Radio Free Berry 2.15.06
Posted by Brian Berry on 02.15.2006
Smashing Pumpkins at Lollapalooza? Flaming Lips at Noise Pop! U.S. Air Guitar Championships info! Deadstring Brothers & Metal Hearts album reviews! Tour dates & recommendations too, all in issue #12!
IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS…
Salutations and welcome to the twelfth edition of Radio Free Berry. You can look to RFB for the freshest indie/college rock reviews, up to the minute news, tour and new release dates, and other stuff.
If you have questions about anything music related, drop me a line and I'll do my best to answer your queries.
Perry Farrell's carnival of music and art returns for a second year to Chicago's Grant Park on August 4-6. Farrell describes Lollapalooza as "a place where young upstarts become legends, and legends return to claim their fame."
Lollapalooza 2006 marks the second time the festival will be a one-weekend gig rather than a traveling tour. Expect everything to get much bigger this year, as there will be 8 stages (up from six), 130 performers (up from 80), and hopeful expectations of 225,000 attendees (last year saw 30,000 each day).
While ticket information and performers won't be announced for several weeks, early rumors include a Smashing Pumpkins reunion (makes much more sense than the Coachella Festival as Chicago is their hometown), Thievery Corporation, Flaming Lips, and Disco Biscuits.
Last year's festival featured The Pixies, Weezer, Arcade Fire, Billy Idol, and Dinosaur Jr. amongst many others. Expect this year's festival to be more of the same: a who's who of emerging artists and modern rock/hip-hop/electronica favorites. More details on Lollapalooza in the weeks to come.
For those who are turned off by A&R schmooze fest's like South By Southwest (Austin, TX) and the CMJ Music Marathon (New York), fear not. The music fan catering Noise Pop festival returns for its 14th year to San Francisco, between March 27-April 2. Music fan Kevin Arnold began Noise Pop in 1993 as a way to have a city wide, packed house, fan centered, festival without the annoyances of music industry buffoons talking business from all corners of the room. A $150 pass gets you into every show during the week but individual tickets are available for each performance.
This year's performers include opening night act The Flaming Lips, as well as likely sold-out performances by Britt Daniel (of Spoon), The National, Two Gallants, Feist, Thursday, Minus the Bear, and Wolfmother. The Flaming Lips show, at Bimbo's 365 Club, sold out in four minutes and tickets are already selling on Craigslist.org for three times their face value. Past performers include Modest Mouse, Guided By Voices, Rocket From the Crypt, and Frank Black.
All of SF's best small venues are on board to host a show or two including my personal favorites clubs: The Great American Music Hall, Bottom of the Hill, and Bimbo's. The festival showcases art, music, and film throughout the week. There's even a modestly priced, day-long seminar called "Indie Night School" where bands get a briefing on peddling their demo's to clubs and record labels.
A complete Noise Pop 2006 line-up and schedule is available by clicking here.
Listen up guitar shredders, fans of Yngwie Malmsteen, and those who can't keep their hands from pantomiming guitar solos at the Iron Maiden show. Regional heats for the 2006 U.S. Air Guitar Championships begin on March 2nd in ten U.S. cities. The winner of each competition will be flown to New York City in June for the nationwide championships. The proud winner of the United States competition will be flown to Finland to represent the good ol' U.S. in the 11th Annual Air Guitar World Championships. Perks include White House receptions and A-list celebrity rubbing of elbows as inevitable outcomes of victory.
The regional competition will consist of two rounds. Round 1 allows the "musician" to perform a song of their choice while round 2 participants strum a surprise song of the judges choosing. Judges will score based on categories of technical prowess, stage presence, and "airness" (whatever that means).
Cities on hand to hold regionals include Los Angeles, Columbus (Oh.), Minneapolis, Austin, Denver, Detroit, and Chicago. National championships will also be held in Australia (Tollah representing), Austria, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland (Ian Wright representing), New Zealand, Norway and the United Arab Emirates, with more countries entering the competition every year. Apparently, a documentary on the event, Air Guitar Nation, will air at the South By Southwest festival this year.
On a down note, the Canadian hosted Paper Rock Scissors World Championships may conflict with the Air Guitar Finals. Thus, those who are masters of both domains will have to battle with their conscience in the coming days.
More information on the Air Guitar competition is available by clicking here.
While Deadstring Brothers' second album is being compared to The Rolling Stones' Exile On Main Street, I'm hearing more of the contemporary country-rock of bands like Drive By Truckers and My Morning Jacket's At Dawn on Starving Winter Report. What a shock it was to hear this barroom ready album was recorded by a Detroit band!
Pedal steel, rolling piano, and boy/girl harmonies flourish throughout. This would be the perfect soundtrack for a heartbroken wanderer or, better yet, a surefire cure to a morning after heavy drinking, aided by some good ol' hair of the dog.
There's just enough variance on the album to keep the listener interested for the entire set. "Talkin' Born Blues," is sung with a Dylan-like blues-rock swagger by frontman Kurt Marschke. "Toe the Line" finds the band driving headfast with a driving, Southern feeling tune that wouldn't be out of place on a Drive By Truckers record.
"Blindfolded" sees the band at their poppiest, nearly in Old 97's territory. Fortunately, this is not a clean & tidy band making music for the Top 40 set. You can practically smell the cheap beer and caked mud boots emanating from the liner notes of this damn good Americana album.
Recommended if you dig: Johnny Cash, Drive By Truckers, Uncle Tupelo, My Morning Jacket
*411 Score: 8.5/10*
· Metal Hearts-Socialize (Suicide Squeeze)
Socialize is the debut album by the teenaged, multi-instrumentalist duo of Anar Badalov and Flora Wolpert Checknoff. Their sound borrows elements from American mope rockers like Built To Spill, Modest Mouse, and Dismemberment Plan. The one band they sound almost identical to, however, is San Diego's Pinback (another band who started off as a two-piece).
As a result, Metal Hearts have created a promising debut lacking in originality. The use of a drum machine and a couple tracks employing cello ("Foothills," "Gentleman's Spell") distance Metal Hearts from the aforementioned bands, but I can't shake that these guys sound like a lesser version of several more matured troupes. This is not to say the album is without benefits. The finger-picked guitar playing and soft-spoken vocal harmonizing are treats and I'm generally a sucker for string instruments in my rock. This is melodic indie-pop for down tempo occasions.
Recommended if you dig: Pinback, Arab Strap, Built To Spill
Below you'll find Radio Free Berry approved tours. Click on the link and find out when these artists are coming to town! Beer's still on me if the show blows.
$= 0-15 dollars for a ticket.
$$=15-25 dollars
$$$=25+ dollars
I've been listening to a lot of music this week to get me psyched for a forthcoming Top 100 albums list that should go up at 411 Mania in a few months, as well as a Mixtape project that all of us music writers are working on. More details to come…but for now, these are three albums I'm listening to.
Arab Strap-The Last Romance (Transdreamer Records)…out February 21 Radio Birdman-The Essential Radio Birdman (Sub Pop) Stereolab-Fab Four Suture (Too Pure/Beggars)…out March 7
· That's it for this week. I'm going camping with my old lady this week. Provided the bears don't eat me alive (rent Grizzly Man immediately!), I'll be back next week with more music news. Holla.
