Dancing About Architecture 01.23.07
Posted by Ian Wright on 01.23.2007
Radiohead back to work, Coachella, new Islands material, the Pitchfork Festival, Wilco release date, Bright Eyes’ label and the usual stuff about my favourite Canadian 6-piece.
The bit at the start
Hello and I hope that you're feeling half as wonderful as I do because if you do then you must be in a pretty great mood. I've had the most fabulous week and a half and for once all is sweetness and life in my life; unsurprisingly all bar two of these things is related to the role music plays in my life.
On Friday morning I got a pair of front row centre tickets to Joanna Newsom when she plays her first gig in Ireland in about 3 years in April, I'm less than 2 weeks away from going to London to see Arcade Fire, I'm DJing for the first time on Thursday and as it gets closer and closer I'm looking more and more forward to it, I found out on Friday evening that I might be doing something with a radio show starting in the next few weeks and all of those things on their own would brighten my mood immensely.
But wait, there's more …
You may remember a few weeks back that I was rather excited about the fact that The Wrens would finally be playing in Dublin. To top it off the bill for the gig now looks like this …
-The Wrens
-Nanobot (i.e. The band I play in)
-The Kimballs
Oh happy day.
Beg, borrow, buy, steal or download this album.
Doves – Lost Souls
First record from Britain's last truly great new band.
You news, you lose
Finally, something to knock Arcade bleeding Fire off the top spot.
Writing on the band's Dead Air Space blog last week Thom Yorke reported that Radiohead have reconvened from their Christmas break and resumed work on their upcoming 7th album. "we have staRTed up again had a good today working on a version of 15step and rebuilding our studio in the wind" wrote a somewhat cryptic Yorke before urging any UK readers to sign this petition against nuclear proliferation.
There's still little word on when the album will see the light of day (and we're 4 years away from Hail To The Thief by the way) and the band are currently in label limbo but Yorke did say that he found the experience of putting The Eraser out on XL enjoyable but that's not necessarily a pointer as to the band's thinking.
I'd love to go but it's so far away, and it so hot.
Glastonbury is going to have its work cut out this year because this year's Coachella is shaping up to be the best festival on the planet. The initial list of acts performing at the festival, which is taking place at the Empire Polo Field in Indio, California from April 27-29 and it looks like it could be bad news for Chris Cornell but good news for the rest of us.
Rage Against The Machine are back.
Following in the footsteps of the Pixies RATM will reform in the hot California sun and unless they decide to go jazz-fusion they'll be performing the only rap-rock that was ever worth a damn to an incredibly sweaty audience. Rage will be headlining the final night of the festival with Bjork headlining the Friday night and The Red Hot Chilli Peppers will spoil the fun on the Saturday.
Other acts scheduled to perform include the Arcade Fire, Interpol, Willie Nelson, the Roots, Manu Chao, the Decemberists, Arctic Monkeys, Sonic Youth, Air Crowded House, Tiësto, Kings of Leon, !!!, LCD Soundsystem, and Lupe Fiasco with loads more to be added.
Stabbed in the ass with a ...
July may be months away (maybe 9 or so, I'm not bothered counting) but if you live in Chicago and love your music then maybe you should set aside the weekend of the 14th and 15th because the second Pitchfork music festival will be taking place in Union Park. No acts have been announced as yet but I guess if you went over to the ‘fork and checked what bands achieved "best new music" status last year and then made a list of those that no one bar their mothers and the staff at pitchfork have heard of then you'd probably be on the right lines.
Tickets are priced at $25 per day and $35 for both and will go on sale on March 12th, which also happens to be my birthday so I'll make a deal with you; if any of you want to pay for my flights and hotel I'll pay for the tickets.
Hey it could happen.
No man is an island.
That's not quite true, Nick Thorburn, the man formally known as Nick Diamonds is an island and he's a man. As are the rest of his band, except for the girl, but she's an island too. Thorburn spoke to Pitchfork recently and discussed his plans for the follow ups to last year's rather wonderful Return To The Sea.
That's right follow upS, despite spending an age on the road of late he's managed to produce enough material for 2 new records. "I feel a lot of unease and anxiety when I don't have a guitar near me. I think that's where [the creative spark] comes from: an urge, a real desire to expunge music from my inner-being."
As for what it'll be like, well it could be a departure from his previous work, "The last time I talked to [pitchfork] I wanted to make the perfect pop song and pop record. And I realised I misquoted myself, because I have no desire to write popular songs for the populace. I want to make interesting, good music, and I think that's what I meant...I feel a need to write songs that are 15 minutes long right now. Maybe I'll get over that phase."
"It's a physical record. It's someone plunging your face into a river and rescuing you. If Return to the Sea was the water record, this is the bodies."
"The album is heavy. It's really a kind of rock record in minor keys. And a lot of syncopation and modulation and time-changes. It's really cool. It's got a classical bent to it."
"The last song on the record-- which doesn't exist yet-- is in three movements, like a concerto, and it ends with a phased loop, kind of Steve Reich style, so it's all over the place a little bit. It's not really breezy or summery. It's not a summer jam. It's darker than that. I'm looking forward to getting it made, and I think once we do that, everything will be okay."
Wow, ambitious.
As for the second record, Thorburn isn't that concerned about it at the minute saying "Those songs exist, and if we have the time and money to record them we will, but for right now we're focusing on this record."
There's also grand plans in store for the album's packaging but those of you concerned with carbon footprints and the like should probably look away now, "We're going to make each one ourselves, fold it up in a CFC Styrofoam container, non-recyclable, double plastic individually wrapped. The CD will be wrapped as well, and the booklet.
"Each member of Islands is going to hand-make the record. It's going to be really special, so it's going to take six months."
You sold out(side of the US).
It was announced last week that Bright Eyes had signed an international licensing deal with Polydor records outside of North America however the band will remain on Saddle Creek in the US.
According to the band's publicist "Bright Eyes have been on numerous labels outside of North America over their recording history and the move to Polydor is the newest endeavor (sic) to reach as many fans as possible."
The first fruits of this partnership will be the new Bright Eyes album Cassadaga which is released on April 10th and an EP entitled Four Winds which is out on March 6th.
Roger…
Sometimes it seems as though Jeff Tweedy is never off the road. If he's not touring with Wilco then he's playing solo gigs all over the place. One of the upsides is that at solo gigs he can be quite chatty at times and he announced details of the next Wilco album at a gig in Nashville last week.
Entitled Sky Blue Sky it will be released on Nonesuch on May 15th and will have to be pretty special to top the band's previous two efforts.
Quick Arcade Fire update in point by point form.
- The band played their first shows since November 2005 in the last few days when they played a brace of really small warm up gigs for the small warm up gigs for the proper big tour which will start in London next Monday. The first in Canterbury High School in Ottawa to a bunch of schoolkids in the cafeteria of Richard Reed Parry's old school. The tickets (and I love this part), were sold during the school's lunch hour last Tuesday and Wednesday. The second gig took place in Montreal over the weekend.
- It seems that the album version of "No Cars Go" leaked onto the internet on Sunday night, if that's true then there are now 6 of the 11 songs on the album out in the wild.
- The lead single from the album in the UK won't be "Black Mirror" but rather "Keep The Car Running", a song about the series of Bonny and Clyde style bank raids Win Butler and Regine Chassagne had to pull to fund the production of the album/get the down payment of their new church together.
- They're really going all out on the packaging of the album, in addition to the standard regular CD release there will be a deluxe edition which comes in a hinged box and will come with two 32-page booklets designed by the band. There will be a vinyl release which will be on 180-gram audiophile quality vinyl with 3 sides of music and an etching on the 4th side, it will also contain a coupon for a free MP3 download of the album.
- Arcade Fire are like, so totally awesome. That's not really so much news as a declaration of an opinion.
If you can you should go to these gigs.
Apples In Stereo
01-19 Park City, UT - Jane House
01-21 Park City, UT - Star Bar
02-08 Lexington, KY - Dame *
02-09 Cincinnati, OH - Top Cat's Club *
02-10 Cleveland Heights, OH - Grog Shop *
02-11 Buffalo, NY - Buffalo Icon *
02-12 Pittsburgh, PA - Diesel *
02-13 Washington, DC - Black Cat *
02-15 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom *
02-16 Philadelphia, PA - North Star Bar *
02-17 Boston, MA - Paradise Rock Club *
02-19 Montreal, Quebec - Main Hall *
02-20 Toronto, Ontario - Lee's Palace *
02-21 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick *
02-22 Columbus, OH - Little Brother's *
02-23 Chicago, IL - Subterranean *
02-24 Minneapolis, MN - Varsity Theater *
02-25 Madison, WI - Memorial Union *
02-27 Ames, IA - Maintenance Shop *
02-28 Omaha, NE - Sokol Underground *
03-01 Kansas City, MO - Record Bar *
03-02 St. Louis, MO - Blueberry Hill's Duck Room *
03-03 Columbia, MO - Blue Note *
03-14-18 Austin, TX - SXSW
04-26 Dublin, Ireland – The Hub
04-27-29 Somerset, England - Butlins Minehead
* with Casper & the Cookies
Camera Obscura
01-17 Atlanta, GA - The Earl
01-18 Tallahassee, FL - The Club Downunder
01-19 Athens, GA - 40 Watt Club
01-20 Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle *
01-21 Charlottesville, NC - Satellite Ballroom *
01-22 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club *
01-24 New York, NY - Warsaw *
01-26 Northampton, MA - Pearl Street *
01-27 Boston, MA - Paradise Rock Club *
01-29 Montreal, Quebec - La Sala Rossa *
01-30 Ottawa, Ontario - Barrymore's Music Hall *
01-31 Toronto, Ontario - Opera House *
02-01 Ann Arbor, MI - Bling Pig *
02-02 Kalamazoo, MI - Kraftbrau Brewery *
02-03 Chicago, IL - Logan Square Auditorium *
02-05 Columbia, MO - The Blue Note
02-08 Denver, CO - The Bluebird Theater
02-09 Kansas City, MO - The Record Bar
02-10 Mexico City, Mexico - City Hall
02-12 Seattle, WA - Neumos #
02-13 Vancouver, British Columbia - Richard's on Richards #
02-14 Portland, OR - Wonder Ballroom #
02-16 San Francisco, CA - Bimbo's #
02-17 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre #
02-22 Brisbane, Australia - Troubadour
02-23 Melbourne, Australia - Laneway Festival
02-23 Melbourne, Australia - Northcote Social Club
02-24 Melbourne, Australia - Laneway Festival
03-02 Perth, Australia - Perth International Arts Centre
03-03 Brisbane, Australia - Laneway Festival
03-04 Sydney, Australia - Laneway Festival
03-05 Sydney, Australia - Annandale Hotel
* with the Essex Green
# with Portastatic
Deerhoof
01-17 Osaka, Japan - Umeda Shangri-La *
01-19 Nagoya, Japan - Nagoya Quattro *
01-20 Tokyo, Japan - Shinjuku Loft *
01-24 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey #^
01-26 New York, NY - Irving Plaza ^
01-27 Chicago, IL - Metro ^
01-30 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall ^&
02-01 Seattle, WA- Neumos &@
02-02 Vancouver, British Columbia - Richard's On Richards &
02-03 Portland, OR - Wonder Ballroom &@
02-04 Eugene, OR - W.O.W. Hall &
02-11 Washington, DC - Black Cat $
02-12 Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle $
02-13 Asheville NC - Grey Eagle $
02-14 Charleston, SC - Cumberland's $
02-15 Columbia, SC - Headliners $
02-16 Jacksonville, FL - Jack Rabbits ^$
02-17 Miami, FL - Poplife ^$
02-18 Tampa, FL - Crowbar ^$
02-19 Orlando, FL - Social ^$
02-20 Gainesville, FL - Common Grounds ^$
02-21 Athens, GA - 40 Watt Club ^$
02-22 Nashville, TN - Mercy Lounge ^$
02-23 Winston-Salem, NC - Warehouse ^$
02-24 Charlottesville, VA - Satellite Ballroom $+
02-25 Baltimore, MD - Ottobar $+
03-02 San Diego, CA - Epicentre %
03-03 Tucson, AZ - Club Congress %
03-04 Phoenix, AZ - Rhythm Room %
03-07 Oklahoma City, OK - Conservatory %
03-08 Dallas, TX - Gypsy Tea Room %
03-09 Austin, TX - Emo's %!
03-10 Houston, TX - Numbers !
04-01 Perth, Australia - Rosemount
04-03 Sydney, Australia - Annandale
04-04 Brisbane, Australia - Zoo
04-06 Sydney, Australia - Great Escape Festival
04-07 Melbourne, Australia - Corner Hotel
* with OOIOO
# with Hella
^ with Busdriver
& with Blackblack
@ with Leti Angel
$ with Harlem Shakes
+ with Flying
% with Macromantics
! with star Death
Writing under the influence
Without which this column would not have been possible:
Talk Radio
Amusement Parks On Fire – Amusement Parks On Fire
Schneider TM – The Light 3000
The bit at the end
If you support Manchester United than I'd like to give you my sympathies, but I just can't.
It's 14:47 on Monday afternoon and I've got this column wrapped up. I should decide that I'm going out on a Monday night and write most of it on Saturday afternoon more often.
