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October 10, 2008

Mp3 of the Week: Age Rings

DOWNLOAD: Age Rings, Rock and Roll Is Dead [mp3]

Used to be, when we wanted to hear an AGE RINGS number, we’d just wheel ourselves over to Will Spitz’s desk and poke him with an uncapped Sharpie until he acquiesced with an a cappella version of the song of our choosing. Last time, it took only three dots. Now he doesn’t work here anymore, so we’re forced to forgo the unique intimacy and high fidelity of his “indoor voice” live performances in favor of a digital spin of their new single, “Rock and Roll Is Dead” — out this week on the lately-very-busy-indeed Dopamine Records. Not to diss Mr. Spitz or anything, but we’re not sure what we were thinking; the fleshed-out recordings of his songs are way better than his versions. “Rock and Roll Is Dead” has big guitars, big horns, big beats, and big vocals and is frighteningly catchy to boot — never before has a song proved itself wrong so righteously. Catch the Rings at Great Scott this Saturday, October 11, for the single release, which also includes a remix by it-boy DJ Die Young.

October 10, 2008

Lars Ulrich's plan for the economy: buy my art!

 

"I never looked at it as an investment," Lars Ulrich says in Some Kind of Monster, as he walks through Christie's on the night that one of his Basquiats -- "Profit I", from 1982 -- fetches $5.5. million dollars. "But . . . the other guys would take a big pile of money and park it in a bank, while I would take a big pile of money and park it on my wall." 

We all know Lars is not the most talented guy in Metallica. Nor is he the most metrosexual guy in Metallica. But today he is most likely the richest guy in Metallica. And he's about to get a bit richer: despite Suze Orman's "don't sell anything!" mantra, Lars is about to unload another Basquiat -- "Untitled (Boxer)", also from '82 -- and was nice enough to give the New York Times a sales pitch:

“Of course it’s an awkward time to sell, but I’ve always been about taking chances,” Mr. Ulrich said.

“I have a lot of faith in the art market,” he added. “It’s perhaps the last frontier where the best of the best will not go the way of the rest of the economy.” Recently his collecting has gone in a different direction, he said. Rather than relying on auctions, he has begun scouring galleries, buying the work of emerging artists.

October 02, 2008

VIDEO: Department of Eagles live on Conan

We find this clip amazing not just because "No One Does It Like You," from Grizzly Bear offshoot Department of Eagles' excellent album In Ear Park, is a contender for Song of the Year, but also because if what the Gum said is accurate, then this was their first live performance ever. They're backed by the drummer from Grizzly Bear, the bassist (I think; she looks different now so I'm not sure) from Dirty Projectors on backing vocals, and bass wunderkid Nat Baldwin, who Camille profiled not long ago. Check below:

 

October 02, 2008

Video: St. Vincent at the MFA

St. Vincent, "Dig a Pony" (Beatles cover), live at the MFA.

Last Thursday, the Museum of Fine Arts hosted its annual "College Night" event, which featured, among other things, a free performance from Annie Clark, a/k/a St. Vincent, in their Courtyard. Two sets, in fact.

And likely, any collegians stopping by to catch the set who had never heard St. Vincent before were won over. Clark is a hell of a performer - she's a great singer, she can shred on guitar, and she told charming anecdotes between songs. So much so, in fact, that she wound up running long during her first set. 

Clark went to college 'round these parts, and so she told a "one of us" story about her roommate building a beeramid, and then later, one about how she thought her vote for John Kerry was going to be more important than it wound up being. She also talked about recording her new album down in North Carolina, but she didn't favor the early set with any new tracks. We've heard she played some new stuff for the late crowd, but we didn't have our cameras rolling for that one. Instead, we've got her "big hit," which you can watch below.

St. Vincent, "Jesus Saves, I Spend," live at the MFA.

October 02, 2008

Lil' Wayne: "Bring me to Fenway"

 

On the off chance that you haven't been reading Lil' Wayne's fantacular new blog for ESPN.com -- which once again proved that Weezy is the king of the internets -- allow us to learn you. In his latest jawn, he speaks on Brett Favre ("He must know God's phone number. Come on. He's like 3900 years old and he threw for six touchdowns?"), Aaron Rodgers's shoulder ("I'm skeptical about it because when you say something like he has a sprained shoulder, come on, who sprains their shoulder? I've never sprained my shoulder"), and how to watch football like a thug ("I have a wonderful chef and he cooks whatever I like. During the games it's usually steak and lobster. I'm a steak and lobster dude"). 

He also gives Red Sox Nation a backhanded compliment: he's calling the World Series for the Devil Rays, but the man who has everything says his dream is still to get his hands on some leather in the shadow of the Green Monster:

"The Red Sox start the playoffs this week, and my thoughts are up in the air about them because, honestly, their chances are up in the air. I'm so grateful they made the post-season, but I'm kind of not sure about them. You know how you can envision a team in the World Series? I don't see them. I close my eyes and I see the Tampa Bay Rays. I'm a big emotion guy. I'm a heart guy, and I think they all play that way. They have nothing to compare this to. Whether they make it to the World Series or not, we're watching the first winning baseball team Tampa Bay has ever fielded. That right there is always amazing, no matter who the team is. I am actually trying to go down there to catch two games at the end of the week if I can. Maybe sing 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame' or throw out the first pitch. You never know. You know they need somebody to throw the first pitch. That would be my first major league game. My dream is still to catch one at Fenway, of course."

First of all, Wayne, you gotta believe. Maybe you saw the game last night and have seen the light. But second of all, if you're serious about this, get at us -- we can absolutely make this happen. And we won't even make you duet with Peter Gammons. All we ask in return is that you come by the Phoenix offices (we're right around the corner!) and cut a quick freestyle over some Dropkick Murphys ish. Trust us, the streets will go triple-platinum on this and Scorcese will put it in a movie. Win-win-win.

 

September 29, 2008

Letters To Cleo set reunion shows for December

Letters to Cleo, circa 1993 

This past Saturday night, you could've caught Lou Barlow and J. Mascis reuniting for a set of Dinosaur Jr. songs at the Orpheum . . . or you could've caught half of Letters to Cleo backing Miley Cyrus at the MGM Grand. Call it fate. But given that Stacy Jones and Kay Hanley have found themselves in the world's most successful touring band -- and that said band is really, when you think about it, not a hell of a far cry from what they were doing in Letters to Cleo -- we'd say the time is about right for a LTC reunion. Consider this when tickets go on-sale for the Cleos reunion shows, because you're now competing for seats with Hannah Montana superfans. A New York date is in the works, but the band has already confirmed a November 8 show at the Roxy in LA, to be followed by shows December 8 and 9 at the Paradise in Boston. 

VIDEO: Behind the scenes of the Hannah Montana tour with Stacy Jones 

"The funniest thing about running our Myspace page is that the majority of our 'friends' were in preschool for the band's heyday," said Hanley's hubby, LTC guitarist Michael Eisenstein, in the press release announcing the band's reunion. "We played maybe 10 shows or so between the release of 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU and the breakup of the band, but that film has been a DVD/cable sleeper. There are tons of kids out there who think 'I Want You To Want Me' is our song!  Most of them have no idea that we broke up nearly ten years ago."

They also think the Cleos verison of the Cars' "Dangerous Type" might be about Hermione, which is pretty fucking awesome:

 

Yikes. But also totally wow. Thank Hanley for keeping the LTC fanbase young: during the Cleos downtime she's been gunning for your children, as the lead voice in the Babyface-produced Josie and the Pussycats and in the super-underrated punk-pop cartoon Generation O (who will always occupy a warm place in our heart for the Green Day-ish kiddie romp about bedwetting, "Damp Sheets"), not to mention a succession of young-adult songwriting gigs. (If your kids watch Disney Channel, you can hear her singing the bubblegum-reggae theme song to the latest incarnation of Tigger & Pooh.) She also, ahem, did a bit of writing for us -- profiling Adriana Huffington, interviewing Gary Cherone, and recounting her relationship with the fictional literary cipher JT Leroy.

Aside from an off-the-cuff, unrehearsed two-song set at T.T.'s last winter, the band's last proper show was in May of 2000, at Axis. Given Hanley and Jones's dayjobs, we can pretty much assure you that they're not doing it for the money.

PREVIOUSLY:

• Not your mom, she's an effing A-bomb: Kay Hanley, solo, at T.T.'s [2006] 
• No More Letters: The Cleos close out a Boston era [2000] 
• Best Music Poll: Local Act, Female Vocalist, Local Album, Local Song [1998] 
• Go-ing places: Letters to Cleo's new attractions. [1997] 

September 25, 2008

All Tomorrow's Parties 2008: Blasts From The Past

THE END (NO REALLY, THE FUCKING END): My Bloody Valentine, 'You Made Me Realise' (Ending)

Tie it to whatever ugly contemporary reality you please, but gosh, people sure are getting off on nostalgia lately--and I’m not talking about that insipid brand of run-of-the-mill retro-fetishization that has claimed the first eight years of this decade’s still-fetal culture. I’m talking about straight-up jonesing for jigawatts: gauzy-eyed, snows-of-yesteryear-style pining for the past. Pulling a Jack at the end of Season 3: “We have to go baaack!”

You don’t really expect sentimental surges like this from indie-rockers born in the 70s--you get it from emo-kids born in the 80s. But this past weekend in the Catskills was a different story: This long-awaited 3-day installment of ATP, curated by long-vanished shoegaze magnates My Bloody Valentine was like a tear in the expensive jeans of time--and fuck, those were our best jeans.

In any case, if we were going to allow ourselves to get all swept up in a tizzy over a collective indie-rock past that we’ve spent so much time gilding simply by forgetting (and yeah, that was a switch to first person plural you just felt there), the least we could do would be to do so in private. Thus, the site of ATP, Kutsher’s Country Club (a sprawling, dilapidated leisureplex positioned deep in the woods, 250 miles west of Boston, 1500 feet above sea level and [for our purposes] 16 years since the last MBV show) seemed appropriate, removed enough, as it was, from just about everything ever.

Oddly appropriate, too, seemed the nostalgia in the air--and not just due to Kutsher’s prevalent mildewy fust. A quick glance of the festval’s highlight acts (Built to Spill, Dinosaur Jr., Mercury Rev, Mogwai, Tortoise, Bardo Pond, Shellac, MBV, to name a few) does more than just suggest the organizers are old enough to have several nieces and nephews each; and it represents more than just a ladle-full of college rock (remember that term?) that few have taken the time to manually transfer over to their iTunes; and it means more than a categorically non-shocking glimpse into MBV’s particular musical fancies.

As ATP staff dutifully (and insistently) handed out free earplugs to attendees, two things became clear: 1.) this music we were about to experience was the product of another era entirely--and if that sounds like a severe overstatement of how much time has elapsed since these bands’ respective heyday, it’s not and I’ll get to why in a minute. And 2.) MBV was most likely going to rape our ears with that ungodly 20-minute “holocaust” finale to “You Made Me Realise.” In short, we were saved and we were fucked.

****

Before I get into the music, let me offer some words on the venue itself. Kutsher’s is kind of amazing. A vast pleasuredome for Jews of yore on leave from New York, the place is at once completely tricked out (in a 1968 sort of way) and completely falling apart (in a 2068 sort of way).

A grand lobby greeted guests with a spread of dusty couches, grandiose oils and gauche fixtures. The rooms themselves were replete with gold accents, nauseous corals, sea foam greens and lavenders. It was as though the design scheme was scraped together from the remains of a detonated Golden Girl. Vast systems of hallways extended Shining-like into distant funky-smelling wings, some of which had been ravaged by fires and resultant sprinkler floods. At the far (admittedly forbidden) ends of these stretches, the floors softened underfoot, rotten sections of wall drooped limply, interiors of once serviceable rooms were splattered with dried black fluids. On one basement expedition, we found (by the light of our iPhones) a forgotten function room, slick with broad puddles of ancient water, piled high with superfluous blue chairs, and treacherous with old lighting fixtures dangling low by their cords like dead snakes. Some hallway walls were carpeted in faded stripes, others were carpeted in rich blue fur (as though someone had skinned a Muppet). Here and there, the floors were warped. Everywhere, the odor of mold.

Elsewhere on the grounds, a massive pool lay dry, sun-bleached and empty, protected by stubborn bushes. The adjacent lido, busy with grimy white chaises, dewy tents and overgrown with thick grass, buzzed with its own ghostly emptiness. A weedy putt-putt course languished in the shade of an ill-kept tree. A boarded-up ice arena hid a permanently thawed rink, a wall of forgotten snapshots, a room of rusty skates and a modestly-sized Zamboni, sleeping like a mammoth where some seats used to be. A squeaky playground sat on the far side of a pond off the main courtyard, the squealing of its witch’s hat audible from a row of vinyl chairs people had dragged to the water’s mucky edge.

It wasn’t all unfathomable wreckage, though. An indoor pool off the lobby attracted a steady stream of lanky, tatted cannonballers; a “futuristic” bar that overlooked its shallow end (defiantly named “The Deep End”) sported foxy red vinyl seats (good for extended indie-rock pub quizzes) and a roomy dance floor (good for the all-night dance parties). The grand hallways that connected the two main performance spaces were strewn with couches (which, in turn, were strewn with sleepers), and offered an array of amenities--from an arcade stocked with Tekken and Millipede (awesome), to a nook for air hockey and billiards (cool), to a women’s clothing boutique full of hideous shawls and slack purses the size of feed bags (scary), to a glass make-up counter staffed by a white-faced woman who has seemingly never used cold cream, ever (scariest).

At one end of the hall was the Stardust Club, a massive round auditorium painted with swirling galaxies and an unlikely quantity of comets, which served as the primary stage, outfitted as it was with a state-of-the-art sound and light systems. At the hall’s other end (and adjacent to an open air food court) was a dark squarish ballroom, which didn’t handle sound nearly as well and might better have been employed to house DJs and dance parties. Throughout the complex were bars. Lots of them. Each one well-stocked and reasonably priced-- a sure sign (along with the limited cuisine) that Brits were in charge.

Perhaps the most incongruous part of the Kutsher’s experience was its effect on those who spent three days there--and I don’t mean the rumored ‘Kutsher’s Syndrome’-- a fitful chest cold that lingered long after the hangovers vamoosed. Indie-rock people, thousands of them, were, in between Coronas, engaging in--get this--regular physical activity. Girls golfed, guys shot hoops, people swam laps, played shuffleboard, threw horseshoes, rolled bocce balls, rowed rowboats, and a Japanese contingency hogged the ping-pong table. Blogging isn’t really a physical activity, but everyone was doing that too. The near constant sunshine (but for 15 minutes of rain on Sunday), the highly focused leisure of the proceedings gave Kutsher’s a strange, far-removed and highly-debauched feeling-- like a Meatballs where big subwoofers were more important than big boobs; or a nudist camp where instead of nudity, everyone just had brazenly exposed 90s hangups.

If there was ever a setting to revisit and revive a sound that was as self-indulgent and satisfying as it was taken for granted in its heyday, Kutsher’s was it--and the ravages of time evident on so many of the Club’s facilities made the relative rustiness of many of the acts seem mild in comparison.

*****

I have this theory (and I kind of hate myself for having it since it’s insultingly easy to arrive at) that 9/11 royally retarded the development of rock. (Kind of like how WWI derailed modernism--see Marjorie Perloff) It’s hard to ignore that the towering figures of excessively loud yet dreamy rock that so many of us eagerly sopped up through the '90s was ushered out so briskly and so handily replaced by stuff like dance music (or dance-music inspired non-dance music). It’s like the past 7 years have been all about regaining some semblance of safety or regularity-- the fundamental predictability of a DFA 12”, the shamefully tame natterings of bands like the Shins, the ceaseless and overt songiness of endless Peters, Bjorns, Johns, Reginas, Leslies, Conors. Chaos isn’t cool; our cravings for pummeling, transporting noise have been squelched by a scourge of catchiness.

In the absence of an explicit common thread to link together the disparate lineup represented at ATP NY, one uniting characteristic loomed: these were not bands at all concerned with crafting cutesy hooks, reviving anything they didn’t invent to begin with, or landing wispily flip pop-clips safely atop a Target ad. Each band was there not just for their respective streaks of innovation, but for their prioritizing of sound as a source of pleasure.

Whether it be new sensations like Fuck Buttons trashing the laissez-faire passivity so often associated to electronic music; stately elders like Mercury Rev extracting their drama almost entirely from volume (the remainder supplied by singer Jonathan Donahue’s glam histrionics); founding punk fathers (or daddies, as it were) like Bob Mould unleashing an unexpected barrage of chunky Hüsker Dü numbers; indie-pop progenitors like Built to Spill moving thousands to sing along with guitar solos instead of lyrics; highly efficient meta-formalists like Shellac hand-filing the teeth of each carefully picked (both senses) note; the explosively rapturous tantrums of (surprise highlights) Apse; or even the acrobatic turntablism and airtight battle rhymes of Edan--the issue of sound, and what it can do to a listener--that listener’s body--was primary. Like Kutsher’s itself, the bands at ATP NY represented a veritable world of wonders grown over with weeds, rendered sad with neglect--but all too ready to delight again, given a little attention.

If I had any lingering doubts about the importance of sound itself as a guiding principle for this fest’s aesthetic, they were duly shooed away like so many wealthy Jewish urbanites from their favorite summer hangout by My Bloody Valentine’s finale performance. If theirs wasn’t the best performance of the weekend (it wasn’t), it was at least the clearest crystallization of the shoegaze zeitgeist (and its influence) the weekend had to offer. Your mental image of Kevin and Bilinda wanly patting their guitars just like they did back in the day remains jarringly accurate; but the sound that came from it--a sound that didn’t just hit your gut, but filled and threatened it, that shook the very roots of your teeth and invisibly brushed the hairs on your arms, a sound that in its blinding, unknowable force grew indistinguishable from the drowning white lights--was unfamiliar in the way that things like death are. Hits obscured themselves in devastating vortices of howling guitars, treacherous bass swells, godless shrieks of feedback--even a quickie check of the kick drum between songs was havoc upon the body.

When “You Made Me Realize” finally surfaced from the set-list, it was like the last ceremony in a primal ritual. It didn’t feel important, it didn’t feel beautiful, it didn’t feel gimmicky, it didn’t feel gratuitous. It felt entirely unreal--and thus, felt like everything one could compare it to, all at once. Some people cowered, winced, held their plugs in tighter with their fists. Some raised their arms as though the sound were a cleansing blast of water, some took to the floors, wrapped hoodies around their heads, some laughed as though the abyss were actually kind of funny after all, some scowled as though disgusted by the petulance of it all, some people even made out. Many ran for the exits. Most stayed. 

At the song’s (???) conclusion, the relative silence set in like the morning following a terrific disaster--and the house lights bathed the slowly departing mass in an appropriately aggressive golden light. Outside, it wasn’t the expected after-show afterglow--it looked more like the aftermath of a plane crash. A thick fog rolled across the pond, joining with the smoke of a hundred smokers. People looked fucked, bleary, confused. They stroked at their ears, held their faces in their hands, searched for survivors they recognized. What, their faces seemed to ask, could have been the purpose of what just happened? Perhaps if one cataclysm can set things wrong, another one could wrong it right.

September 25, 2008

Slaine vs. Sage Francis War Is Over

Pacifist observers of the ongoing beef between Providence indie rap hero Sage Francis and Southie rhyme king Slaine should be excited to know that the Internet-fueled feud between the two heavyweights has not ended in a blood bath. Sources on the ground at this past night's Scroobius Pip show at The Paradise report that while the two finally had a heated exchange in person, no punches were thrown, nor were any weapons pulled. I think I speak on behalf of all mature rap fans when I say that this is a good thing, and not just because a Slaine-Sage rumble would have likely left the 'Dise in disrepair for several weeks. There are too many white collar goons out there inflicting pain and horror on those of us who live check-to-check for our blue collar icons to be warring. Well done gentlemen, though it would have been sweet to get a few dis tracks out of this. For more, check Sage's uncharacteristically apologetic blog entry.

September 25, 2008

VIDEO: Weezer covers Nirvana

As we previously alluded to, Weezer covered Nirvana's "Sliver" at their tour kickoff in Lowell on Tuesday. Here's the video, as shot by our own Carina Mastrocola. Check the slideshow of her photos here.
September 24, 2008

All Tomorrow's Parties, Day 1: Burned-out Uncle Rock, Thurston's Moore's Baby Talk, and Some Other Bands That I Didn't Actually See

Arriving at Kutshers Country Club in Monticello, NY, I felt like I was living through an early 90's equivalent of Bergman's Wild Strawberries, minus the awards ceremony: a pastoral dream-romp through one's past, where the sights and sounds of one's formative years were brought back and forced to clash with aging sensibilities.  If ATP-NY was "about" anything, it was about the canonization in the collective music underground's memory of the alleged importance of early 90's "alternative" music; a throwback to a simpler time when Bush Mark I led to Clinton Mark I, and a long-burgeoning underground seemed to overthrow the mainstream and allow "cool" stuff to invade America's malls and major radio station playlists.

The first evening of programmed performances at ATP-NY was, appropriately enough, an ATP-programmed "Don't Look Back" series, where canonized performers play, in order, a "seminal" album; we got there too late to catch Bardo Pond's performance of their Lapsed album-- while they were playing, we were busy checking in at the front desk, and being blown away by the bizarre pile-up of culture clashes going on all around us: you have a Borscht Belt Jewish country club about three decades or more past its heyday being over-run by Pitchfork-tenth-of-a-point-rating music fans, who are in turn interfacing with a large contingent of Euro-eternal-partiers; all of these people are being assisted in their check-in and parking lot navigation by a large temporary staff who have clearly been shipped up from New York City, meaning that during the festival one can walk out of a Yo La Tengo set and come across a group of staff members jamming out to Mariah Carey on a boombox (I'll delve a bit more on the racial/socio-economic weirdness of this festival in my Day 3 write-up, when I discuss EPMD's Sunday afternoon set).  And remember, all of this is amidst Hicktown upstate New York-- the closest retail node to Kutshers is... (drumroll).. a Wal-Mart.  And on top of all of that, we are a mere 10 miles from Bethel, NY, the festival site of Woodstock (1969 version).

Oh, but right, besides people-watching and societal analyzing, there is also music happening.  We check in in time to run down to the main stage to catch The Meat Puppets, who are preparing to perform, in its entirety, their 1984 album Meat Puppets II.  Curt Kirkwood walks out in a loose t-shirt and wearing fucking sweatpants, as if to announce to the audience that this festival is not about stage presence or any sort of intentional presentation.  The current "reunited" Meat Puppets lacks original drummer Derek Bostrom, but does include original bassist Chris Kirkwood, who lost a few years to serious drug addiction and incarceration but seems to have emerged somewhat, uh, jacked; his craggly face sits on his otherwise pretty fit body like, say, Willem Dafoe circa Life Aquatic wearing an ill-advised puffy blonde wig.  The Kirkwood brothers make strange contorted faces when they play that seem to be visual indications that these two have had a lifetime of experiences with hallucinations and altered states, but their musical abandon is frequently interrupted as they have to remind themselves, you know, which song is next, which key it's in, etc.  MP II was a transitional album for the Puppets: their eponymous debut was a pretty amateur affair, screaming cowpunk that sort-of made sense on punk-tastic SST Records.  MP II began hinting at a more countrified and countri-fried direction that would prevail over their discography for the next decade-- but it wasn't until 3rd LP Up On The Sun that they would full-on jack-knife into arpeggiated home-on-the-range Garcia-isms.  Meaning that MP II is full of strange little squiggles of songs that they probably never imagined that they'd be playing again, live, in a ballroom to thousands of people in the year 2008.  "Thoughts turn into waterfalls/with water made of thoughts that call", from "We're Here", is the kind of lyrical navel-gazing that made the Puppets make sense to a Cobain'd-out early 90's slacker aesthetic-- and amidst that era's oversized sweaters and ski hats in summer, a group of frazzled ugly dudes playing fried psychedelic guitar rock fit right in there.  When the Puppets go psych, it isn't with the mastery of, say, J Mascis or Kevin Shields or Ira Kaplan; it's with the seemingly-accidental naivety of, say, Daniel Johnston, if he dropped the Brian Wilson bullshit and just started hitting effects pedals.  Which, really, was a certain important lesson of early 90's rock: that drugs, pedals and giddy enthusiasm can make up for quite a lot.  By the time they got to "Lake of Fire", the Kirkwoods were blazing: the song morphed into a spastic dance of hair-flying aggression, as if one was listening to Zeppelin and Kiss when the shrooms kick in, the posters on the walls start to melt, the record starts skipping on the same groove, and your doofus grin makes you unconsciously drool all over your bong.  After the album proper, they closed with a cover of The Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows" that really showed where their heads were: ground zero psychedelia.

Truth be told, though, The Meat Puppets weren't really cool enough for the alternative rock days, and they didn't seem cool enough for ATP either: lots of people walked in for one song and bailed; inept covers of Johnny Cash's "Tennessee Stud" probably isn't quite what Fuck Button fans took a Friday off of work to stand around watching, right?  Tortoise packed the ballroom significantly tighter for their set; and I dunno, I gave it a few tunes, but it was pretty rough.  I mean, I like lots of wanky 70's prog, and own more than three Mahavishnu Orchestra albums, and yet even I was put off by the jazz-rock wankery on display.  I have been told that Tortoise are "an awesome band to listen to whilst doing something else"-- this is a motto that popped in my head over and over during this festival.  Being curated by My Bloody Valentine, after all, you couldn't help but notice that, a few stragglers aside, most of the bands performing are much better known for their sound than for their songs, which is to say that the appeal of so much of what we were to witness was primarily of a "sonic" nature.

Except, oddly enough, for Thurston Moore's set.  If the Brothers Kirkwood developed an indie archetype of the grizzled far-out pair of uncles rocking out to flashback rock, Moore has tended to go the other way-- into the womb, or at least some sort of mutant dada-informed "mucky wucky" baby-talk thing.  Moore's set this evening is a re-creation of his 1995 solo LP Psychic Hearts, which, he informs us from the stage, he and drummer Steve Shelley wrote and recorded in one day-- take that, major label dude that released the album!  Moore stuck it to the man, i.e. the ATP "Don't Look Back" gestapo, as well by daring to not play the album in order, but I can't imagine that too many people noticed or cared; he began with "Elegy For All The Dead Rock Stars", which is one of those 20-minute end-of-cd instrumental things that 90's bands tended to do when cd's first came out (see: Nirvana's "Endless Nameless" at the end of Nevermind, or perhaps the hidden track on Mudhoney's My Brother The Cow, which consisted of the entire album played backwards).

September 24, 2008

Does Rivers Cuomo know the words to Nirvana's "Sliver"?

Maybe, maybe not -- but just to make sure, he had a little cheat sheet with him on stage last night (see photo above) as Weezer kicked off a US tour at Tsongas Arena. Besides the Nirvana cover, there was also an Oasis cover, and a cameo by Tom DeLonge. Carina Mastrocola was on hand to snap a bunch of the action, click below for the slideshow:

MORE PHOTOS: WEEZER AT TSONGAS ARENA | SEPT 24 2008

September 22, 2008

Saturday With Santogold, Sam Flores and Esoteric

I’m excited to report that most folks who came to check Santogold at The Paradise last Saturday did not think she was M.I.A. The former might have been aggressive in her allegations that those who compare the two are racist (though she also might have been correct), but at this juncture it’s a phenomenon of mistaken identity that she can stop harping on.

Before I recap the sold out retro fest at the Paradise, though, I’ll drag you through the latter part of Saturday – the part after I left the Art Institute’s ‘Zine Fair and MASSCANN’S Hemp Fest. At about six o’clock I arrived out near Boston University for the Underground Snowboards block party – an event that’s mere existence was remarkable considering the million dollar homes (presumably not owned by b-boys and hip-hop fans) down the street.

While renowned graf artists Sam Flores, Alex Pardee and N8 Van Dyke blasted the walls outside Underground with a legal barrage of aerosol-empowered colors, a mess of kids skated the makeshift course set up between police barricades. There was even a snowboard ramp – with actual snow! Boom bap was in effect as well; for those of us who wear fitted hats it’s always sweet to see evidence that our city is at least somewhat tolerant of fringe activities.

I’m sure they wouldn’t have admitted such, but it appeared that even the cops on duty had fun. As 7L, Esoteric, Top Choice Clique, Raydar Ellis and Will C. unrolled the aural entertainment, there was not a single reported noise violation. The show even killed when the power cut for a few minutes, leaving Eso to deliver some a capella comedy: “Have you read Adriana Lima’s blog?” he asked the crowd. “I’m not on some let’s dis the supermodel shit, but she’s not too bright.”

The Dise was at least one-third filled when the first act – L.A. rockers Low vs. Diamond – stepped on stage. I can’t give a fair assessment of their set, though, for two reasons: one is that I went to high school with the band’s lead singer Lucas Field, and the other is that I’m incapable of writing about music that far outside the hip-hop realm. What I can report, however, is that dozens of fans were there specifically to see Low vs. Diamond; afterwards I had to move out of the way at least five times so that girls could take pictures with my homeboy.

Despite the club stinking like dinosaur turds all night, Santogold’s fiesta was a proper summer send-off, fall welcoming, or whatever fans were looking for. Even college kids were on their best behavior; probably because the types of girls who like Santo are more impressed with dudes who dance than meatballs who sport fight.

Of course, there were some North Shore steaks on hand as well (Santo does lace dance music after all); maybe it’s that lame Converse ad with Pharrell and Julian Casablancas, but she effectively lures cats from most corners of the taste spectrum. For every rhinestone Affliction shirt there were two Abercrombie hoodies; and for every three white kids there were…bad example.  

It’s entertaining watching people go wild over what they hardly get; in my opinion we’re all still trying to figure out and categorize Santogold (the black Blondie?). Right now all we really know is that she moves our bones; and for anyone who came out Saturday, it’s also clear that her pipes are naturally electric enough to ring as ridiculous up close as they do on record.

Extra props to Santo’s dancers, too, and not just because they were piping hot. As much as I deplore choreography (I know – it’s a lame pet peeve) their ostentatious grooves and outfits fulfilled the hipster requirements that are necessary to prevail on the contemporary dance-hop scene and allowed Santo to lay into some deep vocals.

When I first saw Santo rock at South by Southwest this past March, you bet your ass I thought she was M.I.A. I’d been drinking for four straight days at that point – plus she was performing at a jam for Mad Decent. In the time since she’s not only become so big that she can tell fans how high to jump; she can also tell them what kind of vintage kicks they should jump in. It's only a matter of time before people start mistaking M.I.A. for her.      

September 18, 2008

Disorientation 2008: The Interviews

Straight from the FNX/Phoenix Disorientation 2008 show, here's some FNX folks interviewing some of the bands who performed. Check back later for video of performances by the Kooks, Flogging Molly, Alkaline Trio, and more.


Flogging Molly


Kooks


Alkaline Trio

September 12, 2008

MP3 of the Week: TAB the Band

DOWNLOAD: TAB THE BAND, “HEAVY IDEA” [MP3]

For a rock band, there’s only one real way to channel the spirits of Steppenwolf, Deep Purple, and, well, the Eagles without sounding grossly ironic: have one of your dads be a member of Aerosmith. By this criterion, Duxbury’s finest, TAB the Band, should have double the success in their adoption of the arena-rock mantle: brothers Tony (guitar) and Ben (bass) are offspring of Joe Perry. But they don’t actually sound anything like Aerosmith. Sometimes they sound like the Stones if the Stones had been signed to TeenBeat; other times they’re like a lo-fi amalgam of two hours of WZLX programming. Lately, they’ve been popping up in the pages of the New Yorker and mini-touring with Stone Temple Pilots and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. The track above comes from their Long Weekend album, the release of which they'll be celebrating at Great Scott this Saturday, September 13 — and no, smart-ass, they won’t be doing anything off of Honkin’ on Bobo.

September 05, 2008

Mp3s of the Week: Ashers and Deadly Sins

Deadly Sins 

DOWNLOAD: ASHERS, “DESTITUTION” [MP3]

DOWNLOAD: DEADLY SINS, “GREY SKIES TURN” [MP3]

Not that they’re strangers or anything, but it’s nice to know that there’s now a single degree of separation between Boston’s two biggest punk-rock franchises: members of Dropkick Murphys and the Unseen have fired up two new bands who share former Crash and Burn guitarist Bill Brown. On Ashers’ debut EP, Brown and frontman Mark Unseen prove they’ve got more to offer than speed and anarchy, whether they’re taking a blowtorch to Tom Petty’s “I Need To Know” or penning this track, 2008’s catchiest crustpunk sing-along. Brown’s also all over Selling Our Own Weaknesses, the debut by part-time Dropkicks singer Stephanie Dougherty’s Deadly Sins. Dropping the Irish sass and heading straight for wounded pride, this turbocharged anthem has been melting the mohawks of bondage-pants’d 15-year-olds from Quincy to Belgium. Grab both mpfrees above, then watch Brown do double duty when both bands play an all-ages CD-release gig at Harpers Ferry this Sunday, September 7. 

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