Dancing About Architecture 05.08.07
Posted by Ian Wright on 05.08.2007
I love 2007, New Order split, buy one of Kurt Cobain’s old shirts, Ian Curtis biopic, Arcade Fire, The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, Ryan Adams.
The bit at the start
The past 2 Decembers when I've written my review of the year I've written some variant on the phrase "to be honest this hasn't been a great year for music" and I was a bit worried that I was just getting old and crotchety. Turns out I'm not because as we near the midway point of 2007 there's been a slew of really rather fantastic albums released.
When we actually get to the start of July I'll post my top 5 of the 6 months to date but in the meantime here's a few things that I've really liked in 2007. Not all of them are strictly available right now.
The National – Boxer
Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver
The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes are the dark horse
Dinosaur Jr. – Beyond
Joanna Newsom – Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street band
Panda Bear – Person Pitch (a shocker considering how little I care for Animal Collective)
Handsome Furs – Plague Park
The Hold Steady – Boys And Girls In America (out in '07 over here)
The Hold Steady – Live At Fingerprints
Beg, borrow, buy, steal or download this album.
The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse.
Montreal's second best husband and wife fronted band. No Shame.
The Dancing About Architecture MySpace band of the week.
Brooklyn based all girl synth pop trio. Good stuff.
Recommended song: Fallen Snow.
You news, you lose
For the record, he's not spinning in his grave, he was cremated, and it's for charidee mate.
Courtney Love is to continue her spree of liquidating her Kurt Cobain related assets in the next few months when she'll auction off a bunch of the Nirvana frontman's possessions via Christie's to "make a lot of money and give a bunch of it to charity."
Explaining the reasoning for the decision to auction off the possessions Love told the AOL music blog Spinner "[My house] is like a mausoleum. My daughter doesn't need to inherit a giant hefty bag full of flannel fucking shirts... A sweater, a guitar and the lyrics to '[Smells Like] Teen Spirit'-- that's what my daughter gets. And the rest of it we'll just fucking sell."
I was pretty critical of Love when she sold part of the rights to the Nirvana catalogue last year however I can see her point here, there's plenty of sad fuckers who would pay too much money for an old Walmart shirt if it had been Cobain's, Love has no use for them and maybe by selling them they'll do some good.
Depending on what cut the charities in question do get.
On the subject of musicians who offed themselves.
Control, Anton Corbijn's biopic of late Joy Division leader Ian Curtis is scheduled to be premiered at this year's Cannes Film Festival. The film, based upon Curtis' wife Deborah's book about her life and relationship with him (which is well worth a read) will be premiered on May 17th.
The film stars Sam Riley (who played Mark E. Smith in 24 Hour Party People) as Curtis and Samantha Morton as his wife.
The premier is set to take place the day before the 27th anniversary of Curtis' death and unsurprisingly for Cannes there will be an after party to celebrate the screening which will contain a minutes silence to remember Curtis. Presumably some coked up Hollywood douchbag won't shut up during it and if there's any justice in the world the in attendance Peter Hook (who's a big dude) will pound his face in.
Wow, bleak world view.
How's that for a segway?
Speaking of Peter Hook, the New Order bassist hinted in an interview with London's XFM that the band, which sprung from the ashes of Joy Division have pretty much called it quits. Speaking about his involvement with The Satellite Party Hook said, "I spoke to Perry [Farrell], and he asked me to play bass, as he'd heard about New Order splitting up. Well yeah, me and Bernard [Sumner] aren't working together."
When asked if the split was final, Hook replied by saying, "Bernard went off for a break with Electronic [with Johnny Marr], but that was different. But it's like the boy who cried wolf this time."
If this is the end of New Order then I can't say I'm upset, as far as I'm concerned they peaked with "Blue Monday" and it's been downhill ever since, including the past few years when they've been butchering Joy Division songs at summer festivals all over the world.
These guy have covered a New Order song at previous live shows.
I am on a fucking roll with this shit. Arcade Fire announced details of the second single release from their latest album last week despite the first single from Neon Bible not being released in the US until a few days later. "Intervention" will appear as a 7" only release on May 21st in the UK and a whiles later in the US (July 10th). The b-side will be Calexico's cover of "Ocean Of Noise", of which I've heard a live version and it sounds pretty great.
The band's North American tour hits New York this week and some of the band spent their Sunday night off in the Big Apple by joining Beirut on stage for the climax of his gig last night.
I'm out of links between stories, NO NO NO.
The Yeah Yeah Yeah's were set to play 2 (yes 2) shows at Brooklyn's Glassland Gallery last night. The first was an open to all (well, to the 250 people that could get in) gig taking place at 7PM and the second 3 hours later. The second was a bit more restrictive insofar as it was a girls only show (which probably had less to do with empowerment and more to do with the fact that we men smell) with a strict unadorned dark/black clothing dress code. That second show was going to be filmed so it's likely that the footage was going to be used for a video.
But a video for what? Well possibly for one of the tracks on their "brand new EP" which was hinted at in the e-mail announcing the brace of shows.
I wonder if he's a Mud fan.
Billboard.com announced the tracklisting to Ryan Adams' 9th studio album Easy Tiger due out ... sometime on the ... something label. He's slipped a long way down from the brilliance of the Heartbreaker album which featured backing vocals from Emmylou Harris and this time around he'll be duetting with Sheryl Crow. Goodie.
I'm perhaps being a bit harsh, he's a wonderfully talented guy but Jesus, some of his newer stuff it awful. But you already knew that.
Tracklisting:
01 Goodnight Rose
02 Two (ft. Sheryl Crow)
03 Everybody Knows
04 Halloweenhead
05 Oh My God, Whatever, Etc.
06 Tears of Gold
07 The Sun Also Sets
08 Off Broadway
09 Pearls on a String
10 Rip Off
11 Two Hearts
12 Three Girls
13 I Taught Myself How to Grow Old
If you can you should go to these gigs.
I'm From Barcelona
The most fun you can have with your pats on while not at a Flaming Lips gig.
05-08 Fribourg, Switzerland - Fri-Son
05-09 Basel, Switzerland - Kaserne
05-10 Bronson, Italy - Ravenna
05-11 Rome, Italy - Alpheus
05-12 Milan, Italy - Rainbow
05-27 Saint-Laurent-de-Cuves, France - Papillons de Nuit
06-29 La Roche-sur-Yon, France - Microcosm
06-30 Belfort, France - Euroekéennes
07-06 Évreux, France - Rock Dans Tous Ses États
07-07 Naas, Ireland - Punchestown Racecourse (Oxegen)
07-13 Gräfenhainichen, Germany - Ferropolis (Melt Festival)
07-14 Southwold, England - Latitude Festival
07-15 Glasgow, Scotland - Indian Summer Festival
07-16 Brighton, England - Concorde 2
07-28 Huntingdon, England - Secret Garden Party
08-04 Chicago, IL - Grant Park (Lollapalooza)
08-05 Brooklyn, NY - McCarren Park Pool
Interpol
05-10 Paris, France - Cabaret Sauvage (Le Printemps des Inrocks)
05-12 Cologne, Germany - Kulturkirche
05-14 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Paradiso
05-15 London, England - KOKO
05-19 Irvine, CA - Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre (KROQ Weenie Roast)
05-27 George, WA - The Gorge (Sasquatch!)
05-31 Dallas, TX - The Palladium
06-02 Atlanta, GA - HiFi Buys Amphitheatre (99X Big Day Out)
06-03 Chicago, IL - Metro
06-07 Toronto, Ontario - The Guverment
06-09 San Francisco, CA - Shoreline Amphitheatre (Live 105 BFD 07)
06-10 San Diego, CA - Devore Stadium (94/9 Independence Jam)
06-21 Dusseldorf, Germany - Dusseldorf LTU Arena
06-23 Scheesel, Germany - Hurricane Festival
06-24 Neuhausen ob Eck, Germany - Southside Festival
06-25 Dresden, Germany - Dresden Alter Schlachthof
06-27 Copenhagen, Denmark - Vega
06-28 Arendal, Norway - Hove Festival
06-29 Stockholm, Sweden - Accelerator
07-01 Werchter, Belgium - Rock Werchter
07-05 Lisbon, Portugal - Super Bock Super Rock
07-07 Naas, Ireland - Punchestown Racecourse (Oxegen)
07-08 Balado, Scotland - T in the Park
08-04 Chicago, IL - Grant Park (Lollapalooza)
08-05 Baltimore, MD - Pimlico Race Course (V Festival)
08-11 Tokyo, Japan - Summersonic Festival
08-12 Osaka, Japan - Summersonic Festival
08-24 Reading, England - Reading Festival
08-25 Leeds, England - Leeds England
Writing under the influence
Without which this column would not have been possible:
The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse
Elliot Smith – New Moon
The bit at the end
You have no idea how happy nearing "new" Elliot Smith material that I've never heard before for the first time makes me.
15 days to the National album comes out in the US, make sure you're at a record store that morning.
