this song, CVB had a record put out on Virgin. You could actually find them in the mall. A couple years later, grunge hit, and suddenly “alternative” music came with its own strict set of guidelines. But for a while, that window was way open.

Camper Van Beethoven is Dead, Long Live Camper Van Beethoven (2000):

Klondike

This is the track that later became “The Fool” on that major label breakthrough, 1988’s Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart. That instrumental version launches side two with a punch-in-the-guts, brass band waltz. But this melancholy version has lyrics, weariness, a violin, telemetry beeps, and a minimal, scratchy loop track holding it all together. Actually, the whole CVB is Dead… album is a bit like this – sort of the leavings off the table after the band finished eating. It’s probably a mark of something about the band that this was the second helping of leftovers, after violinist Jonathan Segel released the Camper Vantiquities outtakes and singles album in 1993.

Tusk (1987/2002):

Tusk

So, after their “dark” sixth album, 1989’s Key Lime Pie, was released and got MTV play (making it their best seller), the band broke up. David Lowery went on to form Cracker, Jonathan Segel formed Hieronymous Firebrain (and played with Sparklehorse, Granfalloon Bus and a bunch of other bands), and the rest of the band joined David Immergluck in The Monks of Doom. Usual story, really.. except within a couple years, Immergluck went on tour with Counting Crows, and then ex-CVB personnel started showing up on stage at Cracker shows.

And then, last year, Camper Van Beethoven issued a comeback album. Greatest hits? All new songs? Nope. It’s a track-for-track cover of Fleetwod Mac’s Tusk. Most of it was recorded in 1987, during a ski retreat when they were supposed to be writing the songs for Our Beloved…. The tapes got put away, damaged, rediscovered and then messed with. At least one song does Electrelane one better by replacing Stevie Nicks with a speech synthesizer. The thing is, the band obviously loves the source material. They just love playing with music more.

They’re out on tour now.

If you get a chance, go see ‘em.

Thank you India

I always knew Bollywood soundtrack music was cool, but I never knew what to buy. Enter the Monsoon Wedding soundtrack, featuring a pop song that makes that Punjabi MC/Jay-Z collabo sound like mush. “Chunari Chunari” is credited to Anurhada Shriram and Abhijeet, neither of whom I’ve been able to find out much about.

But the soundtrack also features Mohammed Rafi, who’s become a personal favorite of mine, and highly recommended, if you can find him on a compilation. Any recommendations for a compilation of more recent Bollywood hits? Come visit me at Waking Ear and let me know.

Hole – Awful

I kept to the party line on Celebrity Skin at first–i.e. it was a half-assed Billy Corgan ripoff, and why wasn’t Courtney still in mourning for Kurt, blah blah blah. But then a kid wanted to sing “Malibu” and asked me to play guitar, and lent me the CD in order to learn the song. And besides falling head-over-heels in love with “Malibu,” I discovered what I think, along with “Violet,” is the real gem of the Courtney Love catalog: “Awful.”

You can’t even pin this one on Billy, since the song is basically the same chord progression over and over, with little minor variations, so it’s really the lyrics and the delivery that carry it. And oh, the lyrics. First off is a theme Courtney’s gotten majorly into of late, and one I really, really like: the way the structure of the music business has an effect on the art that comes out of it. And it’s way more nuanced and informed than your usual “they don’t, like, respect the music, man” stuff we’d usually get. The little callout that starts it all (“they royalty rate all the girls like you”) is a cool little reference to the internal legal structure of the biz, where labels use the power they have over new bands to enforce a uniform royalty rate (usually 11 X 3/4) that limits the one thing most artists make money from: the publishing (songwriting) royalties. It’s a bit too much to get into in a guest-blogging spot, but Courtney has written about it a good bit in the last two years, both in the widely-circulated speech (which contains some errors, but never mind that now) and, if you’re willing to parse her reference-laden syntax, on numerous posts on the Velvet Rope. Maybe I’m biased, but I do think understanding the way the biz works is vital to any musician or even music fan who’s into pop. (Jay-Z, for instance, is lots more enjoyable at that point–“I know who I paid, dawg–Searchlight Publishing.”) Courtney, more than almost anyone else I can think of, has done a lot to make people aware of how the legal structure of the biz works, and that’s a valuable thing.

Then it’s on to another great theme: the whole self-aware Eminem stuff that we all like so much. (“I was punk! Now I’m just stupid! I’m so awful.”) Court’s had shots taken at her by everybody at this point, so it’s nice to see this, especially in relation to the rest of the song. Then a brief detour to some teenage-girl-power stuff (“just shut up, you’re only 16”), which, honestly, I’ve always loved. Girl nerds need all the help they can get, because they can turn out the kewlest anyway.

But then: oh then, then comes what must be one of the best couplets in all of pop music. And it comes and goes really fast, Courtney doesn’t linger on it or repeat it, but I’ll be honest, this makes me cry every goddamn time I hear it:

If the world is so wrong, yeah, you can break them all with one song.

If the world is so wrong, yeah you can take it all with one song.

Now, how beautiful is that? What I love is the turn that happens between these two lines, a turn that I think a lot of the grunge kids were heading towards, but got sidetracked, by and large: from the nihilism of wanting to destroy the world to the hope of trying to engage with it. It’s in the continuum of “I’m mad and going to do something about it!” Black Flag LA hardcore -> “I’m depressed and going to get stoned” Seattle grunge -> …well, I’m not exactly sure what ->. But maybe, I think, it’s all coming back a bit in the sort of dance-music-embracing, pop-loving music that’s starting to bubble up right now; it’s no accident (and not, as some have implied, only frontrunneritis) that’s led Court to embrace the Strokes & co. Grunge was an undeniable anomaly, a space of freedom that opened up for a brief time and then closed, the result of which was to lead people back to the righteousness of the underground, even though we’d all hope that we could at least learn that lesson from grunge; but we never do, do we? We saw daylight for a bit, and instead of chasing it, we either did way too many drugs (Kurt, Kirkwood, the Deals, Jimmy Chamberlain, Kristen Pfaff, etc. etc.) or burrowed our heads back underground. But I think we’re starting to dig out again, and this is a couplet we could all stand to remember.

And that “if”: it’s a challenge to a certain assumption, that the world is corrupted and debased and saying well, if so, then this music we all love and which seems to have such power should be able to do something about that. And the fact that it doesn’t means that either you’re going to have to give up and accept that the world is irredeemably fucked up; that you can fix it, you just need to write that one song; or that the world is actually OK, which is why one song can’t actually make that much of a difference (c.f. art-under-oppression theories). The second choice is a good one–I’m all for people chasing the perfect song–but I think I prefer the third.

Still, Court goes for the chase-the-perfect-song thing with the final lines: “They bought it all, just build a new one, make it beautiful.” It’s a good point, and a great turn, and the emphasis on beauty–well, not what you’d expect from a star-fucking junkie whore, is it? No it’s not, and maybe that should clue us in that Courtney, crazy though she may undeniably be, is more than just the ex- we all love to hate. The lovely way the “I was punk! Now I’m just stupid!” comes back at the end–how she’s admitting that yeah, she’s just stupid; she’s not morally pure and righteous and indie. She likes having songs people listen to. She wants to actually do something with it, not just stay within a certain circle of people who all agree on everything anyway. And yeah, I think that, set to a great melody and a great arrangement, is about all I can ask for in a song.

Sonovac – ‘Human Fly’

This is a cover of a song by The Cramps: I have no idea what the original sounds like and I don’t particularly care. Forgive me, ageing punks: it’s early on a Monday morning, I’ve had about four hours sleep, and my first cup of tea of the day is still too hot to drink, so I’m not feeling particularly eloquent. And I don’t know much about Sonovac either, other than that they’re from London and are a brother and sister duo. Cover versions seem to be a speciality – they’ve also done the Ramones’ ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ and Springsteen’s ‘Dancing In The Dark’ to name but two. They may also have some connection with Japanese multi-instrumentalist and disco wizard Zongamin.

But all this is of little importance: what’s important is that ‘Human Fly’ is a terrific slab of sleazy electro pop. Albeit one which is very hard to categorize, like a lot of sleazy electro pop these days – you know, all that stuff that sounds different but somehow all fits together. The song has this jittery, stop-start rhythm to it which makes it ideal dancefloor music for me (…to be a dancing fool). There’s a nice unity of form and content in the way the lyrics suggest involuntary movement – “I go buzz buzz buzz and it’s just becuzzz” – while the song itself induces it. And even though the semi-detached “hey I might fuck you and not even notice I’m just THAT modern” vocal is being done to death right now, it still sounds drop dead cool in this context. Which makes it the perfect soundtrack for me to surf Friendster, checking out all the booty ghetto tech minor celebrities. Mmmm.

You can hear the song by clicking on the image here at Sonovac’s website. Speaking of flies: my name is Joe, and I’m proud to be the first guest blogger for this very special week at Fluxblog.

We Got That Beat That Makes You Jump!

The pop won’t stop for me, folks.

Though I said that I wouldn’t be posting again til next week, I have to break the silence early so that I can bring some vital pop to you before I leave on my jet plane. There’s just no way I could wait a week to offer the fantastic new Missy Elliot/Beyonce Knowles/MC Lyte/Free single, “Fighting Temptation”. It’s just too damned great. Though Beyonce gets top billing in the video, Missy is obviously the star of this ensemble track, and it’s her best single since “Work It” last year.

Also, you all need to head on over to the Antipopper store and buy one of their “Onward, Britney” items. If you don’t have access to a credit card, this stuff may be reason enough for you to seriously consider credit card fraud. Support Antipopper, defend Britney and pop, and show no mercy for the borecore infidels.

(Special note to the guests who will taking over tomorrow: you can feel free to post a link to yr blog/site in each of yr posts.)

We Wear The Same Clothes Cos We Feel The Same

Squeeze “End Of A Century” – Squeeze recorded and released this cover of the classic Blur single fairly quickly after the original itself was released back in 1995. It’s a lovely version of a great song, simple as that. I’m particularly happy with this version because Squeeze amend the line “goodnight tv, you’re all made up and you look like me” to just “goodnight tv.” That “you’re all made up…” part is just too clunky and obvious, and it’s melodically messy too.

This is going to be the last normal Fluxblog entry for a little while – until next Tuesday, to be precise. I’m going to be going away for a week, and in the meantime, about two dozen guest hosts will be filling in and keeping this blog up and running. It’s going to be a bit of a free-for-all, but in a good way. I’d like for it to be something like when in bad movies and sitcoms, the parents go away and the kids throw a crazy house party. I hope you all have a fun time with it.

I’m The Kind Of Cat Who Always Gets His Bird

Playgroup “Number One” – It’s disco day at Fluxblog. I want to be your number one, kids. Oooh yeah. Oooh yeah, yeah. You want the best? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Carrie Lucas “Career Girl” – All my independent women, throw them hands up at me. All my money making women, throw them hands up at me. Someone needs to sample this song’s bassline.

It Makes Me Weep To See People On The Dancefloor Falling Asleep

Jake Slazenger “Supafunk” – Jake Slazenger = Mike Paradinas = µ-Ziq. This is basically one long, spacey funk organ instrumental. If I had my own talk show, I’d consider having this be my theme song. It’d be either this, or the Reuben Wilson recording of “Hold On, I’m Comin’!”

Wagon Christ “Bend Over” – Wagon Christ = Plug = Luke Vibert = Amen Andrews. This is a somewhat funky number from his Musipal album, which I definitely recommend if you want more of the same.

Cylob “Rewind (DMX Krew remix)” – Cylob = just Cylob, as far as I know. Once again, I must let the people who are allergic to novelty dance pop know that this is fact novelty dance pop, because I don’t want to be liable for any severe reactions. I can’t afford to be sued right now. For everyone else, it’s a computer/robot rapping about being a DJ. Love it.

We’re Closer Now Than Light Years To Go.

I really wish that the R.E.M. show that I am seeing in October would come sooner; I’ve been into R.E.M. more right now than I have been for about four years. I needed the break – sometimes it really helps to move away from things so that they can feel fresh again later on.

R.E.M. “Find The River” (live in 1995, from the film Road Movie) – This is one of the most beautiful songs that I know. This version features a slightly different arrangement than usual, with a viola playing the part which is played with an oboe on the studio recording or by an organ on most live performances.

R.E.M. “So. Central Rain” (live in 2001, for MTV Unplugged 2.0) – This plaintive, spare version of the early R.E.M. classic was recorded for the band’s second appearance on MTV Unplugged, but I don’t believe it was ever actually aired on television. The entire 17-song performance is fairly easy to find online, and I highly recommend it. There are some really nice performances in that show, including a similarly solemn and stark reading of “The One I Love,” along with “Cuyahoga,” “Electrolite,” “Sad Professor,” and another pretty version of “Find The River.”

Spend Spend Borrow Borrow

Over the past two weeks on WFMU’s Aircheck program, The Professor has presented a two-hour Bob Lassiter retrospective. For me, this clip of Bob verbally eviscerating a clueless neoconservative teenager was one of the highlights. The best part is when Lassiter cuts into the kid after he bafflingly supports the elimination of all federal funding for education without seeming to have any clue about what federal funding for education actually means, and what would happen if it didn’t exist. If you’ve ever wondered what conservative talk radio would sound like in reverse, you need to check this out.

Slow Down The Machine

Michel Polnareff “Fame a la Mode” – Michel Polnareff was one of the great French pop songwriters of the 60s and 70s, and this is his English-language glam pop masterpiece. There’s something very elegant about this song, the way it glides from upbeat orchestral pop to sweeping and yearning ballad, the way it sounds effortless and smooth. Classic stuff.

Dub Narcotic Sound System “Fuck Shit Up” – Spraypaint the walls, trash the halls. Hit the sauce, shoot your boss. Fuck shit up. Do it punk. Do it cool – fuck the rules. Make it fucked-up. Make it fucked-up.

This song is self-explanatory.

Live Out All The Romance

Squeeze “Someone Else’s Bell” – Why did I ignore Squeeze for so long? I’ve always loved “Tempted,” “Cool For Cats,” and “Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)” (which as a child, I thought was “Pulling Muscles For Michelle”), but I never bothered with checking out the rest of Squeeze’s music until just recently. “Someone Else’s Bell” is a highlight from the East Side Story LP, which I’ve been listening to quite a bit over the past few days. If you’re into lyrical pop rock like Elvis Costello, Spoon, Sally Crewe, and Joe Jackson, this is music for you.

Avenue D w/ Cazwell “Sex That I Need” – If you can’t handle novelty dance records, you might want to pass this one over. These are the girls who gave us the excellent “Do I Look Like A Slut?” last year, and this time they are joined by raunchy gay rapper Cazwell. Please be advised that the rhymes in this song are of the over-the-top xxx variety, and that if you’re at work, it may not be the best idea to play this at your desk.

There’s Still Only One Of Me

The Lonesome Organist “One Of Me” – The Lonesome Organist is Jeremy Jacobsen, a one-man-band in the most literal sense of the phrase when he performs live. He plays a wide variety of instruments (often simultaneously) and covers a surpisingly diverse range of musical genres. This particular song finds Mr. Jacobsen harmonizing with himself as a one-man a cappella doo-wop group.

The Section “The National Anthem” – This is taken from the new string quartet tribute to Radiohead record by The Section, who previously recorded their own version of OK Computer in its entirety. I’m very fond of this arrangement of “The National Anthem,” particularly the approximation of the atonal horn sounds towards the end of the song.

I Like Wearing Slippers When It’s Raiiiiining

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, July 18th, Prospect Park, Brooklyn

Need Your Love (Status Quo cover)/ Jo Jo’s Jacket / Animal Midnight / Vanessa From Queens / Witch Mountain Bridge / Dark Wave / Phantasies / new song or unidentified cover / Mama/ Grab It And Gone / Us / Vague Space / Old Jerry (!!!) / Jenny & The Ess Dog // 1% Of One / (aborted cover that I didn’t quite recognize with John on vocals/guitar and SM on drums) / Take Five (Dave Brubeck Quartet cover, brief tease) / 100 Years From Now – Dance The Night Away (Byrds cover with Van Halen tag, John guitar/vocals, SM drums) / Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (Kylie Minogue cover, Mike Clark vocals/keyboards, John on drums, SM and Joanna have left the stage)

It rained very, very hard during 85% of this show. Luckily, I had an umbrella, but so did most of the people in front of me, so it was hard to see the show through all of the umbrellas. Since this was a free concert, there were entirely too many people chatting during the songs, which really grated on my nerves. There was this one group of obnoxious girls right in front of me who would not SHUT THE FUCK UP during the instrumental sections of “Witch Mountain Bridge,” and I nearly snapped on them, but I managed to move over a bit away from them, so even if they were still audible they weren’t overpowering the music so much. My big thrill of the night came when they played “Old Jerry.” The part when the song breaks down towards the end (‘the walls are jagged and expanding’) was one of those wonderful you-had-to-be-there concert moments, with the house lights shining on the crowd as the rain finally stopped. It was like a collective sigh of relief, and it just felt so right. I had been waiting a long time to see “Old Jerry” live, and it ended up being an extra special thing, so I went home soggy and happy.

Blur, July 17th, Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City

Ambulance / Beetlebum / Girls & Boys / Badhead / Gene By Gene / For Tomorrow / Sweet Song / Morroccan People’s Revolutionary Bowls Club / Tender / Caravan / Out Of Time / Crazy Beat / Brothers & Sisters / To The End / Song 2 / Trimm Trabb / Battery In Your Leg / The Universal (!!!) // Popscene / On The Way To The Club / We’ve Got A File On You / This Is A Low

Facts And Figures That Never Add Up Anyway

Today I’m going to share some songs by a few artists who I’ve already featured in recent weeks.

The Fall “Theme From Sparta FC” – I admit it, as great as “Susan Vs. Youthclub” is, I definitely picked the wrong song to post from the forthcoming Country On The Click. I owe it to you to give you this song, if just to give you better incentive to camp out in front of your local record store the day before the album is officially released.

Fountains Of Wayne “Hey Julie” – I wouldn’t say that I picked the ‘wrong’ song from Welcome Interstate Managers when I posted “Stacy’s Mom”, but I would like to take this opportunity to show a different side of the band and give you another reason to check out the album if you haven’t already. This is just a sweet little song about a guy who comes home from his awful day job to spend time with his girlfriend, and how she is the only thing getting him through the day.

Liz Phair “Jeremy Engle” – I just found this song yesterday. It’s not from Liz Phair’s new album, but from a special bonus ep which you can access from a secret site that you can enter if you’ve bought the official cd. Or, um, if you have access to a p2p system. While the Liz Phair album itself is a mostly bland and forgettable affair, this song is definitely what most people would recognize as being pretty classic old-school Liz Phair material. The song is a portrait of a guy from a Communist family living in a rent-controlled apartment on the Upper West Side. It is rich with nuance and details, and set to an appealing melody and arrangement that isn’t far off from the best material from White Chocolate Space Egg. Liz Phair isn’t dead, people.

All This Time With No Desire

ESG “My Love For You” – This is one of my favorite dance records. “My Love For You” is taken from the import compilation ESG – A South Bronx Story, which I assure you, is worth every penny. It probably won’t ever be available as a domestic US release because of some complicated legal mess with their original label 99 Records. It’s a real shame, since some of the best punk-funk hybrid records ever were released on the label, and it would be a great thing if those records were made cheaper and more accessable for American audiences.

Shooby Taylor “Stout Hearted Men” – A partial transcript: HAW! BAW! SCHLAW! SLAWDOOBY! RAW! SCHLAW! SCHLAW! POPPY! POPPY! POPPY! POPPY! POPPY! POPPY! POPPY! POPPY! Shooby Taylor is the weirdest, and perhaps the greatest, scat singer of all time. At very least, he is the most enthusiastic and original. If this song does not bring joy to your heart, there is no hope for you. This song is taken from Irwin Chusid’s Songs In the Key Of Z compilation.

Air Miami “Airplane Rider” – This is from Mark Robinson and Bridget Cross’s post-Unrest band, which really isn’t much different from Unrest aside from being a bit more peppy. Soon I will be an airplane rider. You can consider that “foreshadowing.” Go!

Five Hundred To The Biggest Booty In Here

Gold Chains “Rock The Parti” – Imagine this as the anthem of a grand joycore army who decimate everything in their path which refuses to succumb to the delirious ecstacy of all that is joycore. Who rocks the parti? We rock the parti. Everybody rocks at the joycore parti. This one goes out to Flyboy and the whole It Came From The Sea crew.

R. Kelly “Feelin’ On Yo Booty (Remix) – What remix is this? Tell me, what remix is this? Feelin’ on yo booty! This may be hard to imagine, but this may actually surpass “Ignition (Remix).” When R Kelly starts singing “booooo-oooo-ty, booo-ooo-ooty!” at the end, it’s sublime. But when he loses his shit and starts singing “boo-booga-booga-booga-booga-booga-booga-booga-oooty” at the 2:51 mark, the song enters this bizarre realm of idiot-savant genius which is uniquely R Kelly’s domain. So much booty!

Warning: This song is insanely catchy. It will be stuck in your head for days. Approach with caution.

“The Laws Have Changed” Video = Joycore Manifesto?

“Come and return to the world. Indulge yourself until pleasure sickens you. Then you will be near me.”

I think it very well may be my new favorite music video. On one hand, it’s this clever narrative about a St. Anthony-style ascetic being brought into an idealized sexy Western youth culture, and on the other, it’s just a bunch of cute mod people dancing.

Break The Twelve-String Acoustic To Pieces For Firewood

It’s Scott Miller day here at Fluxblog. Miller is one of the great, criminally underrated songwriters of the 80s and 90s. Miller enjoyed some minor degree of college radio success during the 80s with his first band Game Theory, but has been sinking deeper into obscurity with each passing release. He has recently retired from music and broke up his second band, the Loud Family, mainly due to frustration in finding an audience for his music. For some reason, Miller’s music is something of a hard sell because his music tends to be too strange, wordy, obtuse, and erudite for mainstream audiences; and on the other hand, his music is often too polished, glossy, and clean to appeal to many indie rock fans. Miller, in finding some kind of middle ground between intellectual artiness and a slick pop sensibility ends up becoming less accessable than far more severe music. But please do give Miller a chance – no powerpop fan should be without at least a couple of his records in their collection.

Game Theory “Nine Lives To Rigel Five” – from Distortion, 1984.

Loud Family “Inverness” – from Plants And Birds And Rocks And Things, 1993.

Loud Family “Sodium Laureth Sulfate” – from Interbabe Concern, 1996.

Loud Family “Businessmen Are Okay” – from Days For Days, 1998.

Loud Family “720 Times Happier Than The Unjust Man” – from Attractive Nuisance, 2000.

Come True – It’s Only Divine Right-ah!

The New Pornographers, July 12 2003, Bowery Ballroom, New York City:

The New Face Of Zero And One / Miss Teen Wordpower / The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism / The Electric Version / From Blown Speakers / Chump Change / All For Swinging You Around / The End Of Medicine / July Jones / Mass Romantic / Jackie / The Laws Have Changed / It’s Only Divine Right / Letter From An Occupant // encore 1: The Fake Headlines / To Wild Homes / The Body Says No // encore 2: Testament To Youth In Verse / Mystery Hours / Action // encore 3: When I Was A Baby / Centre For Holy Wars

This show is definitely going down in my personal hall of fame as one of the best shows that I’ve ever seen, not just because of the consistently energetic performance and the insane level of fun that I had at the show with my friends, but because…I wrote the setlist. And they used it.

Let me explain.

On the train ride down to Manhattan, I passed a few minutes of my time by writing up a mock setlist of what I would play that night if I were the New Pornographers. When I was at the show with Emily and Todd, we decided as a joke to put the fake setlist in front of Carl Newman’s monitor before the band hit the stage. We never thought that he’d be so amused to see that an audience member had made up a setlist for them that they’d decide to actually play it through. To be more clear, they played the main set that I had written out (everything up to “Letter From An Occupant”), and took requests for the three (!) sets of encores. “The Fake Headlines” and “Testament To Youth In Verse” were included in the encore on my fake setlist, but the rest of the encore songs were not.

The show was so damned tight, I could probably list off 80% of the show as being highlights. “July Jones” was particularly strong, and I’m very proud of how the string of three showstoppers in a row at the end of main set worked out.

If anyone out there can hook me up with a recording of this show, I will do my best to repay you somehow. I still can’t believe they actually played my fake setlist. How fucking joycore is that?

(Those of you who may be unfamiliar with The New Pornographers should check out their Matador site, where they are streaming the entire Electric Version album, and have a few mp3s available to download.)

They Don’t Speak For Us

Time Zone “World Destruction” – Here we have Afrika Bambaataa and John Lydon, rapping and sneering very prescient lyrics about world crisis in 1984 over a heavy old school beat, with atonal guitar feedback and some excellent recurring synth lines for accompaniment. Sample lyrics:

Countries are fighting in chemical warfare. Not giving a damn about the people who live. Nostradamus predicts the coming of the Antichrist. Hey, look out, the third world nations are on the rise. The Democratic-Communist Relationship, won’t stand in the way of the Islamic force. The CIA is looking for other detectives. The KGB is smarter than you think. Brainwash mentalities to control the system. Using TV and movies – religions of course. Yes, the world is heading for destruction.

Well, they tried to warn us.

Fans of the Sopranos might remember this song from the first episode of the fourth season of the series. (Special thanks to Nikon!)

Radiohead “No Surprises” (live at Electric Lady Studios for Morning Becomes Eclectic) – This is from a session that Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood recorded with Nigel Godrich in Manhattan one month ago. It’s a very beautiful rendition of the song, stripped down to its lullaby essence. I think that they should perform the song live with this arrangement more often.