My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site. This week: Camera Obscura, Erase Errata, and SCSI-9 from the new Kompakt Total compilation.

Tigarah “Girl Fight” – Tigarah is like some kind of over-the-top, fully formed high concept wet dream for lifestyle magazines, the kind of thing you might make up if you were coming up with something to parody the taste and style of, say, The Fader. She’s cute and Japanese! And she makes ersatz Baille funk! It basically comes out sounding like M.I.A. with a Japanese accent — there’s less menace in her voice, but the force of the tracks compensates a bit, and “Girl Fight” in particular sounds totally fierce, even when it’s drifting off on a floaty acoustic tangent. (Click here for the Tigarah official site.)

Excerpt from Cut Copy Fabric Live 29: New Young Pony Club “Get Dancey” / In Flagranti “Bang Bang” – DJ mix cds err heavily on the side of tedium, with many of them degenerating into a beatmatched zombie lockstep that may work on a dancefloor but is not much fun at all when played on a home stereo. Cut Copy’s entry in the famed Fabric series is several steps above the competition, presenting a top notch electropop party that glides from hook to hook and emphasizes melody, humanity, and fun as well as beats and continuous flow. (Click here to pre-order it from Fabric.)

Thom Yorke “The Clock (Live on KCRW)” – On The Eraser, “The Clock” seems to recede into the background a bit, lost in a haze of electronic textures too similar to its neighboring tracks. On an album of songs that reveal themselves slowly, I find it to be the most stubborn and dense. This live acoustic version (that many of you have no doubt already heard if you happen to look at the ads on Stereogum and Pitchfork) cracks the song open, boiling the studio recording’s tangle of sounds down to a mesmerizing guitar rhythm and Yorke’s plaintive voice. The result is a track that sounds more anxious than anything Yorke has previously recorded, which is obviously quite an accomplishment given his discography. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

Tom Scharpling & Jon Wurster “Montgomery Davies” – Inspired by a recent and totally bizarre news item, Scharpling and Wurster break some new ground in their act by embracing FCC rules keeping them from making specific references to sexual perversity. As the skit moves along, the description of the “devices” becomes more ridiculous, but the implied usage of the machines is totally vague, leading the listener to extrapolate hilarious images from the clues presented by Wurster’s character. It’s one of the more subtle Best Show skits, not unlike the classic “Radio Hut” bit on Chain Fights, Beer Busts, and Service With A Grin cd compilation. (Click here for the official Best Show website.)

Hello Stranger “We Used To Talk” – It’s just a bit over two minutes long, but “We Used To Talk” is sentimental and heartbreaking enough that it’s sort of difficult for me to get through on some listens. Set to a plaintive, pretty melody and a gentle arrangement, Juliette Monique Commagere laments an extraordinarily close relationship that has become estranged. The reasons for the apparent dissolution of their bond is not explained, but the tone seems forgiving enough that you can tell she’s wondering why she or the other person can’t just find the strength or time to call the other and talk. (Click here to buy it from the Hello Stranger website.)

Elsewhere: My review of The Lady In The Water is up on The Movie Binge.

Nump featuring M.I.A. “I Got Grapes (Remix)” – Aside from the extremely high quality of its hooks and beats, the most compelling thing about Arular was the very sound of M.I.A.’s voice. Everyone who ever compared her to Johnny Rotten was completely right on; she has the same sort of imperious tone, evil wit, and nihilistic glee. The latter most often manifests itself in apparently value-neutral references to terrorism, which in in this remix comes in the form of name dropping Osama bin Laden as she hijacks the first minute and a half of Nump’s track. Her style is so overpowering that by the time she’s gone, it sounds like the DJ has mixed into another song completely though the beat remains exactly the same. Don’t tune out when she leaves — the Nump single is strong enough to merit your attention with or without her. (Click here to buy it from DJ Shadow Merchandise.)

Revl9n “The Box” – Long term readers may remember Revl9n’s “Walking Machine,” one of the leftfield highlights of this blog circa 2004. At long last, Revl9n have a full length record featuring the track, and though to be honest it’s not all up to the high standard of “Walking Machine,” the group turn out some impressive tracks when they are aiming less for fashion mag sleaze and more for angst-ridden existential synthpop. “The Box” is overflowing with neuroses and emotional distress, with a track that sounds jumpy and anxious except for in the brief moments when it finds some peace of mind in a high pitched-keyboard break that sounds like something out of a mid-80s Madonna knockoff. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: It’s a little late, but my review of You, Me, and Dupree is up on The Movie Binge. Coming tomorrow: My review of The Lady in the Water, which is easily one of the worst films that I’ve seen in a good long time.

CSS @ The Warsaw, 7/20/2006
CSS Suxxx! / Patins / Alala / Fuckoff Is Not The Only Thing You Have To Show –> Work It (Missy Elliott) / Meeting Paris Hilton / This Month, Day 10 / Alcohol / Off The Hook / Art Bitch / Music Is My Hot Hot Sex / Let’s Make Love and Listen To Death From Above / quick punky song I did not know

CSS “Music Is My Hot Hot Sex” – Though their LP has a certain shine and polish, CSS are essentially a punk band live. They aren’t exactly a tight band, but they pull it off, indicating disco textures when they need to, but mainly sticking to simple, primal rock and roll. As on the records, singer Lovefoxxx is the star of the show. She’s ridiculously cute and effortlessly charismatic, and has the demeanor of a giddy teenage girl who is deeply thrilled by every moment of your attention. She spent most of the show either jumping into the audience or fiddling with her outfit — removing layers, pulling her top over her head to simulate a hood, tugging and stretching the fabric, pushing layers aside to reveal what’s underneath. She’s not long on dance moves, but she’s incredibly physical and was not still for more than five seconds for the entire duration of the set, or immediately afterwards at the merch table.

One of the things that really grates on me about a lot of the bad or middling reviews that I’ve been seeing for CSS’ album is how people are routinely dismissing them as being shallow hipsters, and it seems rather like how pretty, confident fashionable cool girls are routinely hated on by jealous women and misogynistic dudes. But it just drives me nuts because out of the HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS of records that I’ve heard this year, Cansei de ser Sexy is one of the few that positively overflows with sincere emotion, goodwill, and critical thought. They make references to pop, junk culture, the internet, bands, and people take that as being stupid and trendy, but they are projecting, because it’s really just them setting up a context firmly rooted in the present tense. As I see it, “Meeting Paris Hilton” isn’t about loving or hating Paris Hilton but rather what it’s like to come face to face with ultimate vapidity and privilege and trying to interact on its terms rather than attack it out of spite and arrogance. I love Tom Breihan’s writing, I really do, I seriously think that he’s one of the very best music critics in the world right now, but I don’t think he’s ever written anything so ridiculously off the mark as when he suggested that “Art Bitch” is some kind of Yeah Yeah Yeahs rip when the thing is, the members of that band are exactly the sort of people being satirized in that song. “Art Bitch” is a pretty right on slam of a very specific sort of artist that’s been popping up all over in this decade in galleries, at art schools, and on the interet. Have you ever seen Nick Zinner’s photo book? HE’S A FUCKING ART BITCH.

The most exciting songs for me are the ones that cut to the core of crushes and raw enthusiasm. “Patins” and “Let’s Make Love…” are floods of lust and confusion and fear and joy. I especially love the tossed off lines in “Let’s Make Love…”: “You’re so talented, I’m in love!” “You come to show me your mad love!” “Come and erase me take me with you!” and especially “You knew my ideas when they were still in my head!” Lovefoxxx has a real gift for expressing desire in complicated, nearly profound ways while also being funny and conversational. “Music Is My Hot Hot Sex” may be silly, but that’s exactly as it should be. Music is amazing, and beautiful, and for some people (people like me), incredibly incredibly important, but most often when you try to express that you end up sounding like some obnoxious Nick Hornby/Rick Moody jackass. Lovefoxxx and her crew found another way, and it’s totally right on. (Click here to buy it from Sub Pop.)

Bonde do Rolê “Solta O Frango” – If I had my way, I’d be posting the first song in Bonde do Rolê’s set – a BAILLE FUNK VERSION OF “THE FINAL COUNTDOWN”!!! I desperately want to get a copy of it so that I can play it at every goddamn DJ thing I ever do for the rest of my natural life. It’s a song that combines my love of Brazillian dance music and G.O.B. Bluth! It’s like a gift from above, I swear. But this song is also quite good, as was their live set, though I could’ve done without the skinny guy scolding the audience for not flipping out for everything they were doing, though it was surprising that a bill made up entirely of dance-centric acts (Diplo was the headliner, but don’t ask how he was, I left after CSS cos it was late) didn’t get a little more into them. Maybe they were saving their energy for later, though it’s more likely that people just were not drinking enough to get loose. Possible third option/factor: these people, especially the girl, were so incredibly sexual and uninhibited on stage that it made most of the people in the room feel intimidated and inadequate. Very likely! (Click here for the Bonde do Rolê MySpace page.)

My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site. This week: Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas, Shapes and Sizes, and a new song from James Rabbit. Speaking of whom…

James Rabbit “Birds Rush In” – It hasn’t even been close to a year since the previous James Rabbit record, and the new one, Cavalier, sounds like this huge leap forward. All the charm of their previous gems carry over to the new tunes, but there’s a greater sophistication in the harmonies and arrangements. Strings suit Tyler Martin well, as do strange extended metaphors about weather conditions. “Birds Rush In” sounds like an underground hit to me, definitely well ahead of the unfocused banality of some of the more popular purveyors of strummy blandness on the indie circuit at the moment. Nothing’s boring about these birds rushing in!(Click here to get a free copy of the album from the band.)

J.R. Writer “Zoolander” – I owe this guy something or other for turning me on to Writer, who may not be a tremendously consistent rapper, but can turn in some brilliant work when inspiration strikes. This isn’t quite on the level of my favorite, “Jamaican Diplomacracy,” but Writer’s tendency for composing rhymes thick with alliteration and assonance for percussive effect is on full display in this track, which surprisingly lacks any direct shout outs to Owen Wilson or Ben Stiller. At this point, he may be latching on to it as a bit of a gimmick, but it works for him if just because it sounds like he takes such incredible pleasure in popping those repetitive consonants. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

My sets @ Beg Yr Pardon party at the The Delancey 7/18/2006

Set 1: Elastica “Generator” / CSS “Patins” / Futon “Gay Boy” / Dog Ruff “Jon E Storm” / Devo 2.0 “Big Mess” / Art Brut “Good Weekend” / Belle & Sebastian “White Collar Boy” / The Pipettes “Dirty Mind” / Hank Collective “Ferox” / Andrew WK “Party Hard” / Kelly Clarkson “Since U Been Gone” / Maxi Geil & Playcolt “Makin’ Love In The Sunshine”

This set came immediately before The Song Corporation‘s show, and those last three were played all in a row at the end mainly because this guy happens to be a member of that band. Their set was great, evenly divided between some pretty sweet mellow jams (think late period Sonic Youth) sung by guitarist Kristie Redfield and some more upbeat numbers that Mr. Barthel sang. That last one about maps was especially great.

Set 2: Killer Mike & Big Boi “ADIDAS” / Jagged Edge “Stunnas” / Beyonce “Check On It” / M.I.A. “URAQT” / The Make Up “Pow! To The People” / Le Tigre “Deceptacon” / Robyn “Konichiwa Bitches”

This set was between the Song Corporation and Pink Noise performances. I regret leaving the room for the middle of Pink Noise’s set — they were pretty intense, and have a pretty great frontwoman. Medic Medic, who were on before the Song Corporation were also kinda rad and also had a compelling female vocalist. They had kind of a Huggybear thing going on.

Set 3: The Silures “21 Ghosts” / The Knife “We Share Our Mothers’ Health” / Basement Jaxx & Dizzee Rascal “Lucky Star” / Muscles “One Inch Badge Pin” / Vanneshina & Allesandra “Gira” / Christina Aguilera “Ain’t No Other Man” / Edu K “Baille Jean” / Nu Shooz “I Can’t Wait” / Los Super Elegantes “Dance” / Erasure “Stop” / Annie “Chewing Gum” / Kylie Minogue “Love At First Sight” / Prince “Controversy” / The Supremes “You Can’t Hurry Love” / The Beatles “A Hard Day’s Night” / The Rolling Stones “Let’s Spend The Night Together” / Britney Spears vs. Mike Jones and Paul Wall “Tippin’ Toxic” / Shawnna, Ludacris et al “Gettin’ Some (Remix)” / Joe Jackson “Steppin’ Out”

Shawnna featuring Ludacris, Too Short, Lil’ Wayne and Pharrell “Gettin’ Some (Remix)” – I had more of a plan for the main set, but it got thrown out when I was inundated with requests for songs that I did not have, and ended up shuffling everything around and playing a long string of crowd pleasers at the end. I had originally intended to play “Gettin’ Some” earlier, but managed to squeeze it in towards the end. It got a much better reaction than I had anticipated, but it’s a hard song to deny (Oh my God, that Ludacris verse at the end!!! Wow.), and at that point, I think the people dancing were just totally up for it. They were dancing up to the final notes of “Steppin’ Out,” a song that I had intended to be a floor-clearer that would send people on their way home. Now I know otherwise. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Muscles “One Inch Badge Pin” – It can be so hard to form coherent thoughts with these sort of brain-hijacking dancefloor anthems since the best of them are designed to switch off your critical faculties. Muscles essentially sound like a butched up Australian version of the Pet Shop Boys, with sorta-macho vocals mingling with really really really fruity synth parts. The verses and instrumental hooks are great, but this song is really about the chorus, which demands a fist-pumping singalong like few other tracks to emerge this year. (Click here to buy it from the Muscles website.)

MSTRKRFT “She’s Good For Business” – This is actually the very first time I’ve ever posted anything by MSTRKRFT at all whatsoever, which is sort of strange maybe. “She’s Good For Business” has a very fun vocal hook and a strong groove, but it could do to have a bit more momentum and more of a climax. There’s a pretty fantastic additional keyboard part that comes in toward the end that kicks things up, but it just sorta peters out, which is sort of a let down. Still hot, though. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

Basement Jaxx “Hush Boy” – I somehow get the impression that this won’t end up being my favorite song on the forthcoming Jaxx LP — I mean, come on, one of the song features Robyn! — but how do you deny this sort thing of thing? It’s exactly what you would expect of Basement Jaxx in terms of boldness, seamless genre blending, and intense exuberance, but also a bit fresh, offbeat, and ridiculous at the same time. There’s a delightful sense of cheesiness to this cut, but they pull it off, especially when they play off some mindnumbingly prosaic details (they looked up a Mexican restaurant on the internet, she enjoyed her chicken fajitas) with some wacky soap opera plot developments. (Click here for XL’s Basement Jaxx site.)

Hey “Cisza, Ja I Czas” – This is the beauty of file sharing, right here. This is exactly the sort of random music that you can find when you’re barely even looking, but it’s astonishing and exciting, and almost entirely unknown in your part of the world. Hey are a Polish rock band who’ve been going for well over a decade now and have apparently achieved some measure of success in eastern Europe and (I think) Australia, and sound a little like Royal Trux if all of their vocals were in Polish, and they were gunning for modern rock radio hits circa 1995. If you ever wished Neil Haggerty would’ve thrown in some la la la’s to balance out the gruffness of Jennifer Herrema’s voice, this might be the song for you. (Click here for Hey’s official site.)

A Sunny Day In Glasgow @ Cake Shop 7/16/2006
Laughter (Victims) / A Mundane Phonecall To Jack Parsons / Ghost in the Graveyard / The Horn Song / Fabulous Friend (Field Mice cover) / The Best Summer Ever

Last night’s A Sunny Day In Glasgow show went over much, much, much better than you would have expected given Ben Daniels’ warnings that I reprinted in the previous entry. Though the band most likely would have sounded better with live drums (this is something they hope to work out before they play their next show in August, so no worries there), they did a pretty great job of playing the songs and getting across their peculiar aesthetic in a live setting. Much in the way the recordings sound like fuzzy memories of old 80s indie records, the live performance sounded as though they were trying to replicate the sound of an audience tape of a My Bloody Valentine show from 18 years ago. It was strange and overwhelming, and not quite like any other band that I’ve ever seen live. As on the recordings, the lyrics were almost entirely unintelligable, but the timbre of the vocals and the melodies were clear and gorgeous. It barely mattered that the Daniels siblings did not appear particularly comfortable on stage — after all, who expects much of a stage show from what is essentially a shoegazer band? If anything, the band’s ordinary appearance and slightly awkward stage presence added to the show by contrasting with the somewhat alien sound of their music. If they themselves were as stylized as the music, it might not have worked as well. There’s certainly room for improvement, but as it stands, it was definitely the best abstract postmodern rock show that I’ve ever seen.

My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site. This week: David Bazan, Poni Hoax, and a song from Yo Gabba Gabba.

A Sunny Day In Glasgow “C’mon” – People in the NYC area hungry for a LCD Soundsystem “I was there!” moment ought to consider going to the world’s first A Sunny Day In Glasgow show this Sunday at Cakeshop. However, if you do go, please keep your expectations modest. Band leader Ben Daniels explains:

Now, you should know, there is no way this show will not be a total disaster for the following reasons:

– This show was kind of a last minute thing and there was no time to put together a “real” band. SO, my ipod will be playing drums. When I last saw the Flaming Lips play, they didn’t have a live drummer and it was awesome, but we don’t have their equipment.

– My sisters (who do the singing) have never ever performed in front of an audience before. They will also be playing bass parts on keyboards. To my knowledge, they’ve never sang and played an instrument simultaneously. Also, one of them has a knee injury and i’m not sure that she will be standing for the show.

– We’ve only had 2 practices and at yesterday’s practice my ipod crashed.

There is more, but I can’t go on. Bands should play shows, and really, no matter how bad this is we have no doubt history will be good to us and all that anyone will remember was that they saw the first Sunny Day in Glasgow show EVER!!! So, we’d love it if you would come out and say hi. I have no idea when this might happen again.

(Click here for the A Sunny Day In Glasgow MySpace page.)

My DJ sets @ Insound Pre-Siren Fest Party, Supreme Trading

Set 1: Erase Errata “Rider” / Clinic “The Second Line” / Elastica “Hold Me Now” / Can “I Want More” / Loose Joints “Tell You (Today)” / Girls Aloud “Biology” / Relaxed Muscle “Sexualized” / Missy Elliott “Can’t Stop”

Set 2: M.I.A. “Bingo” / Ce’cile “Hot Like We” / LCD Soundsystem “Give It Up” / The Rolling Stones “Let’s Spend The Night Together” / The Beatles “Drive My Car” / The Supremes “You Can’t Hurry Love” / Stevie Wonder “Sir Duke” / Jagged Edge “Stunnas” / Prince “Head”

Set 3: The Silures “21 Ghosts” / The Knife “We Share Our Mothers’ Health” / Edu K “Bundalele Baile Jean” / Lady Sovereign “Love Me Or Hate Me” / CSS “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above” / Christina Milian “So Amazing” / Vanessinha & Alessandra “Gira” / Christina Aguilera “Ain’t No Other Man” / Spektrum “May Day” / Basement Jaxx & Dizzee Rascal “Lucky Star”

Elastica “Hold Me Now (BBC Session)” – I just sort of made it up as I went along this time, with mostly pleasant results. It was especially fun to drop in an Elastica song, which I’ve been wanting to do for a long time but just never went through with it. I find it a little perverse that I chose to break out the big crowd pleasing hits when virtually no one was paying attention, but eh, whatever. It was nice to get away from a lot of songs that I play very frequently, anyway. If you haven’t heard “Stunnas” yet, you really really really should. I wrote that one up for MTV. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

I only managed to catch the last 30 seconds of the Professor Murder set, so I have no opinion on that at all. The Big Sleep were heavier than I had been led to believe, and I was kinda into what I saw of their set, though they would be wise to draft some kind of charismatic singer into their band. I saw about 20 minutes of Oh No! Oh My! and they were okay too, but in more of a “local band” sort of way. They definitely have some spark of talent, but it’d be nice if they developed more of a unique voice before they get super hyped. I’m not sure if it’s the best thing for a young band to get popular entirely on the strength of sounding a little like a bunch of other bands who are moderately popular on the indie circuit. It is sort of weird to me that out of all the bands of the mid-to-late-90s, Modest Mouse ended up being the one every little indie band decided to emulate. If you told me that in 1998, I would’ve thought that you were insane.

Both of today’s selections are from the new PDX Pop Now 2006 compilation, which features tracks by somewhat famous residents of Portland, Oregon as well as numbers by artists who are virtually unknown within and without the area. Still the indie rock capital of the United States after all these years, Portland is a town capable of filling up a double disc compilation with local bands without allowing the quality level to dip below the “oh, it’s alright” level, and for the high points to be plentiful and surprisingly varied.

Treva Jackson “Drive” – No, not Trevor Jackson. “Drive” sounds like the Smashing Pumpkins’ “1979” turned inside-out and drained of its nostalgia so that its restlessness and longing is anchored in the present tense rather than some far-off adolescence. Jackson’s voice is remarkable on this track, communicating a sense of uncomfortable stillness and enormous emotions barely being held in check by a desperate attempt to come off as stoic and cool to the person being addressed in the lyrics. The mask slips a bit as the lines become more confessional, and she repeats, “I can’t take it, take it, take it anymore,”and though she obviously can’t, she never really lets go. (Click here for Treva Jackson’s MySpace page. Let’s get her up to at least a hundred friends, okay?)

The Blow “Babay (Eat A Critter, Feel Its Wrath)” – On the surface, this is quite lovely and nicely composed, but closer inspection reveals that beneath its fairly minimal synths-and-drum-machine arrangement and sweet vocals, this song is built around one of the more…unpleasant lyrical conceits that I’ve encountered in recent months. Want a hint? Check the parenthetical part of the title. (Click here for The Blow’s MySpace page.)

Shrag “Why Are You Here? – The sloooooow drip of new Shrag tunes continues with this forthcoming single on the Where It’s At Is Where You Are label. This time, team Shrag takes on dreary borecore audience members who come out to shows as if they were under duress, and drag down the mood of the entire room. Whereas a lot of bands seem to go for a “Why aren’t you dancing??? You should be dancing!!!” message regardless of whether their music is actually good enough for dancing, Shrag have a less entitled tone, opting to interrogate the motives of a disagreeable audience member in the hope of understanding why they would choose to come out if they were going to refuse to have a good time. (Click here for Shrag’s MySpace page.)

Lady Sovereign “Love Me or Hate Me” – I don’t see this burning up the American charts any time soon, but it’s got the makings of a great underground hit, and so can we just refrain from Arular-style hand-wringing about whether or not bloggish UK rap has any crossover potential for a little while? The fact that Jay-Z is putting this out as her lead single on Def Jam is a major vote of confidence, but more than that, it’s a progressive step away from the sort of insularity and conservatism of mainstream rap. This could be long game thinking — obviously there’s a decent market for artists like Lady Sov, M.I.A., and The Streets, and if those artists don’t score massive hits of their own in the short term, they make help usher in another wave of artists in the not-far-off-future who might score a really big hit on the foundation of a growing subculture. “Love Me or Hate Me” is definitely a step in the right direction for Lady Sov. The track is strong but not especially weird “Push It”/Arular-ish electro funk, and the focus is kept on the quirks of her voice and persona. She’s still pushing the “I’m so gross! Really!” thing a bit too hard, but whatever. It’s her thing — love her or hate her, you know? (Click here for the Lady Sov MySpace page.)

Andrew W.K. “Pushing Drugs” – After The Wolf, I wasn’t sure if Andrew W.K. had it in him to write more songs as mindblowingly great as “Party Hard” and “She Is Beautiful,” but now he’s gone and made a full album of them. He’s jumped right into the deep end, cycling through Meatloaf-ish power ballads, proggy metal, jock funk, and over the top rock opera theatrics that thoroughly destroys the efforts of virtually everyone who has tried on that style since that other Andrew wrote Jesus Christ Superstar. Nearly every track is a winner, with some highlights not straying too far away from the sound of I Get Wet (“One Brother,” “You Will Remember Tonight”), while “Las Vegas, Nevada” is like a rollicking casino blowout version of the AWK aesthetic, “Don’t Call Me Andy” is almost like the AWK version of a girl group song, and “Pushing Drugs” sounds like a showtune strolling through the rough part of town with its pumped up funk organ, horn stabs, and erstatz metal guitar. Unfortunately, Close Calls With Brick Walls is only slated to be released in Japan and parts of Asia, but with any luck, some smart label will pick this album up and run with it in the next year. Get on it, smart labels. (Click here to buy it from CD Japan.)

It has just been revealed to the press that Syd Barrett, the original leader of Pink Floyd and one of the most brilliant and tragic musicians of the late 60s, died on Friday. Of course, Syd had not been well for quite some time, and had essentially been a recluse for the past few decades following an apparent breakdown sometime in the early 70s.

Pink Floyd “Bike” – A lot of the cult of Syd Barrett is based on the mystique of his madness, and so it is very unfortunate that his genius and originality as a musician is overshadowed by his reputation as being rock and roll’s most famous acid casualty. It’s particularly troubling when the lyrical content of his songs is written off as the ramblings of a lunatic. True, the songs tend to include bizarre images and peculiar asides (“I know a mouse, and he hasn’t got a house / I don’t know why I call him Gerald / He’s getting rather old, but he’s a good mouse”), but it was always in the service of something rather raw, genuine, playful, and childlike in its humor and concerns. Not only that, but he would leap from oddball lines to lyrics so direct and perfect and honest that they would be especially disarming in context: “You’re the kind of girl who fits in with my world, I’d give you anything, everything if you want things.” “I really love you, and I mean you.” “I understand that you’re different from me. Yes, I can tell.” “Won’t you miss me? Wouldn’t you miss me at all?” (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Syd Barrett “Octopus” – My personal favorite Syd Barrett song has always been “Octopus,” with its churning, seasick guitar rhythms and manic melodies. It cycles between feelings of high adventure, anguish, frustration, and giddiness like nothing else I’ve ever heard, and it does it so gracefully that the transition between contrary emotions is fluid rather than jarring. Much of the unique sound of The Madcap Laughs album comes from the fact that Syd recorded his guitar and vocal parts live to tape before the rhythm tracks were added, basically the opposite of the way most rock music is recorded. Apparently this was done as a way of minimizing wasted time in the studio, since it was feared that Barrett would eat up hours of valuable time attempting to synch up with the session players. Barrett’s strange guitar rhythms are all over the place, changing up meters at unlikely intervals and arbitrarily speeding up or slowing down, but somehow it comes out sounding exactly right. “Octopus” may have been a headache to overdub, but the resulting composition is positively sublime. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: John Darnielle recently posted about Syd Barrett over on Last Plane to Jakarta, mostly commenting on this remarkable bit of footage of Pink Floyd performing “Astronomy Domine” on British television, followed by an interview with Roger Waters and Syd, who is surprisingly passionate, lucid, and articulate.

WFMU’s Beware of the Blog also has a small tribute to Syd, including a link to an old article about Barrett’s influence written for the long defunct WFMU magazine, LCD.

My DJ sets @ Blue State, the Black Cat, Washington DC

Set 1: Spank Rock “Sweet Talk” / Edu K “Bundalele Baile Jean” / Peaches “Two Guys” / Robyn “Konichiwa Bitches” / Junior Senior “Take My Time” / Prince “U Got The Look” / Maxi Geil & Playcolt “Makin’ Love in the Sunshine” / The Slits “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” / Girls Aloud “Models” / DAT Politics “Turn My Brain Off”

Set 2: The Silures “21 Ghosts” / The Knife “We Share Our Mothers’ Health” / CSS “Music Is My Hot Hot Sex” / Vanessinha & Alessandra “Gira” / Christina Aguilera “Ain’t No Other Man” / Ludus “Breaking The Rules” / Cristina “Mamma Mia” / Out Hud “It’s For You” / Gene Serene & John Downfall “U Want Me” / Scissor Sisters “Music Is The Victim” / The Make Up “Pow! To The People”

The Make Up “Pow! To The People” – Though I did not get to go on the full walking tour of my past that I had hoped I would have been able to make time for on my trip, my impression of Washington DC over this weekend was that it was exactly the same but totally different from how it was when I lived there about nine years ago. But then again, so am I, so who knows. Though I found out when I was there that this was not in fact the same Black Cat that I knew when I was there (they moved into a new building), it was still a bit of a weird thrill to get people to dance to Christina Aguilera and Girls Aloud in a venue which I remember as being a minefield of hyper-indie passive aggression. Of course, indie has changed so much from the 90s to now that it’s not exactly shocking that a lot of the old breed have either disappeared or changed over to some strain of 00s popism. Still, I had to pay my respect to that old scene by ending on The Make Up’s classic “Pow! To The People,” which got a pretty intense reaction from the dudes dancing up front. Other songs that went over well: “We Share Our Mothers’ Health” (big shout out to the smallish girl in the green t-shirt who totally flipped out when this came on, you totally made my day!), “Gira,” “Music Is The Victim,” “Grapevine.” I wasn’t super happy with my flow on these sets — I wasn’t able to use my laptop for this, and had to use cds, and on top of that, only one of the two cd decks played cd-rs, so I was under a lot of limitations. I would have followed up “Mothers’ Health” with something faster if it had been a real option for me. Anyway, thanks to Blue State and to everyone who came and danced, and especially to everyone who came over and said hi. It was very nice to meet you. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Also: If you live in NYC, you should come to the Insound Siren fest party at Supreme Trading on Thursday. I’ll be DJing with the Creature guys, and Oh No! Oh My!, The Big Sleep, and Professor Murder will be performing live.

Special Guest Post From Emily Ponder!

My very good friend Emily Ponder wrote this essay about A Hard Day’s Night as a guest post, and I’m very proud to share it with the rest of you today. If you enjoy this and would like to contact her, please email emily.ponder @ gmail

I’ve come down with a terrible case of Beatlemania recently. It was The Beatles that did it. Al Gore says with the current global warming conditions they’re coming out earlier every year now. Don’t ask me why that is, though; I didn’t hear because I had to duck out of the theater and run home to watch A Hard Day’s Night again. Al Gore, I’m sorry buddy, but I don’t need to hear the statistics. Ain’t nothing going on in your movie, or in any other movie, or on the whole globe, God love it, that’s hotter than A Hard Day’s Night.

Period.

A Hard Day’s Night is a brilliant film. It has everything. It has boys cute enough to drive boatloads of girls completely batshit insane, screaming till they get so hoarse that when they come home their parents are like, “Oh hey Otis Redding, what’s up? You haven’t seen Jenny, have you?” And I’ll just tell you now so you can stop wondering: Once our scientists get their priorities straight and finally build a goddamn time machine that can take me somewhere into the vicinity of the 1963-64 Beatles, if my striking good looks and trademark wit aren’t getting me any closer to what’s underneath those dashing round-collared suits, then flipping the hell out crying, running around, screaming, and generally acting like I’m on the way to the electric chair sounds like a decent Plan B to me. The movie is also is off-the-charts hilarious, just a goldmine of priceless one-liners and slapstick gags, drawn up and crafted on the shoulders of a kind of persistent subtextual melancholy, now mockingly contemptuous, now wistfully escapist, which lends a great complexity of tone to this star vehicle, and helps steer it safely past Charming Piece Of Merchandising and on towards Best Movie Of All Time.

But there are two other major factors nailing that gas pedal to the floor, which I want to say more about here:

1)It is masterfully directed by Richard Lester — innovatively, interestingly, stylishly, and beautifully shot and cut to do justice to its subject.
2)It features the greatest film music ever.

I hope #2 was already obvious to you all, but the two are so inseparably intertwined that I feel obliged to hammer it home. When The Beatles pulled up to the table, Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone, Elvis, and everyone else just threw down their cards and went home. Game the fuck over. Simple as that.

For me there is an ineffable but undeniable kind of spark, or charm, in the early Beatles, the kind that brings an instant grin to my face and an instant hand to the volume knob when I hear the opening of, say, “Please Please Me.” If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you may stop reading now and go stand with the others under the sign that says SORRY, AWESOMENESS IS LOST ON ME to receive your complimentary cup of prune juice and a Bright Eyes album. At the core of the movie’s instantaneous appeal is a similar feeling of exhilarating insubordination, a joyous middle finger held right up in the face of any and all forms of The Man (and in this film, they are legion) standing in the way of Pure Beatle Fun. And Lester’s direction has a beautiful spontaneity, joining the reckless innovation of 60’s New Wave and verite with the anarchy of silent slapstick and surrealist film, which is more than capable of carrying that feeling visually. The handheld camera movements, the bizarre angles, the aerial shots, the slow and fast motion, the animated proof sheet photos, the cuts in time with the music, the self-reflexive shots of the cameras and monitors, all of it. A Hard Day’s Night isn’t just colored by or about that spark, that spirit in the music. It is of a piece with it, stylistically as well as thematically.

Nowhere is that formal unity more evident, naturally, than in the song sequences. The whole film is full of musical scenes, all interestingly laid out and all, of course, featuring purely awesome music. But I’m talking about the six sequences (by my count) that showcase a particular song or songs and, with one crucial exception, show the Beatles performing – the numbers, you’d call them, if this musical were a Rogers & Hammerstein ordeal of the regular sort. In that genre, the numbers are the places where orderly, realistic narrative gives way to extravagant fantasy and spectacle – where Fred and Ginger spontaneously bust out a dance routine it would take you or me four years to learn and then bow to the camera in a romantic moment alone with each other, stuff like that.

Consider how they’re constructed in A Hard Day’s Night. The first begins almost imperceptibly: As they sit in the back train car playing cards to pass the time, the opening harmonica of “I Should Have Known Better” comes up on the soundtrack. They’re shown from several angles, all close, playing cards. John gets away with the most blatant cheating since 1359 because he’s so hot, everyone is like, “well, I guess we just let it go.” Then in straight cuts to the same close-ups, in the same positions, they’ve all traded their cards for their instruments by the second verse. The music grows organically, somehow, out of their group dynamic. They’re hanging out, and the song just happens, as part of that. The next one is the same; Ringo sulks as they play around on the stage set for their live TV performance, and John just walks over to him with an acoustic guitar and drops “If I Fell.” Lester shoots the official rehearsal and the final TV show – the only two performances that are scheduled to occur or motivated by the plot – much more rigidly, with fewer cuts, less camera movement, and from further away. Often, in the long final sequence, shots of girls freaking out in the audience with lots of dizzying quick pans through the crowd are juxtaposed with static shots of the Beatles playing at an extra meta-level of distance or mediation, through the camera viewfinders or on the playback monitors in the director’s booth. The coordination, the micro-management, the imposition of exterior authority that the boys have been trying so hard to escape from for the whole movie take this form – and persist, I think, in the final shot that I find so sad, as the Beatles are lifted off the earth in their helicopter, leaving behind only a shower of press photographs with forged signatures on them.

But I’m leaving out, of course, the most perfect of the musical sequences, the most experimental and radical, and the most joyous. If indeed something is lost in the closing scenes, it looks very small next to “Can’t Buy Me Love.” In that sequence, the Beatles win. They just win everything. They win so hard that they can just fall down right after the starting whistle and lie there in the grass and still make you feel like you’ve never had real fun in your whole life. “Can’t Buy Me Love” is the only complete song featured that the Beatles don’t play – they don’t hold instruments or lip-synch or even nod along with the beat. “WE’RE OUT!” Work, chores, rules, temporal sequence, the conventions of realistic narrative cinema, and everything else that is boring and sucky no longer applies. Watch them! They make the game up as they go. Th

is time we’re gonna each run to the center and then swing each other around and then run back to the corner, OK? On one of the Anthology tapes, John recalls that Lester told them that this scene, his favorite and George’s and most people’s, was “pure cinema.” And it is pure cinema, in my opinion, as much as anything Vertov or Brakhage or Epstein ever wrung their nervous hands over, and more. It’s pure joycore cinema. And indeed, you can’t buy it. You can only watch it, and feel it, and love it. Or you can be a dumbass. One or the other.

– Emily Ponder

Makes Me Feel Glad I’m Not Dead

My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site. This week: DraculaZombieUSA, Carbon Dating Service, and a selection from Sublime Frequencies’ Radio Algeria.

Harpers Bizarre “Witchi Tai To” – This is exactly the sort of thing that can make you stop for a moment and think “oh wow, these old hippies really had it figured out.” If this is not total bliss, it’s very close to it, to the point where they make the Beach Boys sound like a gang of rampaging thugs. Check out that lead guitar, by the way — it wouldn’t shock me if this was a cherished record in the Kaplan/Hubley home. (Click here for the compilation’s Discogs page.)

Mixel Pixel “You’re The Kind Of Girl” – The music has that sort of “sexy” “futuristic” sound that seems to be very popular among the type of urban folks who are maybe a bit more pretty and sexual than they are cool (i.e., all those people who have internet personals ads where they say that Massive Attack’s Mezzanine is their favorite thing to listen to while having sex), but the real appeal here is in the vocals, which play on the deadpan she said/she said dynamic of the Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” to great effect. To make things even better, the girl sounds almost exactly like the lead singer from The Waitresses! (Click here to buy it from Kanine Records.)

Face It, It’s The Best

Marble Valley “Computer Man” – Westy, he cannot drum! And so he doesn’t anymore, as far as I can tell. It’s sorta weird to think about it, but Marble Valley has become a vehicle for Steve West as a frontman, with his band covering everything else. It’d be like the Pavement equivalent of the Foo Fighters, but Gary Young already beat him to the punch with “Plant Man.” If you’re very familiar with Pavement, and I mean super super super familiar, to the point that you’ve heard dozens of live bootlegs from over the course of their career, you’ll probably hear this as being sorta similar to the sort of on-the-spot chants and improvs that Westy and Bob Nastanovich would play here and there to get through lulls in the set, but developed and polished into a pretty sharp indie rock song. The track has a very odd mood – mellow and relaxed, but also a bit ominous, with silly lyrics like “everybody talk about CPU capacity!” delivered in a dry deadpan, with the song coming together to sound like the inner workings of a bored yet optimistic IT guy. (Click here to buy it from Ear Rational.)

Belle & Sebastian @ Castle Clinton, Battery Park 7/4/2006
I Fought In A War / Another Sunny Day / The Model / Sukie In The Graveyard / Don’t Leave The Light On, Baby / Le Pastie de la Bourgeoisie / Jonathan David / If She Wants Me / Lord Anthony / If You’re Feeling Sinister / Funny Little Frog / Your Cover’s Blown / Dirty Dream Number Two / I’m A Cuckoo / The Wrong Girl / White Collar Boy / Sleep The Clock Around // (Stevie Jackson plays “The Star Spangled Banner” on his guitar) / The Boy With The Arab Strap

Hmm. Good show, but what a weird setlist! Some ideas:

1) A lot of the setlist was obviously influenced by the fact that they had four additional string players, so naturally the set was focused on songs from their middle period when they went a bit nuts for string arrangements.

2) Did they just get sick of playing The Life Pursuit songs all the time for the past several months? If so, that’s a shame. I don’t care what anyone thinks; it’s their best album. I was disappointed that they skimped on those songs, especially since I was so desperately hoping for “Song For Sunshine,” which wouldn’t have just made me happy, but would have fit perfectly on a day when the band was playing an outdoor show that was postponed slightly by a rain storm, and the sun was out by the middle of their set. Just sayin’, Belle & Sebastian!

3) Does anyone really like “Le Pastie de la Bourgeoisie”? I mean, really like it, a lot? If so, would you care to explain yourself in the comments box? Thanks.

4) I wonder if they deliberately wrote this setlist to be as different from the other two NYC shows from this year as possible, or if it just sorta worked out that way.

5) “If She Wants Me”! Yes!!! Not just one of my favorites, but maybe the song in their catalog that has the greatest personal meaning for me. No, I’m not explaining – listen to the lyrics, it’s fairly literal.

6) Highlights, in addition to “If She Wants Me”: “Don’t Leave The Light On, Baby” (so so gorgeous!), “If You’re Feeling Sinister,” “Funny Little Frog,” “Dirty Dream Number Two,” “White Collar Boy” (always a winner!), “The Boy With The Arab Strap.” Also: Stuart Murdoch’s banter, especially when he launched into this bizarro motivational speach that boiled down to encouraging everyone in the park to rise up as one against the cops of New York City.

Elsewhere: If you were curious about what I thought of The Devil Wears Prada, you’re in luck.

The Girls Look Soooo Good

Gang Starr “Ex Girl To The Next Girl (Instrumental)” – The first time that I ever heard this song was on some college or public radio show late at night when I lived in Washington, DC back in 1998. I was instantly stunned, and dashed over to my stereo to tape as much of it as I could to the nearest blank cassette, but unfortunately, the DJ never back announced it, and only played this instrumental version of the song, so I had no lyrical reference except for the snippets of Guru going “next!” But oh my God, that horn sample! It completely owned me from the first moment that I ever heard it; it is without question one of my favorite bits of any song that I’ve ever heard. There’s just something so effortlessly cosmopolitan and romantic about it, it makes me wish that my life could someday feel just like that snippet of sound on loop.

I don’t remember exactly how I figured out what the song was, but I do remember being totally thrilled that one of my old roommates had a copy on vinyl when I lived in Brooklyn circa 2000, because it meant that I could record both versions of the song to my minidisc player. (Remember them? Awwww.) There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the vocal version, by the way — either way, “Ex Girl To The Next Girl” is a stone classic, but my sentimentality is wrapped up in the instrumental, which is for my money the single best thing ever produced by DJ Premier. (Click here to buy it from Underground Hip Hop.com)

Ease All Trouble Off My Mind

The Fiery Furnaces @ Webster Hall 6/29/2006
Rub Alcohol Blues / Chris Michaels / Crystal Clear / Straight Street / Police Sweater Blood Vow / My Dog Was Lost But Now He’s Found / Asthma Attack / Benton Harbor Blues / Quay Cur / The Garfield El / A Candy Maker’s Knife In My Handbag / Evergreen / Teach Me Sweetheart / I’m In No Mood / Black Hearted Boy / Leaky Tunnel – Tropical Iceland / Single Again / Blueberry Boat // Don’t Dance Her Down / Up In The North / Bitter Tea / Chief Inspector Blancheflower / Bow Wow / Rub Alcohol Blues

The Fiery Furnaces “Rub Alcohol Blues” – Check out that setlist! You would think that they were touring for Gallowsbird’s Bark! As much as I do love most everything that has followed, it’s sort of impossible for me to imagine the Friedbergers ever topping that first record in terms of sheer density of perfectly written songs or my own sentimental attachment. Unlike the last show that I saw them play at the Bowery Ballroom in April, the Furnaces wisely stuck to playing songs that worked well being played in a full-on classic rock band style, or reworked some selections into more effective arrangements. They had totally butchered “Teach Me Sweetheart” and “Bitter Tea” in April, but this time they took their time with the latter, and gave the former a spacey, art rock makeover that sounded like a melange of early 90s indie guitar textures. The band was tighter and more focused than I had ever seen them in this incarnation, and the Friedbergers both seemed to be in pretty high spirits over the course of the longest show that I’ve ever seen them play. “Don’t Dance Her Down” was a particular highlight for me, with Eleanor playing the song on guitar with Bob D’Amico and Jason Loewenstein more or less in exactly the same arrangement from the album until Matt returned to the stage and played the song out with a guitar solo. “Rub Alcohol Blues” began and ended the show in a radical new arrangement that broke at the end of each verse for Eleanor to shout “Tequila!”

I am happy to report that the band is taking baby steps toward production values — they came out to a pretty rad audio collage announcing that “the ceremony is about to begin” and that “The Fiery Furnaces are in the house!”, and as you may have noticed in my crappy camera phone photograph above, they had a specially made backdrop on the stage. As you can see in that image, there’s the bright “FF”, but what you probably can’t make out is that it is entirely made up of scrawled Furnaces lyrics in cyan, magenta, and yellow. (Click here to buy the best album of this decade to date from Insound.)

HEY! LOOK! WEEKEND EDIT!

NPR answered my prayers and provided the world with a high quality recording of this version of the Furnaces show. Here are three highlights from the 6/30 Washington DC show, which had a very similar setlist as this NYC set.

The Fiery Furnaces “Police Sweater Blood Vow (Live @ The 9:30 Club 6/30/06)”
The Fiery Furnaces “Bitter Tea (Live @ The 9:30 Club 6/30/06)”
The Fiery Furnaces “Teach Me Sweetheart (Live @ The 9:30 Club 6/30/06)”

(Click here to hear the rest of the show streaming on NPR’s site.)

Elsewhere: My review of the Strangers With Candy feature film is up on The Movie Binge.