Dancing About Architecture Indie Music News Report 11.03.09
Posted by Ian Wright on 11.03.2009
Grizzly Bear and St. Vincent live, Pavement news (again), Cymbals Eat Guitars and Girls have lineup changes, a new album from Retribution Gospel Choir and The Antlers go to Daytrotter.
The bit at the start
The now near ubiquitous HandJobFilms was at Dublin's Vicar St. last night and have been putting footage up from both the headline and support slots today.
First, St. Vincent ...
I interviewed Annie yesterday before the gig. That lady could talk about guitars on an international level. We also discussed her touring with Andrew Bird, the switch from playing with a band to being back solo again, her compositional process and she dropped a little tidbit in that she's currently working with David Byrne (is that a scoop? I think it might be). It should be up on my blog in the next couple of days when I have it transcribed.
Next up Grizzly Bear, and as video of my favourite GB song ("Deep Blue Sea") isn't up yet I'll go with one of the hits ...
I must admit last night's gig was a bit of a Road To Damacus moment for me with Grizzly Bear. Prior to then I'd been someone who really liked some of their songs but felt indifferent to them overall but after last night I'm firmly in the "Grizzly Bear are a good band" camp. Special mention to multi instrumentalist Chris Taylor (bass/flute/saxophone/clarinet/old transistor radio/backing vox) who I was was standing in front of for the gig, he's truly a phenomenal musician and and as prominent as Daniel Rossen's reverb heavy guitar playing in their music Taylor really is crucially important to the band's sound. Chris Bear is a great drummer too, I think he's added a kick drum to his kit since I last saw them. There's far less free drumming stuff to what he does these days.
Hey, you know who can sing? The 4 guys in Grizzly Bear.
You now who can't? The people behind me singing along to Grizzly Bear.
Click on the link at the top for more footage from the gig.
Beg, borrow, buy, steal or download this album.
Frank Sinatra – Songs For Swinging Lovers.
Just to be different this week.
You news, you lose
There'll be Pavement news in this column until there stops being Pavement news, tough shit.
It's only a short item this week though. Pavement are the first, and thus far only band announced to lay the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcalona next May (told ya).
In addition to that there's an interesting idea being hatched to celebrate the band's 10th anniversary, to wit if you register on the festival's site you'll be able to look through what bands have played there in the last decade and vote on the ones that you'd like to have come back next year.
Indie band shakeups pt. 1.
Cymbals Eat Guitars have made one of the best albums of the year but that hasn't been enough to keep them intact. On the verge of the band's first extended European tour original bassist Neil Berenholz has left the band. The timing is convenient because the reason given for the amicable departure is that he doesn't like touring.
Some dude named, Matthew Whipple is replacing him.
Indie band shakeups pt. 2.
Girls have made one of the most widely acclaimed albums of the year (note that I did not say "best") but that hasn't been enough to keep them intact on the verge of the band's upcoming North American tour. In an interview with perestrian.tv Chet "JR" White said, "Our guitar player quit halfway through the European tour, and we were like, 'If you're not into it, get out'. We had a friend step in from Dominant Legs, a really great band out of San Francisco. So we're getting a whole new band with a new drummer and everything. We have four days of rehearsals, and it's been going really strangely. Going from a band you've played with for eight months and having done two tours with, it's a pretty scary proposition: a whole new band."
White also said that he and Christopher Owens would like to recruit a permanent band but haven't found the right people yet.
New Retribution Gospel Choir album on the way.
The appropriately named 2 is the upcoming album from Alan Sparhawk of Low's side project Retribution Gospel Choir. It's out on January 26th and will be the first time the band will have released something on Sub Pop as far as I know.
Tracklisting:
01 Hide It Away
02 Your Bird
03 '68 Comeback
04 Workin' Hard
05 Poor Man's Daughter
06 White Wolf
07 The Last of the Blue Dream
09 Something's Going to Break
10 Electric Guitar
11 Bless Us All
Antlers Daytrotter session.
Y'all are aware of Daytrotter right? Over the last few years they've built up a huge archive of really cool bands who have recording live session with the site over the years. The most recent session to be recorded is with the wonderful Antlers who on October 30th recorded songs from Hospice and their earlier Cold War EP.
It's good stuff, you should check it out.
The YouTube video of the week
A video for the title track of No Age's Losing Feeling EP
If you can you should go to these gigs.
Cymbals Eat Guitars
10-29 Brooklyn, NY - Sound Fix
10-31 Brooklyn, NY - 14 Steuben Street
11-07 Lubeck, Germany - Rolling Stone Weekender
11-08 Oostend, Belgium - Manuscript
11-10 London, England - The Troxy %
11-11 London, England - The Troxy %
11-12 London, England - The Lexington (RockFeedback)
11-14 Dublin, Ireland - Crawdaddy
11-15 Belfast, Northern Ireland - Aunt Annie's
11-16 Edinburgh, Scotland - Sneaky Pete's
11-17 Manchester, England - Night & Day Café (Now Wave)
11-18 Birmingham, England - Academy 3
11-20 Den Haag, Netherlands - Crossing Border Festival
11-21 Antwerp, Belgium - Trix ^
11-23 Cologne, Germany - MTC
11-24 Paris, France - Nouveau Casino *
12-10 Madrid, Spain - Nasti (Primavera Club Festival)
12-11 Madrid, Spain - Caracol (Primavera Club Festival)
12-12 Barcelona, Spain - Sidecar (Primavera Club Festival)
% with the Flaming Lips
^ with the Dodos
* with the Antlers
Hot Chip
02-12 Glasgow, Scotland - Academy
02-13 Edinburgh, Scotland - Picture House
02-15 Nottingham, England - Academy
02-16 Leeds, England - Academy
02-18 Newcastle, England - O2 Academy
02-19 Manchester, England - Academy
02-20 Birmingham, England - O2 Academy
02-22 Bournemouth, England - O2 Academy
02-23 Bristol, England - O2 Academy
02-24 Norwich, England - O2 Academy
02-26 London, England - Brixton Academy
02-27 London, England - Brixton Academy
Writing under the influence
Without which this column would not have been possible:
Talk Radio
St. Vincent – ACL Session.
The Antlers – Album launch bootleg from The Mercury Lounge.
The bit at the end
I'm out of here for 2 weeks, going to New York and Toronto, it should be fun. I think Michael Melchor will be filling in for me for a fortnight.
In addition to Sunday's show I also saw Handsome Furs on Tuesday. Those two make being in a band with your spouse seem like amazing fun. I also saw Grouper, who was awful.
