Dancing About Architecture Indie Music News Report 12.15.09
Posted by Ian Wright on 12.15.2009
ATP review, Courtney Love loses her kid, the new Titus Andronicus, what's up with Sonic Youth, Jandek and Thurston Moore to play together, A free Deerhunter album, Jay Reatard in trouble again, and more.
The bit at the start
A review, of The ATP festival curated by My Bloody Valentine …
In the last few months I've had plenty of conversations with people I know that went along the lines of ...
"You going to ATP?"
"Yeah."
"Which one."
"The Nightmare one, with MBV."
"Bummer, I'm going to the 10 years one, much better lineup."
Okay fine, I'd already committed to going to the first ATP of this month before the second one was announced but in terms of my musical affections it's hard to find bands closer to my heart than Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine and Yo La Tengo, even if there were less bands booked for the festival (a consequence of the curators playing a set each night) there still should have been plenty to keep me entertained.
First band of Friday was Josh T. Pierson. Accompanied by a drummer his brand of noise rock and guitar abusing wasn't really what I was looking for in order to ease my way into the weekend (though I had it easy, the first time some of my buddies went to a Nightmare Before Christmas the first band on was Wolf Eyes) so it was back to the chalet for a couple of hours before facing the rather easy conundrum of seething with hatred and wishing I had the balls to throw something at Bobby Gillespe as Primal Scream played in the Pavilion or going to see Yo La Tengo on the Centre Stage. Not allowed the 2 hour slot that they were granted in Tripod a few weeks ago the band didn't dip into their back catalogue quite so often and Georgia didn't get out from behind her kit as much this time around. This was the third time that I'd seen YLT live in 2009 and the third time that I missed out on hearing "sugarcube" which leads me to ask the question, "what did I ever do to Yo La Tengo to make them hate me so much?"
Festival attendees on arrival were guaranteed entry into one of My Bloody Valentine's sets over the weekend on the night of their choice. Having chosen to go the first night they were next up. As time has gone on I've become less and less willing to let MBV assault my hearing when I see them play. The first gig last year in The Roundhouse was attended bareback, the second time I had earplugs in about half the time and on Saturday I went through the gig with the plugs in the whole time. Kevin Shields seemed a little out of sorts on the night and spent much of the gig in conversation with the sound engineer trying to sort out whatever it was that was bugging him. For what it's worth I thought the band were fine, but after 3 gigs and in the absence of a new album I'm unsure if I feel the need to ever see them play live again.
Day two started with the Sun Ra Arkestra, obviously due to his returning to Saturn back in 1993 the man himself wasn't able to attend but in his absence his cohorts almost-always-brilliantly veered between everything from gorgeous jazz jamming to atonal noodling. Depending on one's antics the night before and the state that one might find themselves on Saturday afternoon it was either brilliant or it could have been utterly hellish. Given my hangover on Sunday I might not have been so into it had they been playing on day 3 (at this point the worst that had happened to me was that I'd woken up that morning with almost no voice whatsoever). Up after them were Harmony Rockets, they weren't very good, in fact they easily kept up Jonathan Donahue's near perfect record of making no music that I love in his whole career. Sonic Youth's set in the Pavilion focused mostly on material from new album The Eternal but those songs seemed a little pedestrian compared to when they delved into their back catalogue a little, "Hey Joni" and "The Sprawl" were stand outs but it was the final song "Death Valley 69" from 1985's Bad Moon Rising that was the most pleasant surprise.
The first half of Lightning Bolt's set on the Saturday night looked an awful lot like Chelsea dropping points away to Manchester City and Andrei Arshavin putting on a tour de force in the lone strikers role against Stoke and the third quarter of the set strongly resembled standing in a queue for in the rain trying to get into the Reds venue. When I finally got it, and found myself stuck at the back of the room it was a little hard to get into things but I made up for that the next night, more of which later. The final thing I caught on Saturday was No Age, who were joined late in the set by Bob Mould, much as I love No Age Mould's guitar playing made Randy Randall's seem a little timed by comparison. Big regret of the weekend, thinking that going for food and booze was a better idea than seeing Fucked Up play.
Day three began fairly late in the afternoon thanks to the aforementioned hangover (a rarity, I've got a pretty resilient constitution) with one of the surprise packages of the weekend for me, A Place To Bury Strangers, much better live than on record. If only for the fact that it wasn't lit well enough to see it the Brooklyn outfit might have torn the room down, if nothing else Oliver Ackermann serves as a great advertisement for the Death By Audio line of effects pedals that he makes (their Octave Clang is probably #3 in my current pedal wish-list). Dirty Three closed the weekend on the Pavilion Stage with a raucous set interspersed with very, very long monologues before each song by Warren Ellis, most involving the phrase "when you're on acid," brilliant stuff.
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart are a band that I'd always previously ignored because their name made them sound like a band beloved of kids with elaborate haircuts who make videos of themselves crying and then post them on YouTube. Turns out that they don't actually sound like that sort of band but they're not really my thing either. Last band of the weekend for me played the slot marked off all weekend as "TBC" and the worst kept secret of the festival as finally made public when Lightning Bolt walked out on stage for the second time that weekend. Of all the times that I've had a chance to see them play live this was actually the first time that I've ever caught a full set by them. It really is something to behold, theirs is an energy that is almost unique to them, their sets are almost brutal yet highly technical and the audience right up the front almost immediately transforms from a crowd to a warzone. I really wish that I'd got to see them when they were still playing on floors. And I don't think I'd ever listen to them on record.
Beg, borrow, buy, steal or download this album.
Captain Beefheart And His Magic Band – Trout Mask Replica
Not nearly as difficulat as you've been told.
You news, you lose
Unfit mother, no. Really?
In a move that possibly doesn't shock anyone Courtney Love has lost legal custody of Francis Bean Cobain, the 17 year old daughter she had with late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain 17 (note to 411 intern, can you find out when this happened please). On Friday the LA superior court granted custody of the soon to be legal adult (hardly seems worth doing it with her nearly being 18) to her paternal grandmother Wendy O'Connor and aunt Kimberly Dawn Cobain.
According to TMZ which broke the story guardianship reassignments (for that is the official term for what happened) happen when "the parent is not capable of taking care of their children." Presumably because the case involves a minor the court records here are sealed.
Love's fitness as a mother has been repeatedly called into question almost since when her child was born. Rumours that she had used heroin while pregnant led to an investigation over whether or not the infant Francis Bean should have been taken away from her but Love was ultimately exonerated.
Biggus Dickus
The Monitor is the upcoming (March 9th, on XL) second album from New Jersey's Titus Andronicus and get this it's a concept album … kinda.
According to singer Patrick Stickles "sort of" about the civil war. "It doesn't take place in olden times, nor does it necessarily feature any characters that participated in that conflict. Really, it is a record about how the conflicts that led our nation into that great calamity remain unresolved, and the effect that this ongoing division has on our personal relationships and our behavior and how they're all out to get us (or maybe not?) and yadda yadda yadda."
The albums was recorded back in August in New Paltz, New York with Kevin McMahon who worked on the band's rather good debut record and it features guest spots from members of the Hold Steady, Wye Oak, Ponytail, and Vivian Girls.
The album will be preceded by a single, a double A-side 7" (due to it's 9 minute running time) "Four Score and Seven" on February 9th. You can download part one of it here and part two here.
Tracklisting:
01 A More Perfect Union
02 Titus Andronicus Forever
03 No Future Part Three: Escape From No Future
04 Richard II
505 A Pot in Which to Piss
06 Four Score and Seven
07 Theme From "Cheers"
08 To Old Friends and New
09 …And Ever
10 The Battle of Hampton Roads
Cover art:
A free Deerhunter album
Bradford Cox regularly throws music up for free on his band's blog but last week he really outdid himself by making a whole unreleased Deerhunter album away for free.
Carve Your Initials Into the Walls of the Night dates from 2005 and is very different to the sort of shit the band are doing now.
Says Cox of the album, "It features only me and Moses [Archuleta] and is very experimental in nature. This was during our 'tape phase' when we would often play shows as a duo (or as a trio with colin [Mee]) playing only tape machines and vocal loops ... Recorded live to 2-track cassette machine at Moses' old house on North Ave & Ponce. 'Mastered' at the Old Notown building on my dad's ancient PC using Soundforge."
Tracklisting:
01 Bright and Early
02 Cicadas
03 Rotation
04 But I'm a Boy
05 Three Dolphins Melting Into Orange Wax
06 Snow Dogs
07 Dogs Are Cool
08 Homorobotic
09 Cordless
10 When I Taste Blood
Sonic Youth only released their last album The Eternal a few months ago but they're already full of plans for future endeviors.
In an interview with the BBC Lee Ranaldo said that the band were already planning on going back into the studio for their second albumon Matador, a soundtrack for an unnamed "French teen film", as well as a DVD film about their recent Daydream Nation tour.
And also in Sonic Youth news.
If you're in Portland, Oregon next April 29th, (and really where else would you be on April 29th 2009 aside from Portland, Oregon) then be sure to get yourself down to the Hollywood Theatre to see Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore perform with Houstonian odd-ball lo-fi semi-recluse Jandek.
Jandek, for the uninitiated, is one of outsider music's most intriguing figures who has released something like 60 albums of lets call it "interesting" music since 1978 (some of it is damn near unlistenable, some of it is pretty cool). If you're looking for an intro to him then I'd give 1984's Interstellar Discussion a go and also the rather good documentary "Jandek On Corwood". Also if you want to read further into him I'd recommend this site as it maintains the mystique of the man before you go to the wiki which sort of spoils the fun somewhat.
This isn't Moore's first involvement with Jandek's music. He covered "Painted My Teeth" on the 2000 tribute record Naked In The Afternoon
Jay Reatard vs. The World.
It's been an eventful few months for Jay Reatard. Mostly because he's recently had one backing band quit on him (they both now play with Wavves) and he had to hire a new one on short notice for his recent European tour but that hasn't seemed to have done much to settle things down for him. Last Wednesday Reatard played Emo's in Austin and was attacked by two members of the audience. Reatard, hardly the retiring type attacked them back with a microphone stand. Austin 360 was there and had this to say about it, "While the set had all the makings of a fun night of pop-punk, it was sadly abridged at only 40 minutes-- less than the opening performance by Austin's own Harlem-- after two rowdy fans attacked Reatard on-stage shortly after he announced he was playing the night's final song. He retaliated by swinging his microphone stand and departed mid-song, giving the at-times rambunctious audience the finger as he exited the stage. There was to be no encore-- the lights went up and the PA music kicked in as the two intruding fans were arrested by police outside the club's Sixth Street entrance."
According to Pitchfork Reatard's publicist (whoa, dude, publicists are so unpunk) issued a statement saying, "Jay was attacked, totally unprovoked, by two different people, both of whom were later arrested. One guy bolted onstage and came swinging at Jay, but security took him away pretty quickly. Soon after (the band hadn't stopped playing, by the way), another guy sprinted onstage and hit Jay. Unlike the first guy, Jay didn't even see this guy coming. So Jay defended himself with the mic stand until security took that guy away, too. Jay is safe and unhurt, and the cops were there for about an hour afterwards. The two guys were arrested, but I'm not sure exactly what the formal charges were or where they are now."
The YouTube video of the week
Just about the cutest thing ever.
Oh, and a new song by Handsome Furs.
If you can you should go to these gigs.
The Antlers
12-15 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
01-29 South Bend, IN - Legends of Notre Dame
01-30 Akron, OH - Music
02-05 Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Academy of Music *
02-08 San Francisco, CA - The Warfield #
02-09 San Diego, CA - House of Blues #
02-11 Los Angeles, CA - Wiltern Theatre #
02-13 Denver, CO - Ogden Theatre #
02-15 Chicago, IL - Vic Theatre #
02-16 Toronto, Ontario - Phoenix Concert Theatre #
02-18 Boston, MA - House of Blues Boston #
02-19 New York, NY - Terminal 5 #
02-20 Philadelphia, PA - Trocadero #
02-21 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club #
03-03 London, England - Union Chapel
* with Ra Ra Riot
# with Editors
Cymbals Eat Guitars and Bear in Heaven
03-05 Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's
03-06 Washington, DC - Rock and Roll Hotel
03-07 Chapel Hill, NC - Local 506
03-09 Nashville, TN - The End
03-10 Knoxville, TN - Pilot Light
03-11 Atlanta, GA - The Earl
03-13 Orlando, FL - Will's Pub
03-16 Houston, TX - Mango's
03-18-20 Austin, TX - SXSW
03-22 Phoenix, AZ - The Rhythm Room
03-23 San Diego, CA - Casbah
03-24 Los Angeles, CA - The Echo
03-25 San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill
03-27 Portland, OR - Berbati's Pan
03-29 Vancouver, British Columbia - The Biltmore Cabaret
03-31 Salt Lake City, UT - Kilby Court
04-01 Denver, CO - Hi Dive
04-02 Lawrence, KS - Replay Lounge
04-03 Saint Paul, MN - Turf Club
04-04 Chicago, IL - Schubas Tavern
04-06 Toronto, Ontario - El Mocambo
04-07 Montreal, Quebec - Il Motore
04-08 Cambridge, MA - Middle East Downstairs
04-09 Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall of Williamsburg
Writing under the influence
Without which this column would not have been possible:
Talk Radio
Drive By Truckers – Southern Rock Opera
The bit at the end
The latest Pavement news, they're playing Roskilde.
You can follow me on twitter, I'm endlessly fascinating.
I saw Frightened Rabbit play an acoustic set upstairs in a small Dublin pub last Tuesday. It was pretty fucking great I have to say.
Delighted with the Arsenal win on Sunday. I think I love Arshavin.
Semi permanent plug for my blog the year and decade best of countdowns continue in earnest.
