Dancing About Architecture 10.23.07

Posted by Ian Wright on 10.23.2007

ATP, Elliott Smith, ATP again, Radiohead as usual, Cat Power, Yo La Tengo, Cobain biopics, Misfits and Weezer.

The bit at the start

Hello all, I hope you're keeping well. There's plenty of news this week and I've been standing on my soapbox a bit in this section for the past couple of weeks so I'm going to keep it short this week.

Anyway this section will be fairly full in the next fortnight because there's an insane run of quality gigs going on in Dublin in the next fortnight, Arcade Fire, The Natioanl, Les Savy Fav, Animal Collective, Andrew Bird and Deerhunter are all coming to town and I'm expecting to be blown away at least 3 times in that period.

Begin content …

Beg, borrow, buy, steal or download this album.

Cathy Davey – Tales Of Silversleeve



Recently released in Ireland. A classic pop album.

You news, you lose

Elliott Smith died 4 years ago last Sunday ...

So what better way to celebrate the life and work of one of the greatest songwriters of all time than to talk about the squabbling over his money. According to court documents filed on October 16th Jennifer Chiba, Smith's former live-in girlfriend was denied an appeal seeking 15% of Smith's earnings based on the claim that she acted as the late musician's manager, despite the fact that she offered very little proof that she did so. Had her claim been upheld she stood to make $1m from Smith's estate.

Chiba brought the claim in July 2004 and a California appellate court ruled that she was working as an unlicensed agent and as a result wasn't entitled to any payment for those duties. The court suggested that Chiba might be considered a common law wife of Smith and she might have more chance of getting some money via that avenue.

That's all kinda sad and seedy, I suggest you go listen to either/or and try to forget about it.

ATP, ATP, ATP: 1

A double dose of ATP news this week. First off there's been a bunch of additions to May's first ATP taking place in Camber Sands in Sussex from May 9-11 which is being curated by ATP and Pitchforkmedia.

Last week saw 6 more bands being announced as additions to the lineup with Hot Chop, Les Savy Fav, No Age, The Meat Puppets, The Black Angels and Shit and Shine being added to the lbill. The only real complaint about those bands on my part is Hot Chip, but I'm a miserable bastard who knows no joy so that's to be expected.

I've never seen any of those 6 play before so I can't really make a call on whether or not they'll be any good but coincidentally Les Savy Fav play Dublin on Saturday and I've heard great things about their live show so I'll have a better take on things this time next week.

There's still another 15 or so bands to be announced before the thing kicks off but at present here's the current lineup:

Chosen by Pitchfork:

Hot Chip
Les Savy Fav
No Age
Of Montreal
Man Man
Los Campesinos!
Caribou
Glass Candy
Dirty Projectors

Chosen by ATP:

Meat Puppets
The Black Angels
Shit and Shine
Sebadoh
Ween
Pissed Jeans
Fuck Buttons
Apse

ATP ATP ATP: 2.

Last week also saw the announcement of who would curate next May's second ATP which will take place in Butlin's Minehead from May 16-18. Plenty of people, myself included, had been working themselves into a frenzy because of rumours that it was to be curated by Kevin Shields/My Bloody Valentine. Well they turned out to be false and the festival will instead be booked by …

*drumroll*

Explosions in the sky.

???

So did everyone else turn them down? I think EITS are wonderful but in the grand scheme of indiedom they do seem a little no-mark to be curating. That's not to say that they won't pick some great acts to play and they've certainly got off to a fine start with the initial acts as Dinosaur Jr., … And you will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, Broken Social Scene, Iron & Wine and Adem already signed up.

This one will feature 50 bands over the weekend and tickets are on sale now from the ATP website.

That cover makes me feel funny.

BEHOLD



The cover of Jukebox Cat Power's upcoming second venture into the field of cover's albums, out January 22nd on Matador. But to call it a covers album is slightly inaccurate as it features 2 Power compositions, a new tune "Song For Bobby" (for Bob Dylan, Big Zim fans will get the title) and a new version of Moon Pix's stand out track (and by extension her finest song) "Metal Heart".

Tracklisting:

01 Theme From 'New York, New York' (Kander/Ebb; popularized by Frank Sinatra/Liza Minnelli)
02 Metal Heart (Cat Power)
03 Ramblin' (Wo)man (Hank Williams)
04 Song To Bobby (Cat Power-- new song)
05 Aretha, Sing One For Me (J Harris/Eugene William; originally sung by George Jackson)
06 Lost Someone (James Brown)
07 I Believe In You (Bob Dylan)
08 Fortunate Son (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
09 Silver Stallion (Lee Clayton)
10 Dark End of the Street (Chips Moman/Dan Penn; originally sung by James Carr)
11 Don't Explain (Billie Holiday)
12 Woman Left Lonely (Spooner Oldham/Dan Penn, popularized by Janis Joplin)

Like I said last week, I hate Christmas …

and I'm kinda indifferent to Hanukkah. Yo La Tengo seem to like it though and last week announced that their almost annual 8 night stand in Maxwell's of Hoboken will once again take place this year from December 4-11. The band promise that "no matter what night you're there, you'll wish you had come another night instead. That's just the way you are; there's nothing we can do about that," but even if that's the case you're very fortunate if you get to be see one of these shows, I'd kill to be there.

As ever the gigs will feature an opening band, some other fun shit and then a full YLT set and a good time will be had b all. These dates are in addition to the rest of their current tour itinerary (listed below.)

Movies movies movies.

I didn't care much for Charles Cross' Kurt Cobain biography "Heavier Than Heaven", a bit too much "as Kurt walked down the street he felt sad" type stuff going on there. Anyway Universal pictures have bought up the rights to the book and a script is being prepared for it by Troy(shit)/25th Hour (good, especially that mirror scene) screenwriter David Benioff and Courtney Love will serve as executive producer.

That's pretty much it at this stage. More to come as the film moves out of development hell.

Mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits.

I've not listened to a great deal of Misfits. But people/bands whose music I love have and 2 of them, Dave Pajo and My Morning Jacket, are set to contribute to Louisville Babylon 2007, a Misfits covers compilation put out by the Louisville Is For Lovers label. The 2007 in the title is due to the fact that label did the exact same thing in 1994 and released a covers album featuring acts who I've for the most part never heard of.

LB-07 is available in a limited run of 666 copies and you can order it here.

Tracklisting:

01 Black Kerouac: "Night of the Living Dead"
02 The Slow Break: "Attitude"
03 My Morning Jacket: "Hollywood Babylon"
04 Ronnie Mack: "Horror Hotel"
05 Ponty's Camper: "Astro Zombies"
06 Chemic: "Return of the Fly"
07 Tamara Dearing: "Hybrid Moments"
08 One Small Step: "20 Eyes"
09 Dave Pajo: "Angelfuck"
10 Wax Fang: "Halloween"
11 The Gallery Singers: "Cough/Cool"
12 Gaj Mustafa Cell: "We Bite!"
13 Ultra Pulverize: "Where Eagles Dare"

I waited this long to get to the Radiohead news.

I realise that after the past couple of weeks I've overdone it a bit.

According to Billboard via the band's publicist Radiohead are set to tour In Rainbows next year. Their management have said, "We plan to tour next year, starting in May through to probably the end of the year. With lots of holidays in that period. At the moment we are talking with our agents in North America and for the rest of the world, trying to get a schedule which works for the band and works financially."

Well that's hardly a shock but it's nice to have it confirmed. Basically this story gets a big fat "YAY" from me.

Hip to be square (glasses'd)

December 11th will be the release date for Alone Rivers Cuomo of Weezer's collection of solo demos. Which could be cool, provided that the collection focus's on his early material with Weezer. And it kinda does, there'll be an early demo of Buddy Holly on there but most of he material is from demos from an unfinished space rock concept album/musical which were written around the Blue Album era with the rest of the songs coming from the past decade.

Speaking of Weezer, Rolling Stone spoke to Cuomo recently and he said that they're finished recording on the follow up to 2005's abysmal Make Believe with Rick Ruben.

The YouTube video of the week

He looks so uncomfortable here.



If you can you should go to these gigs.

Devendra Banhart

11-03 Istanbul, Turkey - Phonem Festival
11-05 Brighton, England - St. Georges Hall
11-06 London, England - Forum
11-08 Dublin, Ireland - The Village
11-10 Utrecht, Netherlands - Tivoli
11-12 Paris, France - Olympia
11-14 Lille, France - Theatre Splendid
11-16 Bordeaux, France - Krakatoa
11-17 Toulouse, France - Bikini
11-18 San Sebastian, Spain - Sala Gaztescena
11-20 Madrid, Spain - Sala Joy Eslava
11-21 Murcia, Spain - Sala Audio
11-22 Barcelona, Spain - Sala Apolo

Joanna Newsom – Orchestral Tour

10-21 Milwaukee, WI - Pabst Theater
10-27 Austin, TX - Riverbend Center
10-29 Seattle, WA - Benaroya Hall
11-04 Grass Valley, CA - Music in the Mountains
11-09 Los Angeles, CA - Walt Disney Concert Hall
11-17 Atlanta, GA - Woodruff Arts Center Symphony Hall

Yo La Tengo

10-19 Port Washington, NY - Jeanne Rimsky Theater at Landmark on Main Street %
10-20 Woodstock, NY - Colony Cafe (two shows) %
10-22 Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church Sanctuary %
10-23 Alexandria, VA - Birchmere %
10-27 Mexico City, Mexico - Manifest Festival
10-29 Portland, OR - Aladdin Theater %
10-30 Seattle, WA - Town Hall %
11-01 San Francisco, CA - Palace of Fine Arts Theatre %
11-03 Hollywood, CA - Ivar Theatre (two shows) %
11-04 La Jolla, CA - Museum of Contemporary Art (two shows) %
11-07 New York, NY - Beacon Theatre (I'm Not There: In Concert) (performing with Buckwheat Zydeco) *
11-10 North Adams, MA - Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art %
11-11 Ithaca, NY - Cornell University ^
11-15 Boston, MA - Museum of Fine Arts (two shows) %
12-04 Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell's (Hanukkah show)
12-05 Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell's (Hanukkah show)
12-06 Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell's (Hanukkah show)
12-07 Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell's (Hanukkah show)
12-08 Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell's (Hanukkah show)
12-09 Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell's (Hanukkah show)
12-10 Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell's (Hanukkah show)
12-11 Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell's (Hanukkah show)

% as the Freewheeling Yo La Tengo
* with Cat Power, Calexico, My Morning Jacket, the Roots, J Mascis, Lee Ranaldo & the Million Dollar Bashers, Mark Langean, Al Kooper, John Doe, Ian Ball and Olly Peacock of Gomez
^ with Broken Social Scene

Deerhunter

10-19 New York, NY - Fader Sideshow (Atlas Sound show) (CMJ)
10-19 New York, NY - Cake Show !
10-20 Princeton, NJ - Terrace Club #
10-22 Brooklyn, NY - Shangri La @
10-25 Graz, Austria - Dom im Berg (Elevate Festival)
10-26 Düdingen, Switzerland - Bad Bonn
10-27 St. Gallen, Switzerland - Palace %
10-28 Basel, Switzerland - Kaserne %
10-30 Brussels, Belgium - Recyclart
10-31 Paris, France - La Maroquinerie
11-01 Castellón de la Plana, Spain - Tanned Tin Festival
11-02 London, England - The Forum (ATP Presents Release the Bats) *
11-03 Leeds, England - The Faversham (Nasty Fest VIII) *
11-04 Glasgow, Scotland - ABC2
11-05 Dublin, Ireland - Whelan's +
11-06 Nottingham, England - Liars Club
11-07 Manchester, England - Cafe Saki
11-08 Prague, Czech Republic - Archa Theatre
11-09 Groningen, Netherlands - Vera Club
11-10 Utrecht, Netherlands - Tivoli &
11-12 Copenhagen, Denmark - Loppen
11-13 Malmo, Sweden - Debaser
11-14 Oslo, Norway - Garage
11-15 Stockholm, Sweden - Debaser Slussen
11-16 Gothenburg, Sweden - Slippery People at Pusterviksbaren
11-17 Aarhus, Denmark - VoxHall
11-19 Dresden, Germany - Scheune
11-19 Leipzig, Germany - UT Connewitz
11-30 Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse *~
12-05 Athens, GA - Georgia Theatre *
12-08 Barcelona, Spain - Primavera Club

! with Papercuts, Mike Wexler
@ with No Age, Soft Circle
# with Mika Miko
% with Frog Eyes
* with Black Lips
+ with YACHT
& with Dirty Projectors
~ with the Selmanaires, Snowden

Writing under the influence

Without which this column would not have been possible:

Talk Radio
An Eve vs. Radiohead mashup

The bit at the end

I've gotta run, off to see Control this evening. It'd better not be shit.

Semi permanent plug for my blog. This week I talked about the best Beatles songs the Beatles never wrote, bitch about LCD Soundsystem and wrote about some other stuff too.