Dancing About Architecture 07.14.09
Posted by Ian Wright on 07.14.2009
More than 1,200 words on why Bruce Springsteen is amazing, Trent Reznor advises new bands, new songs by The Wrens and new releases by No Age, Atlas Sound and best of all, Jim O’Rourke.
The bit at the start
First, a few words about the band ...
I can't even hope to count the number of times during Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street band's second night in the RDS that my gig-buddy for the night and I leaned over to each other and remarked just how good a particular member of the E-Street band actually is at what they do, but it happened a lot.
It happened at the climax of "Youngstown" when Nils Lofgrin, a guitarist with a hugely idiosyncratic technique who seems to play everything from his thumb produced a dazzling solo, never once hitting a bum note as he spun around and around on the stage. It happened when Roy Bitten teased the more subdued moments of "Jungleland" out into the darkening night on his piano and it happened many times when Clarence Clemens launched into one of the numerous epic sax solos that for many, more than anything else, have defined the E-Street sound over the years . It happened when we realised that after 3 hours Max Weinberg was still playing with furious intensity despite barely having a moment of respite throughout, there are songs that allow other E-Streeters to take their foot off the gas a little but for the band's drummer there's no such luck, he even has to do most of the work when the songs finish, as they usually do at a Springsteen gig, in a crescendo of cymbals and kick drum to fill in the gap as The Boss struts around the stage barking out the name of the next song that he's decided he wants to play to the band and allowing them time to change to whatever their required instrument for that number might be before Bruce steps back to the microphone and bellows out "1, 2," and then pauses for the final 2 beats before BANG it's right into the next tune (not one for waltzes or jazz time signatures is Bruce).
And though unflashy as he might appear when compared to Lofgrin it also happens too with Steve Van Zandt, a perfect foil for Springsteen's goofy sense of humour as he played to crowd, teasing us as to whether or not he's going to tear on through past 11 and curfew be damned. And of course he does, right through to 11:15, a full 3 hours and 10 minutes after Lofgrin first walked out onto the stage with an accordion while playing "The Fields Of Athenry" with the rest of the band in tow.
The one person that neither of us says it about though is Springsteen himself. And it doesn't need to be, some things are just fucking obvious and regardless of the band that he's got with him it's always mostly about Bruce and that's how it's always going to be. It was that way at my first Springsteen gig in '93 when he picked me up from school to go to the same venue as last night's gig when The Boss was being backed by whatever the hell it is you're supposed to call the band that wasn't the E-Street band, my memories of that one are dim but I know that Jerry Lee Lewis showed up on stage for a song. And it was the same when we've been to Springsteen gigs without the other since, him for the Seeger Sessions band gig in The Point when I went to see The Flaming Lips at Vicar St. instead or me for the the Devils And Dust solo tour in the same venue when he was on holiday in Spain or when a surgery foiled our plans to go to last year's RDS gig. In fact thinking about it as I drove us home last night afterwards I realised that my Dad and I hadn't gone to see a Springsteen gig together since the E-Street reunion tour in 1999. It' a bit sad I know, and it is something that I've mentioned here before but I did learn to love music through Springsteen albums, his Springsteen albums to be precise.
Apologies for the sentimental aside but hey, Bruce is all about the sentiment.
But this is a review though and here I suppose that it does need to be said . Springsteen isn't just good at what he does, in the live arena he's likely the very best at what he does. It's been mentioned a lot of late but he is going to be 60 this year and yes he does put more physical energy into his gigs than performers half, or even a third his age do, be it either because of lack of motivation on younger mens part's to put in the hard yards or their attempts to put on an air of detached cool for fear of looking like a bit of a dick (that one is just riddled with irony). Springsteen has been pulling the same shtick for nearly 4 decades and he's got the comfort of knowing in the back of his head that he wrote "Born To Run"; he can get away with pretty much whatever he wants to do, be it plucking signs with song names from the crowd and basing the middle section of the set list on those requests (thanks to Lucy for "Spirit In The Night" by the way, it's a personal favourite) or finding a little girl no older than 8 years old on top of her dad's shoulders up the front during "Waitin' On A Sunny Day" and putting the mic to her lips so she could sing lead vocals. If anyone finds that sort of thing hokey well then they can just go to hell. Though maybe Bruce is the only one who's able to get away with this sort of thing.
And still, after all these years and numerous gigs (and I'll admit that there were people at the gig lat night who put my own fanboyishness to shame, next to some of them I might appear only to have a passing interest in the man and his music) Springsteen still manages to surprise me. Of the 29 songs (31 if you count Lofgrin's opening accordion shot and the 30 seconds or so of "Louis Louis" that snuck into the night's finale of "Twist And Shout") there was a good half dozen that I don't ever recall having heard live before, big hits, that were off his best selling record that he'd just breezed on past whenever I'd seen him before and one, a brilliantly rendered "American Skin (41 shots)" that I'd never even heard before (it's on the Essentials collection, and sure why would I be wanting that? Don't I already have the proper albums? To borrow a phrase from anonymous I can only say "fail Ian, FAIL").
How long he can keep carrying on like this I don't know, but for now he's still one of the best shows in the whole world.
Beg, borrow, buy, steal or download this album.
Final Fantasy – Spectrum, 14th Century
EP containing the best song Pallett has yet written.
You news, you lose
Some advice for you if you're in a band that no one has ever heard of.
Over the past couple of years Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor has proven himself to be one of the more new media savvy musicians around and the way that he has engaged with his fanbase through twitter and blogs has demonstrated that he understands the challenges caused by the changes in the music business in the last decade better than most, in fact someone told me before that he himself was the person who originally uploaded the torrent of one of his more recent releases to the what.cd torrent tracker.
In a recent blog post that you can read here Reznor gave advice on how new bands should attempt to go about their business in the most sensible fashion. In some ways it's a 21st century update of The Minutemen's "jam econo" philosophy and many of these ideas are quite obvious and I'd imagine that most bands that most people have not heard are doing some of them but to have them all distilled into one article is very useful. They're certainly more relevant and useful than the Steve Albini penned "major labels are the devil" screeds that have been floating around the web for the past decade which were pretty much the last lengthy writings on the subject by a significant musical figure before this one as far as I'm aware.
Holy Shit new music from The Wrens.
It's now nearly 6 years since The Wrens released The Meadowlands and up until recently the New Jersey 4-piece have shown few signs of producing a follow up to an album which since my discovery of it has caused me to log enough travelling miles to circumnavigate the globe at least once to see the band play (as well as indirectly resulting in me getting into what was and to date has still been the most significant relationship of my life). Work has apparently finally begun on the follow up and a number of demos for new tunes have cropped up here and there online, though mostly on the website of Magnet Magazine who are maintaining a weekly "Wrens Watch" whereby every 7 days they ring up guitarist/singer Charles Bissell (nee: Mexico) and he tries to come up with a fresh excuse as to why the band still haven't made a new record.
Up till now all the new material emerging has been coming from bassist/keyboardist/singer Kevin Whelan and I think that I've previously put up some of those songs here but just this week Bissell put down the new baby boy (that was one of the more commonly used excuses) and wrote a new song, his first he claims, in many years. It's called "The Thousand Dos" and I'm putting it up along with a couple of other demos just because they were there on the same page that I found the Bissell song on. Also becasue I think that "Marked Up" songs like The Beatles, and not in the bad way that almost all of Pugwash's songs sound like The Beatles.
September 8th (or August 31st in the UK) will see the release of the first album for, fuckit I'll just say it, musical genius Jim O'Rourke called The Visiter.
According to Drag City the album is more song oriented then his more experimental and electronic releases but is also said to have more in common with Bad Timing than Insignificance or my personal favourite from his very large cannon of work Eureka.
New Atlas Sound album.
Logos is the new album from Atlas Sound a.k.a. Deerhunter front man Bradford Cox. The album features guest turns from Animal Collective's Panda Bear and Laetitia Sadler of Stereolab. Kranky will release the album on October 20th.
If the name Logos sounds familiar then it's because it's the name of an album that made it's way onto the internet after someone hacked into an online file storage account owned by Cox (That's also how the Weird Era Cont. add on to Deerhunter's Microcastle album also leaked early).
At the time Cox announced that he was considering scrapping the whole project but as he wrote recently he has obviously reconsidered doing that.
"My last album was a bedroom laptop type thing. Very introverted. Logos is an album that was recorded all over the world. It's not about me. There are collaborations with other musicians. The lyrics are not autobiographical. The view is a lot more panoramic and less close-up. I became bored with introspection. This was also the case with Deerhunter's Microcastle LP, which was written during the same period.
I started recording December of 2007. I recorded the first version of the album, which was not intended for release. Due to some unfortunate mistakes on my part, this 'sketch' of the album was leaked. Many of the songs where simply 'placeholders,' songs I created quickly to help design the 'arc' of the album.
I did not react well to the leak, in retrospect. It became the kind of internet-fueled drama that I was quickly learning to despise. I had always desired to speak through music, not blog posts and interviews, etc. I considered abandoning the project.
I toured for a period in Europe with Animal Collective, whose band dynamic was very inspirational to be around. On the bus, we often played improvised iPod games. We would take turns formulating a theme or unifying concept and then play three songs. The goal would be for everyone to try and figure out the theme. During one of these games, someone played 'What Am I Going to Do' by the Dovers. I was amazed at the hook-- a weird organ thing with drums and electric bass. I mentioned to Noah [Lennox] that someone should really sample that riff. He agreed and he taught me a little about sampling and matching up beats. This ended up as the collaborative effort 'Walkabout'.
Each song on the album has a similar story. That might be my favorite thing about the album. It's a collection of songs. There is no 'filler.' There are little scrapbook details everywhere. Sasha Vine [of Sian Alice Group] provided a double-tracked improvised violin part to 'Attic Lights' which was recorded backstage at a Deerhunter/Sian Alice Group show in Brighton. It might be my favorite moment of the album. I played it for some younger friends of mine. They cringed. They wanted more songs like 'Walkabout'. Something with a big beat. I told them when they get older they will appreciate things like harmonicas and violins more.
Laetitia from Stereolab, who I idolized as a teenager and would later befriend on tour, contributed words and vocals to 'Quick Canal.' The song was originally about 15 minutes long. I had zero ideas for vocals and asked if she could give it a shot. Andy Ramsay [drummer for Stereolab ] took a dub of the original and recorded Laetitia's vocals at his Press Play studio in London. It was quite a treat to hear the finished product, now at an economical nine minutes.
Almost everything you hear on the album is a first take. This makes it almost like a 'live album' where a band sets up in a studio and just rolls tape. There are songs on here I don't even remember recording."
Tracklisting:
01 The Light That Failed
02 An Orchid
03 Walkabout [ft. Noah Lennox (Panda Bear)]
04 Criminals
05 Attic Lights
06 Shelia
07 Quick Canal [ft. Laetitia Sadier]
08 My Halo
09 Kid Klimax
10 Washington School
11 Logos
New No Age EP.
The new No Age EP is called Losing Feeling and will be released via Sub Pop on October 6th. The only physical version of the album that will be available on 12" vinyl but it'll also be available digitally.
Tracklisting:
01 Losing Feeling
02 Genie
03 Aim at the Airport
04 You're a Target
The YouTube video of the week
Broken Social Scene - Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl (featuring Emily Haines, Feist and Amy Millan) From last Saturday
If you can you should go to these gigs.
Nine Inch Nails
07-14 Manchester, England - M.E.N. Arena *$
07-15 London, England - O2 Arena *$
07-18 Istanbul, Turkey - Rock N Coke Festival
07-20 Athens, Greece - Vrahon Theater *^
07-22 Rome, Italy - Rockinrome
07-24 Budapest, Hungary - Syma Sport and Event Centre ^
07-25 Targu Mures - Peninsula Festival
07-28 Nimes, France - Festival de Nimes ^
07-30 Madrid, Spain - La Riviera ^
07-31 Paredes de Coura, Portugal - Paredes de Coura Festival
08-02 Knebworth, England - Sonisphere Festival
08-05 Manila, Phillipines - Araneta Coliseum &
08-07 Tokyo, Japan - Summer Sonic Festival
08-08 Osaka, Japan - Summer Sonic Festival
08-10 Singapore, Singapore - Fort Canning Park
08-12 Taipei, Taiwan - Nan-Kang 101
08-22 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom +
08-23 New York, NY - Webster Hall +
08-25 New York, NY - Terminal 5 +
08-26 New York, NY - Terminal 5
08-28 Chicago, IL - Aragon Ballroom $
08-29 Chicago, IL - Aragon Ballroom $
09-02 Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Palladium $
09-03 Los Angeles, CA - Henry Fonda Theater $
09-05 Los Angeles, CA - Wiltern Theatre
09-06 Los Angeles, CA - Echoplex
* with Jane's Addiction
$ with Mew
^ with Alec Empire
& with Pupil
+ with the Horrors
Grizzly Bear and Beach House
08-30 Brooklyn, NY - Williamsburg Waterfront (Jelly Pool Party)
09-26 Ann Arbor, MI - Michigan Theater
09-27 Chicago, IL - Metro
09-28 Chicago, IL - Metro
09-30 Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue
10-01 Columbia, MO - Blue Note
10-05 Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse
10-06 Norfolk, VA - The NorVA
10-07 Philadelphia, PA - Electric Factory
10-08 Boston, MA - Orpheum Theatre
10-20 Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Palladium
10-21 Solana Beach, CA - Belly Up Tavern
Grizzly Bear
07-19 Chicago, IL - Pitchfork Music Festival
08-07 Osaka, Japan - Summer Sonic
08-09 Osaka, Japan - Summer Sonic
08-13 Oslo, Norway - Oya Festival
08-14 Goteborg, Sweden - Way Out West Festival
08-15 Rees-Haldern, Germany - Haldern Pop
08-16 St. Malo, France - La Route du Rock Festival
08-18 London, England - Koko
08-20 Hasselt, Belgium - Pukkelpop Festival
08-21 Biddinghuizen, Netherlands - Lowlands Paradise
08-22 Glanusk, Wales - Green Man Festival
10-03 Austin, TX - Austin City Limits Festival
10-14 Vancouver, British Columbia - Vogue Theatre
10-15 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom
10-16 Seattle, WA - Moore Theatre
10-18 San Francisco, CA - Treasure Island Music Festival
11-01 Dublin, Ireland - Vicar Street
11-02 Glasgow, Scotland - ABC
11-04 Manchester, England - Cathedral
11-05 Leeds, England - Leeds Metropolitan University
11-06 Bristol, England - Anson Rooms
11-08 Brussels, Belgium - Cirque Royal
11-09 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Melkweg
11-10 Hamburg, Germany - Grunspan
11-11 Berlin, Germany - Postbahnhof
11-12 Munich, Germany - Theaterfabrik
11-15 Fribourg, Switzerland - Fri-Son
11-16 Vienna, Austria - WuK
11-17 Basel, Switzerland - Volkshaus
11-19 Koln, Germany - Kulturkirche
11-21 Paris, France - La Cigale
11-24 Copenhagen, Denmark - Lille Vega
Beach House
08-07 Baltimore, MD - Metro Gallery
09-19 Portland, OR - Berbati's Pan #
09-20 Seattle, WA - Neumos
09-22 Anacortes, WA - Dept. of Safety
09-23 Bellingham, WA - The Nightlife
09-24 Victoria, British Columbia - Rifflandia
# with John Vanderslice
Writing under the influence
Without which this column would not have been possible:
Talk Radio
The bit at the end
Wow, that was a long one. The longest one of these in a long long time.
