Dancing About Architecture 03.13.07
Posted by Ian Wright on 03.13.2007
The Arcade Fire live, the return of the shortlist, Ryan Adams does Stone Henge, Pitchfork fest, Liars, The Gossip, Neil Young, Joanna Newsom and Iron and Wine
The bit at the start
Well I managed to not mention them in any great length in the past few weeks but the intro to this week's column is going to be all about Arcade Fire, specifically the 2 nights that I saw them last week. I don't know if there are enough superlatives in all the world's languages to describe just how magnificent a live band Arcade Fire are. Worth the money I paid a tout the first night and definitely worth queuing for an hour and a half to get into the pit the second.
I have one minor gripe with the whole affair, the Olympia has these viewing boxes to the side of the stage and I've always said that if I ever got to play there I'd climb into them. On the Monday night Will Butler did this ...
That's the fucking balcony he's climbing over there, about 20 feet in the air. As for how he got there, think Eddie Vedder in the video for "Even Flow", except with a floor tom strapped over his shoulder.
Despite the brilliance of the performances I think my highlight of the two nights happened in the venue's bar before the second gig. I'd been talking to this group of kids in the queue, one of them didn't have a ticket and she'd been walking up and down the line with a homemade sign reading "Genuine Fan, I need a ticket," but alas she was having no luck and come door time we had to leave her alone outside in the cold. 15 minutes later I've got my pit pass and I'm in the bar chatting to people when who should walk in shaking like a leaf. Turns out she'd met Win Butler at the stage door and he snuck her into the venue, she didn't even have to blow a roadie or anything.
I think.
Oh yeah, a couple of exclusives garnered from talking to Jeremy Gera in an alleyway, New Yorkers, be prepared to go to Harlem for your gigs. Australians, keep January open.
Beg, borrow, buy, steal or download this album.
The Beatles - Revolver
Not a huge fan but this is my favourite.
The Dancing About Architecture MySpace band of the week.
Double synth-driven, shouty, no guitar indie from Ireland.
Recommended song: Lend Me Your Face.
You news, you lose
Lists aren't just for OCD sufferers and lonely men.
Following some legal wranglings the shortlist award is back after a year's break for New Pantheon related shenanigans and this year's listmakers are quite an impressive bunch. Sufjan Stevens, Wayne Coyne, Franz Ferdinand, KT Tunstall, Panic! at the Disco, Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, Ronnie Vannucci Jr. of The Killers are all members of the panel who have nominated albums.
The criteria for nomination for the award is that any album released in the US in 2006 and has sold less than 500,000 copies. The 61 album list will be whittled down to a final 10 album list in April from which the final winner will be chosen.
The longlist is as follows:
Against Me! - Americans Abroad Live in London
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead - So Divided
Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll
Band of Horses - Everything All the Time
Beck - The Information
Beirut - Gulag Orskestar
Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
The Blow - Paper Television
Bonnie "Prince" Billy - The Letting Go
The Bronx - The Bronx
Cat Power – The Greatest
Country Teasers - The Empire Strikes Back
CSS - Cansei de Ser Sexy
Cursive - Happy Hollow
Dabrye - Two/Three
Danielson - Ships
Kimya Dawson - Remember That I Love You
Dead Heart Bloom - Dead Hart Bloom
The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
Editors - The Back Room
Jeremy Enigk - World Waits
Field Music - Field Music
Forgive Durden - Wonderland
Girl Talk - Night Ripper
The Gossip - Standing In the Way of Control
Hot Chip - The Warning
Howling Bells - Howling Bells
The Hush Sound - Like Vines
Kidd Jordan, Hamid Drake + William Parker - Palm of Soul
The Knife - Silent Shout
Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Love Is All - Nine Times That Same Song
Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor
Mates of State - Bring It Back
Matmos - The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast
Mew - And the Glass Hand Kites
Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther
Mohair - Small Talk
Mute Math - Mutemath
Joanna Newsom - Ys
OOIOO - Taiga
Peeping Tom - Peeping Tom
The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
The Roots - Game Theory
Secret Machines - Ten Silver Drops
Serena-Maneesh - Serena-Maneesh
Skream - Skream
Spank Rock - YoYoYoYoYo
Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope
The Stills - Without Feathers
The Strokes - First Impression of Earth
Teddybears - Soft Machine
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Vaux - Beyond Virtue Beyond Vice
The Velvet Teen - Cum Laude
Tom Waits - Orphans
We Are Scientists - With Love and Squalor
The Weepies - Say I am You
Wolfmother - Wolfmother
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
Neil Young - Living With War
Some good stuff on that list, some not so good (Wolfmother? Really?) and many of the album on the list appeared on my top ten of last year, which probably means that my liking your music is a commercial kiss of death. Seeing as I picked The Ys as my album of the year I'm obviously picking that as my preferred winner.
David St. Hubbins: I do not, for one, think that the problem was that the band was down. I think that the problem *may* have been, that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being *crushed* by a *dwarf*. Alright? That tended to understate the hugeness of the object.
Ian Faith: I really think you're just making much too big a thing out of it.
Derek Smalls: Making a big thing out of it would have been a good idea.
Ryan Adam's touring itinerary isn't very full at the minute. In fact there's only one date on it but it's a very cool one.
STONE HENGE.
Yes, that one.
Adams plays the Bronze Age Monument as part of the Salisbury International Arts Festival on June 5th.
Weird.
The devil's garden implement.
The first batch of acts playing this year's Pitchfork Festival in Union Park in Chicago were announced last week and to be honest it's a little bit hit and miss.
Taking place from Friday 13th July – Sunday 15th. The Friday will see the US debut of ATP's "Don't Look Back" series which sees a band perform a seminal album by them in its entirety. The band and the album hasn't been announced yet however it's worth noting that Sonic Youth have a number of these dates lined up in Spain and England to play Daydream Nation, which PF named as the greatest album of the 80's. Slint are also performing Spiderland at Primavera this summer however my money is on The Youth.
The acts that has been announced are as follows:
Cat Power
Clipse
Of Montreal
Iron and Wine
Girl Talk
Jamie Lidell
Grizzly Bear
Professor Murder
Ken Vandermark's Powerhouse Sound
Of the list the only ones I'd really be excited about are Cat Power and Iron and Wine however I'd sooner see both indoors rather than at a festival, unless there was something green and sticky going around with something green to lie on.
Tickets went on sale yesterday at very competitive prices, 3 days passes cost $45, Saturday/Sunday passes are $35 with day passes going for $25 for the weekend days and $15 for Friday via Ticketweb.
Drums still alive.
Julian Gross of Liars posted on the band's MySpace last week updating fans on the progress of the follow up to last years' Drums Not Dead. Well he mentioned it.
Gross and Aaron Hemphill recently travelled to Berlin to record with Angus Agnew for 3 weeks. He didn't really go into details but said the new tracks have "a chilled out vibe".
Gross has also been working on artwork for Blood Brothers and Sean Na Na. He described the Blood Brothers work, which will be for their new tour poster and for a couple of singles, as "kinda childlike and cute and lovelorn." It's not clear what the work for Sean Na Na will be for but it's possible that they may be used for t-shirts.
Considering how recent their last album is I'm not holding my breath for the new record but the fact that they're back at work is very welcome news. I bet they terrify soundmen at clubs they play at with their setup.
You sold out, I don't care.
The gossip are the latest band to join the major label bandwagon having just left long time home Kill Rock Stars for Columbia subsidiary Music With A Twist, which, according to their press release is "the first major music label dedicated to identifying and developing lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and trans gendered (LGBT) artists. "
Which to me sounds like a gigantic bag of shite.
Anyway, I'm not going to get into the politics of major labels vs. Indies because my favourite band of all time spent their entire careers to date on a major but it's easy to get lost in the shuffle and with the rise of the web it's easier than it's ever been to get your music out there. I wonder how many of the bands who recently signed to majors will have it work out for them in the long run. There's a lot to be said for being on a small label who devotes most of their resources to you.
Rusted away.
Today sees the release of the second in the Neil Young Archives Performance Series. Live At Massey Hall follows last year's Live At The Fillmore East. The 1971 recording s described by Young as, "the album that should have come out between After the Gold Rush and Harvest," and features lots of material from those 2 albums. The album comes with a DVD featuring a recording of all but 3 of the songs on the album.
Tracklist:
01 On the Way Home
02 Tell Me Why
03 Old Man
04 Journey Through the Past
05 Helpless
06 Love in Mind
07 A Man Needs a Maid / Heart of Gold Suite
08 Cowgirl in the Sand
09 Don't Let It Bring You Down
10 There's a World
11 Bad Fog of Loneliness
12 The Needle and the Damage Done
13 Ohio
14 See the Sky About to Rain
15 Down by the River
16 Dance Dance Dance
17 I Am a Child
Yes.
Details for the upcoming Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band EP were announced by Drag City in the past week. The s/t release is out on April 24th and opens with the one new song, "Colleen" and also includes new, full band recordings of "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie" from The Milk Eyed Mender and "Cosmia" from The Ys.
More wine, less Iron
Sam Beam is getting ready to make me feel all calm and relaxed with his new album Shepherd's Dog although according to billboard.com I‘ll be waiting until late September for it to arrive. It'll be released on Sub Pop and will be preceded by the single "Boy With A Coin."
Tracklist:
01 Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car
02 White Tooth Man
03 Lovesong of the Buzzard
04 Carousel
05 House by the Sea
06 Innocent Bones
07 Wolves (Song of the Shepherd's Dog)
08 Resurrection Fern
09 Boy With a Coin
10 The Devil Never Sleeps
11 Peace Beneath the City
12 Flightless Bird, American Mouth
If you can you should go to these gigs.
Air
03-14 Glasgow, Scotland - ABC
03-15 Manchester, England - Academy
03-16 London, England - Forum
03-17 London, England - Forum
03-19 Berlin, Germany - Gleishalle
03-20 Hamburg, Germany - Docks
03-21 Cologne, Germany - E-Werk
03-22 Munich, Germany - George Elser Halle
03-24 Fribourg, Germany - Fri-Son
03-25 Milan, Italy - Alcatraz
03-27 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Melkweg Max
03-28 Brussels, Belgium - Ancienne Belgique
03-29 Paris, France - La Cigale
04-21 Vancouver, British Columbia - Richard's on Richards *
04-22 Portland, OR - Crystal Ballroom *
04-23 Tacoma, WA - Pantages Theatre *
04-25 San Francisco, CA - Nob Hill Masonic Center *
04-26 Las Vegas, NV - The Joint *
04-27 Phoenix, AZ - The Marquee *
04-29 Indio, CA - Empire Polo Field (Coachella)
05-02 Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue *
05-04 Chicago, IL - Riviera Theatre *
05-05 Toronto, Ontario - Kool Haus *
05-06 Montreal, Quebec - Metropolis *
05-08 Philadelphia, PA - Theatre of Living Arts *
05-09 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club *
05-10 New York, NY - Theatre at Madison Square Garden *
06-29 Versailles, France - Château de Versailles #
* with Kate Havnevik
# with Phoenix, Alex Gopher, Etienne de Crecy
Lightning Bolt
03-24 Brooklyn, NY - 3rd Ward (Todd P show) *
03-25 Providence, RI - TBA
03-28 Buffalo, NY - Soundlab
03-29 Cleveland Heights, OH - The Grog Shop
03-30 Detroit, MI - TBA
03-31 Chicago, IL - Cobb Coffee Shop (The University of Chicago)
04-01 Omaha, NE - The Magic Theater
04-02 Denver, CO - TBA
04-03 Salt Lake City, UT - TBA
04-04 Salt Lake City, UT - Kilby Court
04-05 Boise, ID - TBA
04-06 Seattle, WA - Vera Project
04-07 Portland, OR - Satyricon
04-08 Eureka, CA - The Accident Gallery
04-09 San Francisco, CA - CCA
04-10 Oakland, CA - Warehouse
04-11 Los Angeles, CA - TBA
04-12 Los Angeles, CA - TBA
04-13 San Diego, CA - Che Cafe
04-14 Flagstaff, AZ - Inner Beach
04-15 Santa Fe, NM - High Mayhem
04-16 Midland, TX - Truckload Fireworks
04-17 Austin, TX - Emo's
04-18 Houston, TX - Notsuoh
04-19 Oklahoma City, OK - The Conservatory
04-20 Kansas City, KS - TBA
04-21 Bloomington, IN - TBA
04-22 Cincinnati, OH - TBA
04-23 Pittsburgh, PA - TBA
04-24 Morgantown, WV - 132 Pleasant Street
04-25 Philadelphia, PA - TBA
04-26 Dragon Island, Narnia - TBA
04-27 Brooklyn, NY - Pratt University (Todd P show) #
04-28 Providence, RI - TBA
* with Marnie Stern, BARR, Ecstatic Sunshine
# with the Sun Ra Arkestra
Joanna Newsom
04-14 Dublin, Ireland - Olympia
04-16 Paris, France - La Cigale
04-17 Cologne, Germany - Gloria
04-18 Brussels, Belgium - AB
04-19 Bourges, France - Theatre de Poche (Printemps de Bourges Festival) (solo)
04-21 Oslo, Norway - Rockefeller *
04-22 Stockholm, Sweden - Chinese Theatre *
04-23 Copenhagen, Denmark - Vega *
04-25 Berlin, Germany - Volksbuehne *
04-26 Hamburg, Germany - Kampnage *
04-27 Amsterdam, Holland - Paradiso *
04-29 Somerset, England - Butlins Minehead (All Tomorrow's Parties)
09-28 London, England - Royal Albert Hall
* with Alasdair Roberts
The Hold Steady
03-06 Baltimore, MD - Ottobar #
03-09 Sunrise, FL - Langerado Music Festival
03-10 Orlando, FL - The Social *
03-12 Tallahassee, FL - Club Downunder *
03-13 Birmingham, AL - Bottletree *
03-14 Memphis, TN - Hi-Tone Cafe *
03-15 St. Louis, MO - Off Broadway *
03-16 Indianapolis, IN - Music Mill *
03-17 Columbus, OH - Newport Music Hall *
03-19 Pittsburgh, PA - Rex Theater #
03-20 State College, PA - Lu Lu's Nightspot
03-21 Syracuse, NY - Schine Underground
03-22 Lancaster, PA - Chameleon
05-26 George, WA - The Gorge
06-16 Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo
# with Marcellus Hall
* with the Thermals
Writing under the influence
Without which this column would not have been possible:
Low – Christmas (works any time of year)
Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
The bit at the end
Yesterday I found myself in the bizarre situation of cheering for an English sporting team for the first time in my life. Odd feeling.
Thus ends the first column written on my brand new laptop. Vista is kinda strange.
