Archive for 2007

Santa Maria “Lalalalalaaa” – Maria Eriksson’s voice may not be as memorable and unique as that of her fellow ex-Concrete Victoria Bergsman, but they are both the musical grandchildren of Nico, and as such smuggle a great deal of warmth and humanity in a voice that seems lethargic and aloof on the surface. “Lalalalaaa” recalls the sound of the Concretes, but even more so the most tuneful tracks in the Electrelane catalog, or going back to a more obscure reference point, the better songs by Quickspace. The song feels like a train of thought taking form and then drifting away, and as it goes on, it seems as though they are trying to draw out an idea that’s already begun to fade away. (Click here to buy it from Juno.)

Robyn “Robotboy (UK Version)” – It’s been a long time, but Robyn is finally releasing her self-titled album in the UK. Two of the songs have been re-recorded, two other songs have been added, and the running order has been shuffled around so that “Konichiwa Bitches” is the first proper tune on the record. It’s funny how the character of the album shifts so much with these changes even though it’s mostly the same thing. “Bum Like You” and “Robotboy” are both faster and thoroughly electro now, and as a result the albums feels considerably less eclectic and more focused on being this super modern Europop thing. I prefer the original version of “Bum Like You,” but “Robotboy” has definitely been improved by its faster pace and sweeter production. As a whole, Robyn is better — the kinks have been ironed out, and it suddenly sounds more like a greatest hits compilation than a regular album. (Click here for Robyn’s official site.)

Sonic Youth @ Webster Hall 2/16/07
Candle / Reena / Incinerate / Bull in the Heather / Skip Tracer / Do You Believe In Rapture? / What A Waste / Silver Rocket / Rats / Turquoise Boy / Jams Run Free / Pink Steam / Or // The Neutral / Shaking Hell /// Expressway To Yr Skull

At long last, after twelve years of seeing them play at least once on every tour, I finally got to see Sonic Youth play “Silver Rocket”! This means my list of Sonic Youth oldies that they play live but I have never seen has been reduced to just “Brother James” and “Inhuman.” (It’s sort of amazing how common “Brother James” is — it is played with some regularity on virtually every tour — and yet it remains so elusive!) This is not counting songs that were performed frequently before 1995 – other key songs that I would love to see but have not been performed since before I started seeing them live include “Theresa’s Sound-World,” “Stereo Sanctity,” “Tuff Gnarl,” “Pipeline/Kill Time,” “I Love Her All The Time,” “Dirty Boots,” “Flower,” “Hey Joni,” and “The Sprawl,” but who knows if they will do any of those ever again.

Honestly, I would’ve been happy enough just to see them play “Candle” and “Skip Tracer” again, since they both rank among my top five or six favorites in the Sonic Youth catalog. Really, there isn’t a lot to say about this show aside from remarking on the setlist — like Radiohead, their performances are of a freakishly consistent and high level of quality, and after a certain number of shows, all you can do is offer yet another reverent WOW.

Sonic Youth “The Neutral” – This is how they introduced this song on Friday night:

Thurston: “Hey Kim, why don’t you tell us what this song’s about? You told me once, but I forgot.”

Kim: “It’s about the modern dude.”

One of the most interesting things about Sonic Youth’s lyrics over the past decade is the way that songs about people and their relationships are always strictly observational. They aren’t entirely emotionally detached, but definitely stand at a distance from their subjects, and they never do much to hide that — if anything, the vicarious drama and benign voyeurism becomes the real topic. “The Neutral” is sung to a friend about some mysterious and alluring “modern dude,” but the song isn’t really about him; it’s about the possibility that her friend might end up with him, and how that fills her with excitement, pride, and mild envy. As the song ends, Kim sings “he’s neutral, and he’s weary, and he’s so in love with you,” and it’s the single most heartbreaking line she’s written since she sang “I’m so happy we’re just friends” at the end of “Creme Brulee” on Dirty. It’s not because she’s actually interested in the “modern dude,” but that she’s acknowledging the ways in which she is cut off from these sort of possibilities, for better or worse. She wants the best for her friend, and she’s hopeful that this crush works out, and in some small way she knows it’s because she wants to be in on this magic, even if she’s just on the periphery. (Click here to buy it from AmpCamp.)

A Sunny Day In Glasgow @ The Delancey 2/17/07
Our Change Into Rain Is No Change At All / Lists, Plans / A Mundane Phone Call With Jack Parsons / Ghost in the Graveyard / C’mon / The Best Summer Ever

A Sunny Day In Glasgow “Our Change Into Rain Is No Change At All” – A Sunny Day In Glasgow’s evolution as a live band continues to stray from the muted, ethereal effect of their studio recordings without sacrificing their appeal. If anything, their show at the Delancey foregrounded their most appealing and accessible aspects — the melodies, the guitar textures, and the voices of Lauren and Robin Daniels — and highlighting things that aren’t so strongly emphasized on the album, i.e. the lyrics and the beats. The girls sound like shy apparitions on Scribble Mural Comic Journal, but in person, they are outgoing, flirtatious, and bold. Their drummer is tight and energetic, and was key in translating music designed for headphones into something physical and urgent. “C’mon” was played with a disco beat, “Best Summer Ever” was played like a rock hit, and “Lists, Plans” was sped up considerably, and transformed into an arty funk song not unlike Stereolab’s “Metronomic Underground.” (Click here to buy it from Notenuf.)

Coin-Op “Favourite Subjects” – If you’ve been reading this site for a while, you may remember Coin-Op as the band from England who wrote “Hey Uri!,” a song that inexplicably tore into the spoon-bending, long-ago disgraced faux-psychic Uri Gellar. “Favourite Subjects” is no less bitter and abrasive, but its subject matter is more timely, if not timeless: Arrogant self-absorbed drug-fueled pricks. The song has a great momentum and a memorable scream-along chorus, and sounds kinda like a dancey version of McLusky, though the singer affects a slightly bizarre twang on its verses. (Click here for the Coin-Op website.)

The Knife “Marble House (Rex The Dog mix)” – The original version of “Marble House” is a romantic melodrama pushed to such an aesthetic extreme that its solemnity is nearly absurd. Its sentiment is super-concentrated, and so its emotional potency is overwhelming, basically redefining the word “hyperballad.” It’s not exactly a natural candidate for a dance remix, but Rex The Dog has outdone himself, speeding up the melody and amping up its dynamics without doing much to diminish its essential grandeur. Once it gets going, it actually begins to resemble Ace of Base, a group commonly invoked as a damning comparison by kneejerk anti-pop Knife detractors, but that’s no bad thing in this case. (Click here to buy it from AmpCamp.)

Elsewhere: “Indie rock NOW is a cult of marginalized success.” (Thanks to Carl.)

Also: “Wow, that’s so weird, like, I’ve never gotten along with someone that played all six strings on a guitar before!” – Watch a brief documentary about James Rabbit.

Alton Ellis “You Make Me Happy” – Studio 1 reggae from the 60s and 70s is easily some of the most perfectly recorded music in history, most especially in the way that it sounds so loose and easy, and every sound is transformed from a representation of a performance to something more sublime and abstract. For example, can music possibly sound more comforting than the bass line in this song? It’s not just the notes or the phrase, it’s this ideal texture, tone, and mix that makes it all sound as though you’re hearing it from within a womb. Everything in the track feels like bliss, but that bass brings us back to the greatest peace we’ll ever know. (Click here to buy it from Soul Jazz Records.)

Feist “My Moon, My Man” – Snap, thump, snap, thump — it’s a glam beat, and more or less on the same wavelength as Goldfrapp on their last two albums, but whereas their sound is dominating, mechanical and aloof, Feist’s song is submissive, muted, and colored by soft washes of blue moonlight. The lead guitar on the break is especially lovely, and sounds as though it just wandered in from some hopelessly romantic 80s UK alt-rock tune that we’ve never heard before. (Click here for the Feist MySpace page.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Photocall, Jay Reatard, and the Marcia Blaine School For Girls.

Arcade Fire @ Judson Memorial Church 2/13/07
Keep The Car Running / Antichrist Television Blues / Black Mirror / Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son / No Cars Go / Haiti / Black Wave/Bad Vibrations / My Body Is A Cage / Neon Bible / Power Out / Rebellion (Lies) / Intervention // Windowsill / The Well and the Lighthouse

This was my first time seeing the Arcade Fire, mainly because it took me about two years to come around to liking their first album. I now agree with the consensus — Funeral is very good — but I’m finding that I’m in a minority at the moment for believing that their new album Neon Bible is about twenty times better. On one hand, it’s an inevitable backlash, the sort of thing that invariably happens when a debut album is so successful and meaningful to its fans. On the other, it’s some very strong evidence that a large portion of the indie yuppie nation simply have no taste for brilliance.

I probably don’t need to tell you that the Arcade Fire are a compelling live act. They hit the stage as a ten piece ensemble, in part to honor their detailed arrangements and specific textures, but mostly to hit the audience with an overwhelming wall of sound. For a band known for their bombast, the songs never seemed over-arranged, and the performance was always disciplined and focused, save for the hit single “Power Out,” which dumbed down their sound for the effect of sheer blunt force. At their best, the clever details of the arrangements were noticeable but not distracting — a bit of subtle horn skronk on “Black Mirror,” the low moan of a bowed upright bass on “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations” (which was, for me, the highlight of the show), the sound of paper being torn used as a percussive effect on “Neon Bible.”

Unavoidably, Win Butler was the focal point of the performance, even when he was not singing lead. The man has an odd temperment for a rock frontman of either the indie or arena persuasion. He is stoic but not humorless, and intense without being ponderous or pretentious. He has a sort of gravity that cannot be easily faked, and a charisma that does not seem forced or even intentional. He falls somewhere in the middle of a scale with Bono circa Achtung Baby on one side, and Johnny Cash on the other. His wife Regine has a different but complementary character — her tone and demeanor is more playful, but she also seems more worldly and cynical.

Arcade Fire “Antichrist Television Blues” – I’ve been listening to songs from Neon Bible since they’ve been leaking, and biting my tongue for weeks despite feeling as though I could write endlessly on the topic of just “Intervention” and “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations.” By the time the record leaked in full and I heard “Antichrist Television Blues” for the first time, I’d become convinced of the album’s apparent themes well enough to assume that it was another song about a sympathetic character desperately praying for deliverance from poverty and its attendant miseries. I wasn’t exactly wrong about that — this is indeed a song sung from perspective of a troubled man pleading with God, but I did miss the crucial details of his prayer.

As it turns out, “Antichrist Television Blues” has a few alternate titles, and one of them is “Joe Simpson,” as in the father and manager of Jessica and Ashlee. If you follow the words, it is clear that the song is based on him, and even though it’s rather damning, it’s still more generous than you could ever expect given that Butler writes his character as a devout believer corrupted by his hubris and ambition rather than someone who is merely creepy, exploitative, and opportunistic.

If Neon Bible is mainly dealing with faith as a way of bargaining for a way out of disastrous situations and a lack of opportunity, “Antichrist Television Blues” is a necessary part of that continuum, examining the selfishness of a delusional, dogmatic man who can’t see the cruelty and deranged logic of his ways. The humble, luckless souls of “Intervention,” “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations,” and “Windowsill” may suffer a futile hope for escape from their circumstances, but the character in “Antichrist Television Blues” nearly destroys himself with the perversity of his convictions, and it only serves him right. (Click here to pre-order it from Merge.)

Elsewhere: J. Edward Keyes has finally found the holy grail of mash-ups: Malcolm McLaren’s mix of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and “Love Will Keep Us Together.”

This is intended to be a Valentine’s Day post, but since I have other plans for tomorrow, you get his one day early.

Erasure “Victim of Love (Live in Nashville, 2006)” – This is ostensibly a country version of “Victim of Love,” but in actuality it is a glorious totem pole of kitsch. The country and western signifiers are in full force, but there’s also a vague Hawaiian luau theme, some Elvis Presley inflections, a twee female back-up singer, a general lounge vibe, and well, let’s not skip over the very fact that this is an Erasure song. I’ve always thought that Andy Bell sounded a bit like Cher on this particular tune, and that impression is even stronger on this version. Every day in every way, Andy Bell becomes a better diva. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Mika “Billy Brown” – Mika may not top Erasure today in terms of sublime campiness, but he comes close with this jaunty tune about a bored suburbanite whose life becomes a directionless mess when he realizes that he’s fallen in love with another man. For a song about the ramifications of sexual confusion, it’s remarkably cheery and devoid of angst, but you can chalk that up to the fact that it’s sung from the perspective of an omniscient narrator and not its tragic character. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

The Smashing Pumpkins “Beautiful” – It took me ten years to develop the frame of reference to realize that this is Billy Corgan’s ersatz version of Prince circa Sign O The Times. It’s an oddball pop song, and certainly one of the weirder compositions in the Smashing Pumpkins catalog, but it makes perfect sense in the context of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. The beauty of that record comes from how perfectly it emulates the mindset of suburban teenagers, with each of its 28 songs falling on a gray scale of exaggerated, hormonal emotions. There are several types of crush songs on the record, but “Beautiful” is the one that totally nails the ridiculous, naive purity of unrequited love. The object of his affection is idealized in the first verse but just after he lets it slip that he’s not actually with that person (“with my face pressed up to the glass / wanting you”), the song shifts into a daydream scenario in which they are together, his love is returned tenfold, and everything is perfect and lovely forever and ever and ever and ever. But forever doesn’t last even in his fantasy, and we’re back to him acknowledging that they really don’t know each other very well, and that “you just can’t tell / who you’ll love and who you won’t.” (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: “Like a spider, crawling up inside your body and laying a thousand eggs of cancer…I killed you.”

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks @ Irving Plaza 2/10/07 (Plug Awards)
Baby C’mon / Dragonfly Pie / It Kills / Pennywhistle Thunder / Hopscotch Willie / Jo Jo’s Jacket / Walk Into a Mirror

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks @ Maxwell’s 2/11/07
Pencil Rot / Water and a Seat / Merry Go Round / Dragonfly Pie / Real Emotional Trash / Freeze the Saints / Walk Into a Mirror / Baltimore Again / Animal Midnight / Baby C’mon / (“Psychopath” improv) / Pennywhistle Thunder / Hopscotch Willie / The Hook // Mama / (band intros, including a bit of “School” by Nirvana) / Wicked Wanda / Oyster

Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks “Dragonfly Pie (One Music session, 10/3/05)” – This early version of “Dragonfly Pie” was recorded back when John Moen was still the drummer in the Jicks, and though it is quite good, you just have to take my word for it that it’s about ten times better with Janet Weiss behind the kit. Since the Jicks started up, I’ve been excited about John Moen, not just because he’s a cool, funny talented dude, but because his presence in the band meant that Stephen Malkmus finally had a kick-ass drummer rather than someone who was just adequate and/or exceedingly charming. Finally, I thought, Malkmus is collaborating with an equal!

In retrospect it seems that for all his chops, Moen was still subordinate to Malkmus’ style — they were on the same wavelength, but SM called all the shots. Not so with Janet Weiss. She’s an unstoppable force with a distinct, hard-hitting, fill-heavy style that complements Malkmus’ post-Pavement songs so well that it seems as though they were made to play together, and pose creative challenges to one another.

The older songs were pumped up with a level of kinetic energy alien to Malkmus’ career to date, as though the skinny, lanky compositions had all gone off to a gym for two solid years and emerged as buff, toned behemoths without losing any of their melodic grace. “Merry Go Round” and the lovely “Walk Into a Mirror” were tight, poppy, and harmonic, but the majority of the new tunes were epic in structure, but placed a greater emphasis on rhythmic shifts and instrumental passages than meandering solos. I’ve seen people refer to Pig Lib as being almost pornographic in the way that it panders to the taste of Malkmus fanboys such as myself, and this new material is the same way, though also for Janet Weiss. Whenever the album comes out later this year, it’s going to sound like the musical equivalent of indie rock slash fiction. (Click here for the official Malkmus site.)

If you were wondering, the Plug Awards was a total mess. I’ll let Idolator cover the details, but let’s just say that they were damn lucky that a guy as skilled at making fun of stupid shit as David Cross was the host, and was able to salvage its many poorly planned, ill-conceived bits and the generally haphazard nature of the production. The bands were a mixed bag — El-P was good but only performed two songs, Deerhoof sounded like 1993 on stage whereas they sound like 1997 on their new album, and the Silversun Pickups were so bad that I wanted to slap some sense into everyone I saw in the audience who was visably enjoying their set. I’d only skimmed over their music before, listening to enough to know that I had no interest in writing about them, but seeing them live shifted my apathy to outright disdain. Basically, the Silversun Pickups sound like the Afghan Whigs if Greg Dulli had somehow lost his genitals in a horrible accident when he was 8 years old. I’ve seen people compare them to the Smashing Pumpkins, and that just seems totally preposterous to me — they could only sound like the Pumpkins to a person who has never heard any of their albums but is nevertheless convinced that they hate the music based on the fact that Billy Corgan is kind of a douchebag.

Elsewhere: Slate’s Jim Lewis suggests that Factory Girl is actually a mean-spirited homophobic allegory.

Bright Eyes “Four Winds” – I’m not sure why I downloaded this song. Morbid curiosity? A well-intentioned desire to give Conor Oberst another chance? Aimless boredom? All of the above, I guess. The first surprise was that the first minute went by without any vocals, and it’s not half bad, basically “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” done up as fakey country rock, but it’s actually a pretty good melody to nick, and the strings sound kinda nice. It’s a happy, pleasant minute.

The second surprise is that when Oberst starts singing, it doesn’t make me want to immediately erase the file. One of my major problems with Oberst has been that he sings everything in a deeply unappealing whine which makes him come off like an entitled, petulant teenage boy telling his dad to get out of his room when he’s angry, or like a kid about to eat some worms when he’s sad. Simply put, he doesn’t sound that much like a douchebag on this song. He can’t stop being himself, but he can apparently rein in his excesses and sing like an adult when he’s in the mood. His rhythm on the verses mimics that of America’s “A Horse With No Name,” and again, stealing from that tune isn’t such a terrible idea. Maybe Oberst is growing up! I mean, he’s in his mid-20s, that’s a good time to start, but when people have been telling you that you’re great and cute smart girls from all over the world have been pining for you since you were 15, you really never have any good reason to change.

The other big problem I’ve had with Conor Oberst is a more personal hang-up. Much of his music, but most especially the Lifted album, sounds like the sort of thing I would have thought would be the best thing ever back when I was a teenager — bombastic, overwrought, whiney, smug, over-arranged. If I could figure out by age 20 that this was in fact a recipe for some of the worst music imaginable, why couldn’t this dude? I can’t help but associate this guy with emotional and intellectual immaturity when almost everything he does reminds me of a period of my life in which I totally hated myself, and with good reason.

Cutting to the chase, “Four Winds” doesn’t sound like anything I would have imagined when I was 18, and I guess neither does I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning, though I definitely dislike that record. It’s a lot easier for me to be okay with Oberst when he’s not symbolizing anything to me, and it certainly helps that much more aggravating musicians have since replaced him in my mind as the straw man representing everything that I hate about contemporary indie rock. (Conor, if you’re reading and at all flattered by this, send a nice thank you card to Sufjan Stevens, okay?)

So, yeah, “Four Winds.” It’s a Bright Eyes song that I don’t dislike. Um, enjoy? (Click here to buy it from Saddle Creek.)

Say Anything “Every Man Has A Molly” – I’m ideologically opposed to the concept of “guilty pleasures,” but I can’t think of any better way for me to describe my relationship with this song. As Rob Harvilla noted in his recent feature about the band in the Village Voice, “Every Man Has A Molly” is the ultimate example of the sort of emo misogyny described by Jessica Hopper in her essay “Emo: Where The Girls Aren’t.” It’s also actually a fantastic pop song with lyrics that are intentionally nasty, over-sharing, insufferably indulgent, and above all else, extremely self-aware. Max Bemis knows that he’s being a total dick, and so he plays it for laughs without diminishing his emotions, and the result is something that comes off as being a true, if extremely unflattering portrait of a wounded, entitled asshole. Basically, this sounds like Weezer circa Pinkerton if Rivers Cuomo was ten times more of a jerk, and had no illusions about romantic love at all whatsoever. It’s well-constructed and fun, and I just really love the way the name “Molly Connolly” sounds in the song. I feel like such a creep for being way into this, and that’s kinda screwed up and hypocritical for me if just because there are loads of other records with lyrics that are just as questionable if not a whole lot worse that I don’t feel too bad about at all. (Like, for example, that entire Clipse album.) (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: You can listen to my segment from last night’s episode of Fair Game right here. It’s nice, but I’m definitely a little nervous and you can tell in my speech patterns. I kept using the same words for some reason, and even though I actually kinda coached myself to say “thanks for having me” on the way to the station, my brain made me say “thanks it was good to see you” TWICE, even though it’s radio. If you were wondering, A Sunny Day In Glasgow’s song was cut for time, and so it’s just Charlotte Hatherley, the Child Ballads, Of Montreal, and Noonday Underground.

Also: If you’ve been reading this site on RSS or whatever and missed the big banner up top, you might want to know that I’m DJing between sets for a show at Galapagos in Brooklyn tonight featuring A Place To Bury Strangers, Sh-sh-sh-shark Attack!!!, the Vandelles, and Mofos. I’m not familiar with Mofos and Sh-sh-sh-shark Attack!!!, but I’ve seen the Vandelles and A Place To Bury Strangers before, and they were both quite good.

And: I’m really glad that Choire Sicha is back at Gawker.

Arthur Russell “Hiding Your Present From You” – If you made a list of the components of this composition, it may seem awkward and unlikely that they would gel, much less come together as a thing of great beauty, but Arthur Russell pulled it off with an uncommon grace, which is probably the best way to describe the essential quality of his music in general. “Hiding Your Present From You” (Present as in a gift, or present as in tense? I prefer the latter.) radiates intense good will and love without seeming even remotely cloying, and a lot of that comes through just in the way Russell’s reedy voice seems to glow throughout the mix. (Click here to buy it from Amp Camp.)

The Freelance Hellraiser “We Don’t Belong” – In a convoluted sort of way, there’s a good chance that I might not be doing this blog if it weren’t for the Freelance Hellraiser, aka the dude who kick-started the mash-up trend earlier in this decade, and had me addicted to Boom Selection, which was the primary inspiration for putting mp3s on my site in the first place. It’s an interesting thing to hear him making music as a proper solo artist, not just because it’s sort of brave for him to step away from his main gimmick, but that his music skews noticeably toward the elements of “Stroke of Genie-us” derived from the Strokes rather than the Christina Aguilera bits. The guy still has a knack for constructing exciting tracks, though some of the cuts on the album have this sort of soggy Britishness to them that’s not entirely appealing, and I’m not just talking about the song with the guy from Snow Patrol. “We Don’t Belong” is the best of the set, mainly for the way it zooms off like a shoegazer race car during the chorus, and shamelessly echoes a bit of “Hey Jude” in its intro. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Clinic, the Postmarks, and Dust To Digital’s Sacred Harp compilation.

Also: I’m going to be on tonight’s episode of Fair Game on Public Radio International. They are going to be talking to me about songs by Of Montreal, Charlotte Hatherley, A Sunny Day In Glasgow, Noonday Underground. and the Child Ballads.

Times New Viking “Love Your Daughters” – Times New Viking’s lo-fi style may be an affectation in the age of Pro-Tools, but it’s an aesthetic choice that works well for them, and pretty much anyone else who plays this sort of raggedy, fuzzy pop rock — the kind of music that used to be synonymous with the category “indie rock” before that phrase ended up getting corrupted by overuse. A lot of the beauty in lo-fi comes from its distinct, informal textures, and the way it makes every sound seem lived-in and familiar, like a crappy yet sturdy jacket you’ve been wearing every winter for the better part of a decade. I’m not convinced that these guitar parts would sound better recorded any other way, and the blur of vocals and keyboards fill the arrangement out without sounding fixed in any position, like bits of scenery in memories that might be a bit off, but aren’t exactly essential to the feeling. (Click here to buy it from Midheaven.)

Elsewhere: I have a paragraph of comments in this year’s Village Voice Pazz and Jop poll. Here they are for you if you hate to click links:

Passionate fandom is a bonus and may grant you some longevity, but your average flash-in-the-pan only needs to get enough people to provide some sort of risk-free, superficial endorsement — downloading your songs for free, adding you on MySpace — to build up enough buzz to generate a backlash before anyone outside your tiny cultural bubble ever learns your name, much less hears your music. On the bright side, burning through a seemingly complete career arc in the span of six months is still better than to have no recognition at all, and even when first-year bloggers are pimping bland, conservative acts such as the Cold War Kids, they are still collectively far more adventurous than the overwhelming majority of print and broadcast media.

Matthew Perpetua
Astoria, New York

Also: Here is my ballot, which is a little different from the one that I did for Idolator’s poll.

And: A Merry Marvel Musical Atrocity, courtesy of Rachelle Goguen.

Liz Phair “Nashville” – Maybe I’ve been reading the wrong writers or speaking to the wrong people since the early 90s, but it seems that almost no one ever mentions that the guitar parts on Liz Phair’s first two albums are more often than not as poetic as her words. The tone in “Nashville” is drowsy and nearly serene, but its churning rhythm is nervous and unsteady in a way particular to feeling terrified about losing something in which you’ve invested too much. It’s an interesting subtext for a song that depicts a relationship in its most uneventful yet most emotionally loaded moments, and proclaims “I won’t decorate my love” at the end like a mantra, a promise, and a manifesto.

Of course, when she sings those words, the arrangement contradicts the notion with some sentimental adornment in the form of a few faded saxophone notes and some distant twinkling sounds, presumably an echo of the sweetest thing that Phair sings in this, or possibly any other, song: “They don’t know what they like so much about it / they just go for any shiny old bauble / and nobody sparkles like you.” It’s a genuinely beautiful thing to say, but it’s grounded in an elitism that I find to be human and true, and it speaks to the reality that who you fall in love with is a matter of taste, and some people have better taste than others. Ultimately, this is a song about pride, and the way that it makes love both more difficult in that it keeps you from opening up to just anyone, and more rewarding when you find someone with whom you can feel safe enough to drop your defenses. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

The Breeders “London Song” – The song moves along in fits and starts without ever stopping in place. Sure, there are moments of dramatic silence, but those are there to indicate that the music has hit a peak and is about to roll backwards or drop suddenly in mid-air, rendering its lyrical themes of depression and lapsed sobriety as Sisyphean slapstick. Kim Deal has done many, many rad things in her career, but let’s just say for the sake of argument that the bridge of this song ranks among her top five all-time best moments — “I thought I’d know better….I thought I would knoooooooow!” And right then, on cue, she tumbles back into the chorus like it’s a bad habit. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

Elsewhere: Pageblank on work, Bjork, and Matthew Barney, Indexed makes some sense of the world with little hand-drawn charts, and Random Panels presents the four types of Bat-conflict.

Maxi Geil! & Playcolt @ Tonic 2/3/2007
Cryin’ / Teenage Extreme / You Can’t Kill Us, Man, We’re Already Dead / Sunday Morning / Your Best Won’t Be Enough / Makin’ Love in the Sunshine / That’s How The Story Goes / The Love I Lose / Please Remember Me / Strange Sensation // Artist’s Lament

Maxi Geil! & Playcolt “Makin’ Love in the Sunshine (Album Version)” – The band played this show with a trio of girls from NYU called the Maxi Dancers, who performed an awkward but highly appropriate jailbait burlesque act throughout the set, starting off with some over the top vamping to the Skinemax guitar licks of “Cryin'” and a glam schoolgirl striptease for “Teenage Extreme.” By the time they came around to the extended dance version “Makin’ Love in the Sunshine,” the room exploded into a fantastic dance party for artsy New Yorkers of three different generations. It was a pure, perfect concert moment in which the audience became an equal part of the performance, and the song became complete. Later on, after an enthusiastic call for an encore, “Artist’s Lament” came close to matching the magic of “Makin’ Love,” with its angst-ridden chorus “Oh Christ, do you know what it’s like / to be long on ideas / but short on time?” becoming the anthem that it deserves to be before hitting its climax and ending as a sort of slow dance at a prom. It drives me mad that this band can consistently pack venues in New York City and put on these lively, thoughtful spectacles without attracting the attention of too many people outside of the art world, but trust me, if you’re sleeping on this, it’s your loss. (Click here for the Maxi Geil website.)

David Vandervelde “Nothin’ No” – “Nothin’ No,” as in “nothin’, no, is gonna keep us apart.” Which is, of course, something you only say when every goddamn thing in the world is going to get in the way of the thing you want, and the only way to keep sane and focused and possibly overcome your obstacles is to persevere with relentless, stupid optimism and fidelity. The entire song sounds as though it is cheerfully swimming against the tide of bad odds and negativity, and it’s just sort of ridiculous and inspiring. I really hope that things worked out for this dude. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

Elsewhere: Chris Conroy on comic books, Anthony Miccio on the twenty albums that he kept in their entirety from 2006, Funeral Pudding begins the game of Of Montreal, and Ed Shepp recites a post from the Cold Inclusive.

James Rabbit “The Whole World Sleeps In Your Bed” – Whereas pretty much every other indie band of their generation is out working a tiresome hustle, James Rabbit display a refreshing lack of careerism. There’s no James Rabbit MySpace page, they barely tour, and they have no record label, much less a PR company. They just churn out a few albums every year, gradually building up an extensive discography for no one in particular, sort of like Bob Pollard in his pre-Bee Thousand days. Each James Rabbit record is better than the last, with incremental improvements in every aspect of its conception, performance, and production. “The Whole World Sleeps In Your Bed” may be their finest song to date, rocking merrily along with a memorable Beatlesque guitar hook and a typically exuberant lead vocal that careens from one killer lyric to the next. The song eventually drifts off from its hyperactive main body into a gentle reverie, but unlike other James Rabbit tunes that follow a similar trajectory, the song crashes in its final moments, tripling its angst as if to make up for the brief period of calmness. (Click here to get a free copy of James Rabbit’s new album Colossuses.)

Elsewhere: Michael Barthel’s new version of Clap Clap Blog is up and running, kicking off with a lengthy post that touches on the death of both James Brown and Gerald Ford.

Tarwater “When Love Was The Law In Los Angeles” – The laws have changed, and now benign indifference is the law in Los Angeles, just as it is here in New York City. Tarwater’s song is both wistful and deadpan, and the stark contrast of Ronald Lippock’s low monotone and the bright keyboard tones is like a black and white figure wandering through a backdrop shot on washed-out yet vibrant color film. (Click here to pre-order it from Dotshop.)

Deerhoof “Choco Fight” – There’s something about the timbre of Satomi Matsuzaki’s voice that I find very difficult to love, and that holds me back from liking Deerhoof’s Friend Opportunity as much as, hmmm, well, definitely not as much as this guy, but I can get over that sort of thing when the tracks feature a sweet melody backed up by a variety of pleasurable and evocative instrumental sounds, and a structure more akin to dream logic than traditional song forms. “Choco Fight” starts off strong with a firm beat and a keyboard tone so wet that it seems to pour out of the speakers, and though that’s the textural highlight of the composition, there’s still quite a bit there to hold your attention. (Click here to buy it from Buy Olympia.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site. This week has an American Idol theme, and features mp3s from the New Pornographers, Jamie Lidell, and the Songs In The Key Of Z compilation.

Born Ruffians “Hedonistic Me” – The Born Ruffians’ debut EP definitely sounds better to me now than when I first heard it, but it’s easy to understand why it didn’t grab my attention in the same way that their live set did on Monday night. For one thing, the most exciting songs from their show are not on the record, and tracks they have released only hint at the quality of the melodic yet rhythmically complex material that they performed at the Mercury Lounge. “Hedonistic Me” was played in the set, and comes the closest to the appeal of the newer tunes, though it doesn’t quite show off the brilliance of their drummer, who is so talented and charismatic that the guitarist and bassist seem to be supporting him, and not the other way around. The band indulge in a few vocal tics common in indie rock these days — Modest Mouse rhythmic barks, Animal Collective party shouts, a general nebbishy timbre — but at their best, the tunes are creamy, the guitar tone is gorgeous, the beats are clever yet intuitive, and the level of musicianship is far beyond what is commonly expected from young indie rock dudes these days. (Click here to buy it from Bleep.)

Peter Bjorn and John @ Mercury Lounge 1/29/2007
Let’s Call It Off / (I Just Wanna) See Through / The Chills / Paris 2004 / Far Away, By My Side / Start To Melt / Big Black Coffin / Young Folks (with Victoria Bergsman) / Amsterdam / Objects Of My Affection / Up Against The Wall // Teen Love / I Don’t Know What I Want Us To Do / Collect, Select, Reflect

Peter Bjorn and John “Paris 2004” – Yesterday wasn’t a very good day for me. My laptop is currently away being serviced, and with little to no warning, the hard drive of my desktop died, taking a considerable but not entirely tragic number of non-backed up files from the past four months with it, effectively making my life as a professional writer/daily blogger very difficult until at least tomorrow. (After then, my life just becomes very tedious for a while, but that’s a lot better than doing all my work from an internet cafe.) So seriously, THANK GOD (or at least some dude named Ewan) that I got to see this Peter Bjorn and John show — it was so good, so entertaining, so revelatory that I think in the future, I might only remember that part of the day.

There’s nothing particularly flashy about Peter Bjorn and John’s live show, but they perform with such effortless charm and grace that their good songs become great, and the great songs become magical, especially the sweetly romantic “Paris 2004” and the hit “Young Folks,” which they performed with an additional percussion player and the Concretes’ Victoria Bergsman. (A sidenote, though somewhat related to the quality of her performance/stage presence: As I left the venue, I made eye contact with Bergsman for about a second and it was like staring into the sun.) The audience was extremely enthusiastic, and there seemed to be a sense that their success in the United States was inevitable given the quality of the show, the single, the album, the realization that Peter Moren is a total heartthrob, and the fact that they have some serious industry muscle behind them, which is sort of hidden, but very fortunate. Before seeing their show, I would have been skeptical about their chances, but now I’m just waiting to be proven wrong. (Click here to buy it from Amp Camp.)

Elsewhere: Brooklyn Vegan has some photos from the show.

Also: The Born Ruffians opened up for PB&J, and they were quite good and much better than I remember from their EP, but I’m going to have to come back to that again later when my computer situation is sorted out. Just thought I’d mention that, if just to make sure that I don’t forget to do it sometime next week.

The Fall “Coach and Horses” – This year’s Fall album Reformation Post TLC is an odd, misshapen thing, full of thick, bass-heavy compositions that mostly set into musical holding patterns in order to accommodate Mark E Smith’s vocals, but never accentuate his words, much less gel into memorable songs. There’s an intentional rawness to the album — most of the second half seems to have been recorded in concert — but that tossed-off aesthetic carries over into the majority of the songs, which come across as severely under-written and barely arranged, as though Smith just stumbled into some mediocre band’s rehearsal and called it a recording session. The record maintains the basic level of quality to be expected from an album by the Fall, but is very wide of the mark hit by late period classics such as “Midnight Aspen,” “Theme From Sparta FC,” “Susan Vs. Youth Club,” and “Dr. Buck’s Letter.” The brief melodic interlude “Coach and Horses” is the keeper this time around, and basically sounds unlike everything else on the record with its light, ethereal arpeggios and utter lack of regrettable guitar and keyboard tones. (Click here to pre-order it from CD Wow.)

Dragonette “Get Lucky” – Dragonette’s first album is a grab bag of pop songs in various styles, all of which are amiable and catchy, but lacking a recognizable identity to hold them all together. Individually, the tracks are more successful, most especially this perky nu-cabaret number, which comes off like a sunnier, less cranky version of Nellie McKay and fearlessly commits to its own corniness. The band seem at home in this self-consciously mild and sentimental mode, much more so when they attempt a somewhat unconvincing “bad girl” pose on other cuts, even if one of those happens to be the other best song on the album. (Click here for the official Dragonette site.)

The Child Ballads “Green Jewelry” – After about twenty false starts, the Child Ballads’ debut EP has finally come out in England, nearly ten years following the release of Stewart Lupton’s last officially released studio recordings with Jonathan Fire Eater. In the time since, he has reinvented himself as a folk singer heavily indebted to Bob Dylan and Romantic poetry, and penned some truly outstanding songs that have circulated online via live recordings of their sporadic shows, one of which is available for purchase on eMusic. “Green Jewelry,” which would open side b of the record if it were to be released on vinyl, is a ramshackle ballad that finds comfort in the rituals of Catholicism when it is abstracted by a dead language, and evidence of divine beauty in nature’s interaction with the ornaments of religion. (Click here to buy it from Juno.)

Elsewhere: Eric Harvey on the face of James Mercer, Edward Oculicz on Marit Larsen’s “Don’t Save Me,” and Rachelle Goguen on that one time when John Byrne forced Superman to star in a porno film with Mister Miracle’s wife.

Also: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from New Young Pony Club, Deerhunter, and Malajube.

And: The server that hosts this site was down yesterday, and there wasn’t much that I could do but wait for them to get it all back online. I hope that you were not too troubled by a Day Without A Fluxblog.

Of Montreal “A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger” – As I walked around listening to this song last night, I noticed a slight sprinkle of flurries fall from the sky. I might not have even noticed them if they weren’t illuminated by street lights, but there they were, sparsely separated and drifting downward, looking more like a half-assed school play special effect than the sort of significant snowfall that has been totally elusive in this region of the country during this sad excuse for a winter.

This weather is mainly troubling because it’s very likely a symptom of potentially disastrous global warming, but I’d be lying if I said that most of my bitterness isn’t tied up in aesthetics. I like snow — a lot. It’s beautiful, and I find it to be both calming and inspiring. I enjoy the way the city slows down a bit during a major snow storm, and the way everything looks a few days later, with the remaining patches of white slowly melting away to small banks speckled with dirt, like scoops of Oreo ice cream. I especially love passing the white capped mountains, icicle waterfalls, and (if I’m lucky) frozen river on the ride up the Hudson Line just after a storm. I’m sure part of my affection stems from not having to commute or drive, but fuck that. I have to spend the summer listening to jackasses talk about how much they love the goddamn heat, so I see no reason to apologize for my preferences.

I’ve been waiting since the middle of the fall to listen to this particular Of Montreal song on a snowy day, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m going to have to wait until next year. In a way, the song may be sort of redundant in that context, since it sounds so much like a winter wonderland that it may be better as a stimulus substitute than an aesthetic accessory. Most of the first half of Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? has a distinct, cartoonish wintery feel to it, but “A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger” is the one that seems to whole-heartedly embrace that frigid scenery rather than let it serve as an implied backdrop for the foregrounded emotional content of the songs.

Not coincidentally, “…Kongsvinger” is the first song in the album’s sequence to step out of the existential terror that marks the opening five tracks. It’s a song about recovery and renewal, and taking the first steps toward reclaiming control over your life following a spell of depression and poor luck. It finds the joy and humor in a bad situation, and essentially concludes the first emotional arc of the album, leaving the remainder of the record to deal with the messy work of re-entering society after restructuring one’s own character. (Click here to buy it from Polyvinyl.)

Wings “Arrow Through Me” – Surely no one needs to be told that Paul McCartney is a genius, though it may sometimes be necessary to remind people that his run of brilliant material hardly stops at the end of his time with the Beatles, or even halfway through his post-Beatles career. His 1979 single “Arrow Through Me” feels as effortlessly perfect as most any of his 60s classics, with a smooth, creamy groove and memorable melody that filters 70s R&B through his personal style, resulting in a peculiar sort of Anglicized Quiet Storm. The production is especially great in the way that it lets Paul’s voice drift off into an echo at the end of the chorus, and sets its mellow keyboard tone against the crisp pop of the rhythm section and a bold horn figure that sounds slightly distanced and inhumanly precise. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Cortney Tidwell “Society” – Cortney Tidwell’s Don’t Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up maintains a drowsy, mellow tone throughout its sequence, but skips around between various permutations of ethereal drones, zoned-out folk balladry, and ambient electronic tracks that recall the work of Lali Puna and Bjork. She never sounds quite sure whether she would rather be Cat Power or Thom Yorke, but her taste in texture and melody is solid and I vastly prefer this sort of creative restlessness to the monochromatic efforts of other similar artists. “Society” breaks from her patterns somewhat, settling into a narrow, jazzy groove that bears down on the listener without feeling even slightly heavy, sort of like being smothered with exceptionally soft pillows. Tidwell’s voice is shadowed by the rich baritone of Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner, but his presence is decidedly ambiguous, leaving the audience to wonder whether he’s there to represent a malign outside force, a guardian angel, or judging by the lyrics, a stifling combination of both extremes. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Tom Scharpling & Jon Wurster “The Hero’s Call” – This skit from last week’s episode of the Best Show on WFMU is another successful formal experiment from Scharpling and Wurster. The call has a proggy sort of trajectory, kicking off as a friendly discussion of current events that heads off into creepy psycho-drama territory before shifting quite radically in tone for a rambling, hilarious discussion that touches on Shakespeare, an unbelievable dvd box set, and the secret lives of newscasters. (Click here for the Friends of Tom site.)