Dancig About Architecture 01.30.07
Posted by Ian Wright on 01.30.2007
The Shins vs. The Hold Steady, Brian Eno, new albums from Modest Mouse and Dinosaur Jr. and Tom Waits is victorious.
The bit at the start
A tale of two albums.
I love The Shins. As far as I'm concerned their first 2 records are the finest examples of indie-pop released this decade. Their latest album Wincing The Night Away, was released in Ireland on Friday. Despite being a fan I'd managed to resist the urge to download the leak and wait for the proper release.
I'd always thought that The Hold Steady were pretty OK. I have their second album Separation Sunday and I like it a great deal. I'm a big Springsteen fan and really liked their references to his work. At the same I wasn't so enamoured with it that I bothered to download/order in on import a copy of Boys And Girls In America when it started picking up good reviews upon it's release in America last year; I was listening to Darkness On The Edge Of Town a lot at the time and thought that I might buy it when it did get a release here. As it happens it came out here on Friday too.
I picked up both albums on Saturday night and listened to The Shins record on the way home. It's a bit disappointing no? It seems to be missing the spark that was on Oh Inverted World in particular. I don't think that it's the fact that they've moved away from the whole verse/chorus/verse structure, I listen to enough stuff that doesn't follow those rules for it not to bother me but it does seem a little bit jarring for a "pop" record to be like that. I'm willing to give it a few more listens before I make my mind up about it but it could wind up being my big let down of the year.
I listened to the Hold Steady record on Sunday afternoon as I was driving to band practice. It was over by the time I got there so I listened to it again, and again on the way home, twice. Then I listened to it while I was driving to Dublin for work this afternoon. It'd be fair to say that I'm rather taken with it. There's absolutely nothing new here musically, it's straight ahead bar-room rock but it's phenomenally good straight ahead bar-room rock. Instead of it's clichés holding it back every stock drum beat or well used stop-start guitar part or every explosive chorus is a celebration of a style of music that just isn't made anymore. It's a fabulous record. (I hope I don't get bored of it in a week and regret piling such praise on it)
And your winner by a knockout
Beg, borrow, buy, steal or download this album.
The Hold Steady Boys And Girls In America
For Europe at least, the first great album of 2007.
You news, you lose
It'll still suck.
In an interview with Kristy Lang on BBC Radio 4's Front Row last week Brian Eno announced that he will produce the next Coldplay album saying, "I think [the album] will be very original and very different from what they've done before."
Over the course of the interview Lang and Eno discussed the influence that Talking Heads have on much of today's music and Lang asked if the next Coldplay album would sound like them. Eno nixed the idea saying, "funnily enough, I mentioned to David Byrne the other day that we are trying very hard to stay clear of Talking Heads."
If I were Eno I'd be more concerned with staying clear of insipid bags of shit, but that's just me.
You can listen to the interview in full here, in addition to the Coldplay talk Eno also discusses his current art exhibits, spirituality and the current state of the music industry. Sounds like a good way to put yourself to sleep.
This however could be good.
Modest Mouse released the details of their upcoming album last week. As previously reported it'll be entitled We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank and will feature new Mouse recruit Johnny Marr (yes, that one) on guitar as well as guest contributions from the Shins' James Mercer. It'll be in record stores via Epic on March 20th.
You can preorder the album digitally on iTunes (please don't, just don't) from today and as a result will be able to download first single "Dashboard" as well as some behind the scenes video shoot footage. Sounds like a pretty crappy deal to me.
Tracklisting:
01 March Into the Sea
02 Dashboard
03 Fire It Up
04 Florida
05 Parting of the Sensory
06 Missed the Boat
07 We've Got Everything
08 Fly Trapped in a Jar
09 Education
10 Little Motel
11 Steam Engenius
12 Spitting Venom
13 People As Places As People
14 Invisible
Don't Fuck With Tom Waits
Tom Waits is a pretty cool guy, that is to say, he may well be the coolest motherfucker walking God's green earth. But you know what's not cool with him (unless you're Henson studios), using something resembling his voice to sell shit. For the second time in a year last week Waits settled a lawsuit against a German car manufacturer for using Wait's like music in one of their ads.
This time the suit was against Adam Opel AG (part of the GM group) and the McCann Erickson Germany ad. agency for use of a Waitsalike singer in a TV ad, in 2005. Speaking about the suit Waits said "I'm glad to be out of the car sales business once and for all". A rep for Erickson said "We respect Mr. Waits, and deeply regret any embarrassment this may have caused."
Waits isn't short of cash and intends to donate the proceeds from the settlement to an as yet unspecified charity.
My ears are already bleeding.
Dinosaur Jr.'s reunion album is all ready to go and will be out on May 1st on Fat Possum records.
Recorded in Jay Mascis' studio in Amherst MA.Beyond, according to the PR people is "some of the best music Dinosaur Jr. have ever made" and "an adrenaline-inducing ride, not of nostalgia, but of bona fide excitement."
The album precedes the May 29th release of the live DVD Dinosaur Jr.: Live From the Middle East which will in all likelihood a man doing a Cousin It impression and not really saying all that much whilst standing in front of an insane collection of Marshall stacks.
Beyond tracklisting:
01 Almost Ready
02 Crumble
03 Pick Me Up
04 Back to Your Heart
05 This Is All I Came to Do
06 Been There All the Time
07 It's Me
08 We're Not Alone
09 I Got Lost
10 Lightning Bulb
11 What If I Knew...
If you can you should go to these gigs.
Tapes N' Tapes
02-23 St. Paul, MN - Fitzgerald Theater (Current Fakebook) *
03-10 Mexico City, Mexico - MX Beat at Deportivo
04-16 Columbia, MO - Blue Note
04-17 St. Louis, MO - Creepy Crawl
04-18 Nashville, TN - Mercy Lounge
04-20 Dallas, TX - Gypsy Tea Room
04-21 Austin, TX- Emo's
04-22 Houston, TX - Numbers
04-27 Indio, CA - Empire Polo Field (Coachella)
05-02 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall
05-04 Portland, OR - Dante's
05-05 Seattle, WA - Neumos
05-09 Denver, CO - Bluebird Theater
05-10 Omaha, NE - Sokol Underground
05-11 Des Moines, IA - Vaudeville Mews
05-12 Chicago, IL - The Abbey
05-15 Montreal, Quebec - Le National
05-16 Toronto, Ontario - Lee's Palace
05-18 New York, NY - Irving Plaza
05-19 Boston, MA - Paradise Rock Club
05-23 Columbus, OH - The Basement
05-24 Newport, KY - Southgate House
* with Chuck Klosterman
Joanna Newsom
01-25 Sydney, Australia - Spigeltent
01-26 Sydney, Australia - NIDA *
01-27 Sydney, Australia - Spigeltent
01-30 Melbourne, Australia - Forum *
01-31 Bangalow, Australia - A&I Hall *
02-01 Brisbane, Australia - Tivoli
02-10 Christchurch, New Zealand - Harbourlights *
02-11 Wellington, New Zealand - Indigo *
02-12 Auckland, New Zealand - Houptoun Alpha *
02-16 Nagoya, Japan - Tokuzo
02-17 Osaka, Japan - Bridge
02-19 Kyoto, Japan - Arbanguild
02-21 Tokyo, Japan - Oumi-Gakudo
02-25 Tokyo, Japan - O-West
04-14 Dublin, Ireland - Olympia
04-27-29 Somerset, England - Butlins Minehead (All Tomorrow's Parties)
* with Bill Callahan
Yo La Tengo
01-25 Louisville, KY - Bomhard Theater *
01-26 Birmingham, AL - WorkPlay Theatre #
01-27 Knoxville, TN - Bijou ^
01-28 Tallahassee, FL - Moon %
01-30 Orlando, FL - Social &
01-31 Miami, FL - Studio A @
02-01 Tampa, FL - State Theater @
02-02 Jacksonville, FL - Florida Theater $
02-03 Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse
02-05 Chapel Hill, NC - Cat's Cradle +
02-06 Chapel Hill, NC - Cat's Cradle |
02-08 Charlottesville, VA - Starr Hill Music Hall |
02-09 Baltimore, MD - Sonar |
02-10 Philadelphia, PA - Trocadero |
02-19 Tokyo, Japan - Shibuya O-East
02-20 Tokyo, Japan - Shibuya O-East
02-22 Nagoya, Japan - Nagoya Club Quattro
02-23 Osaka, Japan - Big Cat
02-24 Fukuoka, Japan - Drum Be-1
02-27 Perth, Australia - Amplifier Bar !
03-01 Sydney, Australia - Metro =
03-03 Brisbane, Australia - Laneway Festival
03-04 Sydney, Australia - Laneway Festival
03-06 Melbourne, Australia - Corner Hotel =
03-08 Adelaide, Australia - Fowlers Live -
03-10 Meredith, Australia - Golden Plains Festival
03-12 Singapore, Singapore - Concert Hall at Esplanade Theatres on the Bay (Mosaic Music Festival)
* with Antietam
# with Inconvenient Music
^ with Lambchop
% with Langtry
& with Sam Rivers
@ with Todd Barry
$ with Sun Ra Arkestra
+ with Portastatic
| with the Rosebuds
! with New Rules for Boats
= with David Kilgour
- with Clue to Kalo
Jarvis Cocker
01-22 Amsterdam, The Netherlands - Paradiso
01-24 Brussels, Belgium - Ancienne Belgique
01-25 Cologne, Germany - Live Music Hall
01-27 Hamburg, Germany - Grosse Freiheit
01-28 Copenhagen, Denmark - Vega
01-29 Stockholm, Sweden - Berns
04-27 Indio, CA - Empire Polo Field (Coachella Festival)
Writing under the influence
Without which this column would not have been possible:
Talk Radio
The bit at the end
Short one this week I know, a combination of the splitting headache I had all day, the painkillers that I took because of it and the beers I drank while writing meant that I didn't feel like recounting U2's plans to combat touts or Arctic Monkey's plans for the year. It's also the reason why I've probably only said one nice thing throughout the whole column.
As I write this Arcade Fire (the album leaked in full on Friday by the way) are playing the first night of their 5-night stand in London. I'll be there on Friday and will be back next week with a semi review (because what else am I going to write about in the bit at the start), there's very short odds on a bet that I'll use the word "awesome" at some point.
