Month: November 2012

No comments

Friday Link Session

  By

 

  • My favorite Cleveland band, mr. Gnome, have premiered their DIY video for “House of Circles” on NPR’s All Songs Considered blog. The song is rad, and the video is a tribute to the multiple talents of this band.
  • West African musician Bombino is raising funds to build a community rehearsal space in Niamey, Niger. As the fundraising page states, “Following the end of the Second Tuareg Rebellion in 2008 (during which guitars were banned) the music scene in Niger has been blossoming. However, in Niamey fully equipped rehearsal spaces are virtually non-existent and certainly not accessible to most musicians and would-be young musicians.”
  • The Elbo Room in San Francisco, California, will be hosting a Norton Records benefit concert on December 16. As many of you know, Norton’s warehouse was hit hard by Sandy and many rare recordings have been endangered.
  • Stupefaction has a very worthy John Lurie two-fer: First, a full concert from Lurie’s wonderful “fake jazz” band the Lounge Lizards, recorded in Berlin, Germany, in 1991. Then, a playlist of Lurie’s top 20 songs.
  • Steve Kilbey, most famously of Australian band the Church, has been guest editing Magnet Magazine. He’s covered everything from One Direction to the Gormenghast Trilogy, and highlighted Greg Dulli’s (Afghan Whigs, Twilight Singers) often-overlooked solo album Amber Headlights.
  • It seems to be the Age of Music Documentaries, which is good news for those of us who totally dig that shit. This time around Mudhoney is being profiled. You can pre-order the DVD or rent a stream of the movie.
No comments

My Chemical Romance: Conventional Weapons (to date)

  By ,

The lost album is lost no more.

Conventional Weapons is composed of the 10 songs My Chemical Romance made – and shelved – in the space between The Black Parade and Danger Days. I titled this post “Conventional Weapons (to date)” because they’re eschewing a traditional album release and instead putting the songs two at a time over the course of several months, and so far only four have been released. Two more will emerge in mid-December, and the last four will surface in early January and February.

Not going to lie, this is maddening.

I want the whole thing, all of the songs, and I want it right now, so I can lie down on my kitchen floor with my iPod and crank it up and plunge in.

But I cannot have it, so I must be patient, and absorb them as they arrive.

So far my reaction is: This is very interesting.

The songs contains their evolution, as a band, and are an aural fork in the road, the point where The Black Parade finally shambled to a halt, and when it came time to choose their adventure, they walked briefly down a simpler (and so far, angrier) path before turning towards a candy-colored apocalypse.

The seeds of the bouncier, dance-inflected world of Danger Days are there, but the more I listen to the songs, the more I think some of them could have come directly after Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge.

The following are some more detailed observations:

1A: Boy Division: Propulsive and soaring; whenever they go on tour again, the pit will be screaming along with lines like I’m not dead / I only dress that way and Take me out there / far away / save me from my self-destruction/ Hopeless for ya /Sing a song for California. Extra points to anyone old enough to get the pun-reference in the title!
 

 
1B:Tomorrow’s Money: You fell in love with a vampire / A torch-song for the empire / So say hello to the brush-fire. Well, yes, Mr. Way, we did. But being a teen idol, even (especially?) the freak-show teen idol, it takes a toll. I sympathize with your urge to light it all on fire even as I walk closer to warm myself by the pyre.
 

 
2A: Ambulance: Honestly, this is the one that I can’t decide how I feel. I like it a general I like My Chem sort of way, but I also think it’s sort of muddled and incomplete. Essentially, though, it’s a coda to Tomorrow’s Money‘s commentary on being the freak-show teen idol. File under: Hmmm.
 

 
2B:Gun.: Naturally the one that is explicitly about an actual weapon is the one they release with cover art that has nothing to do with the weapon in question. Oh My Chem, never change. Also, it’s an anti-war song. Again, I like it in a general sort of way. I’m not going to flip past it when it comes up on shuffle but I’m also not going to seek it out to listen to it obsessively as I totally did with Boy Division.
 

No comments

An Electro Swing Sample Platter

  By

 

Europeans looking in on this post are probably laughing at how behind-the-times the topic is, but living in the United States – a country so in love with its musical output that it will only embrace half of Britain’s musical export and a quarter of the musical export of our neighbor to the north, Canada – and being someone who doesn’t often warm up to electronic and dance music, being introduced to electro swing was a whole new thing for me. And I’m going to guess it’s a brand new thing for most of you reading this.

The discovery, for me, came by way of the video game-obsessive male who shares my apartment – i.e., my 18-year-old son. As a video game-obsessive, his musical intake centers mostly on – wait for it – music from video games. And he discovered his first electro swing artist via a fan-made video of Team Fortress 2 character, the Spy. The background music in the video was from Austrian DJ Parov Stelar, who spruces up old swing samples with effects and beats.

“Catgroove” – Parov Stelar

 

Through a dance music-savvy friend, my son then fell for French group Caravan Palace. Reflecting influence from Django Reinhardt to Lionel Hampton to Daft Punk, Caravan Palace mix swing samples with a full band that includes guitar, drums, violin, clarinet, marimba, and more.

“Clash” – Caravan Palace

 

When I started digging in to electro swing, after hearing a handful of the Parov Stelar and Caravan Palace tunes a number of times, I found that electro swing is a massive, many-tentacled beast. For instance, this great band called Movits! who hail from Sweden. They mix swing-heavy beats with hip hop. Hearing Swedish rap produces a little cognitive dissonance on first listen, but, damn, if it doesn’t work.

“Fel Del Av GÃ¥rden” – Movits!

 

Then there’s the British duo the Correspondents who back up their swing with an almost ’80s-reminiscent Brit dance pop sensibility. Singer Mr. Bruce lures you in with his flamboyant sensuality, then they tear into your brain with mercilessly enjoyable hooks.

“What’s Happened to Soho?” – The Correspondents

 

For more discoveries, you can check out electro swing hubs like Swing Rebellion and Scratchy Tunes.

 

Parov Stelar Official Website

Caravan Palace Official Website

Movits! Official Website

The Correspondents Official Website

One Comment

Wölfbait: Wölfbait

  By ,

Wölfbait is a sonic sledgehammer-steamroller, heavy experimental noise that walks the fine but bright line between deeply satisfying and painful to listen to; and is for anyone who has ever listened to Metal Machine Music and thought This needs to be faster and should also have some echoey howling and shouting and more weird screeching noises.

Other notes: they do interesting things with feedback, and their drums are steady and powerful but not as pounding and punishing as some hardcore drums can be.
 

 

No comments

The Dirty Nil: Little Metal Baby Fist

  By ,

The Dirty Nil’s summary of themselves on bandcamp is The Dirty Nil play rock and roll, and, you guys, that’s an accurate statement. They sound like a dive bar: loud and a little dirty.

Little Metal Baby Fist is the A-side from their most recent single, which I picked because I can almost see the circle belling out and the pit forming before they even get through the first chord. I would totally wade into the fray and put my arms up to bounce sweaty dudes away from me while scream-singing along to this song.
 

 
I can also recommend the B-side, Hate is a Stone (slightly heavier, sounds like stewing in self-loathing) and their cover of Moonage Daydream.

One Comment

A Good Read, a Good Listen, and a Good Drink: Mutts

  By ,

Instagram Mutts

 

It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.

In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.

 

Earlier this month, I extolled the multi-flavored virtues of Chicago’s Mutts and their latest album Separation Anxiety. It’s a wily, skittering creature of an album, difficult to capture in one of those pigeonholing boxes that music press and label execs seem so fond of – and I like that! Many a rich and long-lasted musical love affair has begun with the question “What the hell is that?”

(And, at the time of that previous post, I didn’t know that singer/keys man Mike Maimone is from Cleveland, so I have to give a little O-hi-o salute for that.)

Mutts covering Tom Waits’ “New Coat of Paint” at 90.3 WRST in Oshkosh, Wisconsin

 

Now these fine gentlemen are joining us to give us their recommendations to aid us in our favorite activities of reading, listening, and drinking, and, oh, it’s a good one they’ve put together for us. Sit back and give it your full attention.

 

MIKE MAIMONE (Keyboard & Vocals)

Good Read: Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
If you’ve ever felt embarrassed to be at a table where more people are on their phones than not (even if you were in the majority yourself), this novel is your best friend and your worst nightmare. Set in the not-too-distant future, it uses a middle-aged man’s obsessions with “analog” books and a modern young woman to cast a bleak projection of where our instantly-gratified, plugged-in, debt-laden, class-divided, age-defying nation is heading. And to a degree, it anticipated the Occupy movements in New York.

Good Listen: “Jon Three Sixteen” by The Field Auxiliary
This track from their recent EP is where I would recommend starting on your journey with one the best bands Chicago has to offer. “When in doubt, put records out.” But don’t stop here; the new LP, Nomenclature Fever, is incredible.

“Jon Three Sixteen/When Yer Twenty Two” – The Field Auxiliary (for Audiotree Live)

 

Good Drink: Woodford Reserve, neat.

 

CHRIS PAGNANI (Drums)

Good Read: 1984 by George Orwell
Although not what I would consider to be “light reading,” this would probably count as one of the most important books I’ve ever read. I taught high school English for five years before joining Mutts, and this book was one that I taught the last few years I was working. When I’d introduce it to my students, I’d tell them, “I’m not concerned that you like this book. I care much more about you actually getting something out of reading it and looking a little more critically at your surroundings because of this experience.” Every time I read the ending, I’m surprised at how tragic yet also beautiful it is.

Good Listen: All Ages by Bad Religion
When I was in middle school back in the late nineties, my idea of a punk rock band was Blink-182. This was around the time some friends and I first picked up instruments with the intention of creating music together as a “band.” My buddy, Jason, turned me onto this record, actually a compilation of songs from previous releases, and I don’t think I’ve been the same since. The songs here changed both my taste in music and my world view. I spent hours looking at all the show fliers the band used to decorate the liner notes, and the artwork on the back cover still scares and moves me at the same time. After all these years, I still come back to this record at least once a year and am surprised by how fresh and angry the songs still sound and the way the lyrical content remains relevant.

“21st Century (Digital Boy)” – Bad Religion

 

Good Drink: I love IPAs, so the hoppier the better. The Big Sky IPA is probably my favorite, but I just tried Three Floyds’ Zombie Dust and thought that was pretty tasty as well.

 

BOB BUCKSTAFF (Bass & Guitar)

Take Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s The Letting Go from the top and crack open David Berman’s poetry collection Actual Air. (Both of these fine releases hail from Chicago’s very own Drag City.) By the time the needle lifts from the final track, you’ll be nose deep at war with Berman’s Mirrornauts. An experience unparalleled. It will make sweet molasses of the mind.

“Cursed Sleep” – Bonnie “Prince” Billy

 

Let’s not forget the secret ingredient, a twelve pack of Olys from the corner store. Throw that sugar on top and you’ll be writing in Bukowski and speaking in a slurred sort of iambic pentameter for days to come. That’s some trippy stuff, Bill Shakespeare.

 

Shew, right? A good one.

If you’re in the Chicago area, you can catch Mike and a kick drum playing out live.

11/28, LiveWire Lounge, Chicago
12/5, Mike N Molly’s, Champaign
12/6, The Bridge, Columbia

“So Many, So Many” – Mutts

 

Mutts Official Website

Mutts @ Twitter

Mutts @ Facebook

One Comment

Video: Tina Turner, What’s Love Got To Do With It

  By ,

Tina Turner turned 73 yesterday, so this is both a belated birthday celebration and a general appreciation.

What’s Love Got To Do With It is from Private Dancer (1984); the song won three Grammys in 1985 and the original video got an MTV video award, also in 1985.

I’m pretty sure I became a Tina Turner fan in that year too, partially because of the music, and partially because she was Aunty Entity, Queen of Bartertown. If you haven’t watched Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, GO DO IT NOW.

Meanwhile, the video you are about to watch is from her last tour, in 2009. I can only hope to be as fierce as she is when I am her age.
 

3 Comments

Old Gray Mule: Like a Apple on a Tree

  By

Old Gray Mule

 

CR Humphrey, who is better known under his nom de musicien Old Gray Mule, is a hell of a good guy. It’s clear when you see him play live, when you hear the soulful licks he lays down on tape, when you chat with him, and when you read the notes for the latest Old Gray Mule album Like a Apple on a Tree: everything he does is imbued with lots of heart, humor, and flat-out joy. He gives the lie to the “tortured artist” myth – you rarely meet someone more satisfied with his lot in life, even through the struggles, than Humphrey. And it’s evident in all he does. Take for instance, what he wrote about the song “Thanksgiving ’12” from Like a Apple on a Tree.

“I wrote this song in 2008 the day I got home from the hospital after finding out my three week old son was going to live. He’d died in his sleep 5 days before, I found him in his crib, did CPR on him, got him back…and my wife and I spent the next 5 days awake in the hospital with him. It was a miracle, he was going to be ok. I went home to pick up some clothes for Molly and I and when I walked in the door, I felt a need to play my guitar, so I sat down and played this song all the way through. It was Thanksgiving Day 2008. My son will turn 4 this October.”

And that joyful, tearful relief, that great, big exhalation after five days of breath-holding comes through loud and exhilaratingly clear in the song. This is the sound of a happy, grateful man.

 

 

Throughout the ten tracks, mostly originals, of Like a Apple on a Tree, Humphrey plays that good heart out with guitar work that is so immaculate and sharp, you could cut up your next meal with it. Though let me be clear: it is immaculate and sharp, but by no means clinical. Humphrey has sat at the knee of the best the Mississippi hill country has to offer (and when you’re talking blues, that’s pretty damn good) so these songs are made to play in stripped down, humid, dimly-lit jukes. With the help of friends like Lightnin’ Malcolm, Cedric Burnside, Australian artist Snooks La Vie, the welcome return of frequent Old Gray Mule partner CW Ayon, and others, Like A Apple On A Tree is going to make you feel something, whether its joy, the blues, the desire to strip down with a willing partner or just the need to shimmy your hips way, way down.

 

 

One of the highlights of the album is the above opening track, where Cedric Burnside handles drums and vocals on a cover of “Come on In”, a song originally by Cedric’s grandfather, the great R.L. Burnside. The song is one of two R.L. Burnside covers on the album (and those are the only non-originals in the ten tracks of Like a Apple on a Tree).

Though Burnside the elder isn’t the only great to have a direct influence on this album. As Humprhey writes about “Standin’ There Cryin'” (with vocals from Snooks La Vie):

This song was inspired by a story T Model Ford told me late one night after we’d played 5 hours opening for him at Club 2000 in Clarksdale, MS back in 2010. Less than a week later he had the first of a series of strokes that affected his right side.

 

 

If you’re up for some authenticity, as in authentic heart, authentic joy, authentic feeling, you’re not going to do much better right now than Old Gray Mule’s Like a Apple on a Tree.

 

Old Gray Mule Official Website

Old Gray Mule @ Bandcamp

No comments

Video: Fall Out Boy, Sugar We’re Going Down

  By ,

Fall Out Boy didn’t play Fueled by Ramen’s 15th anniversary shows last fall, but they were there in spirit, via the music between sets. At some point during night two, this song came on over the PA.

I was deep in the crowd, half listening, half trying to wriggle into a better spot, when I noticed a female voice in the chorus that I was pretty sure hadn’t been there before. I actually spent 30 seconds trying to remember if they had pulled someone in to guest vocals – Maja Ivarsson from The Sounds, maybe? – before the penny dropped.

It wasn’t Maja.

It was the room.

It was hundreds of girls – including me – singing along so loudly they had become one voice, soaring and swooping and almost drowning Patrick Stump out. And it remains one of my favorite concert memories.

This video is from 2006, and is a classic FOB dash of visual absurdity.

 

No comments

Video: Little Jackie, 31 Flavors

  By ,

The holiday season is upon us, and with it, long car trips in which my sister and I get to explore the contents of each others iPods. On our most recent voyage, I got a One Direction song stuck in her head, and she introduced me to Little Jackie, aka Imani Coppola (no relation to Francis Ford!) and Adam Pallin.

This song is from their second record, Made4TV. I love this video because it is beautifully shot, and the song because it is sexy and snarky at the same time. Coppola is also a solo artist, so if you like her voice be sure to grab all of her work!