Dancing About Architecture 9.30.08

Posted by Ian Wright on 09.30.2008

Pavement reissues, Los Campesinos!, Christmas On Mars, ATP NY2K+9, Springsteen at The Superbowl and an intruiging charity comp.

The bit at the start

Morning/Afternoon/Evening. Quick one this week as I was at a family funeral today and got home late.

The fact that I'm here to do it surely blows a couple of dozen stereotypes about the funeral habits of my nation out of the water.

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

Silver Jews – American Water



Dave Berman might write the best single lines in music.

You news, you lose

Listen to me! I'm on the stereo stereo.

As part of the what.cd freeleach last week I topped up a bit on Pavement's catalogue with some radio sessions and EP's. I also spent quite a good bit of the last 7 days listening to their final 2 somewhat unfairly maligned albums. They may not be as consistently great as Slanted And Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooken Rain but they've both got plenty of good tunes on them.

So as I was in a Brighten The Corners state of mind last week I was pretty delighted to learn that the band's 4th album is following in the footsteps of their first 3 records and getting the deluxe reissue treatment and as with the previous reissues Matador aren't dicking around with it.

Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creedence Ed. will come on 2 discs featuring a remastered version of the album, b-sides from the singles off of it, other compilation tracks, live versions and other unreleased studio tracks. It'll also come with a 62-page booklet.

All of which sounds very nice, here's the tracklist.

Disc 1:

01 Stereo
02 Shady Lane / J vs. S
03 Transport Is Arranged
04 Date w/ IKEA
05 Old to Begin
06 Type Slowly
07 Embassy Row
08 Blue Hawaiian
09 We Are Underused
10 Passat Dream
11 Starlings of the Slipstream
12 Fin
13 Westie Can Drum ["Stereo" B-side]
14 Winner of the... ["Stereo" B-side]
15 Birds in the Majic Industry [previously unreleased vocal version taking place of released instrumental "Stereo" B-side version]
16 Slowly Typed ["Shady Lane" B-side]
17 Cherry Area ["Shady Lane" B-side]
18 Wanna Mess You Around ["Shady Lane" B-side]
19 No Tan Lines ["Shady Lane" B-side]
20 And Then... [full seven-minute+ version of "Spit on a Stranger" B-side]
21 Harness Your Hopes ["Spit on a Stranger" B-side]
22 Roll With the Wind ["Spit on a Stranger" B-side]

Disc 2:

01 Then [BBC Radio One Evening Session, January 15, 1997]
02 Harness Your Hopes [BBC Radio One Evening Session, January 15, 1997]
03 The Killing Moon [BBC Radio One Evening Session, January 15, 1997]
04 Winner of the... [BBC Radio One Evening Session, January 15, 1997]
05 Embassy Row Psych Intro [previously unreleased intro, BTC sessions outtake]
06 Nigel [previously unreleased, BTC sessions outtake]
07 Chevy (Old to Begin) [previously unreleased version, BTC sessions]
08 Roll With the Wind (Roxy) [previously unreleased version, BTC sessions]
09 For Sale! The Preston School of Industry [previously unreleased, VPRO "Lola da Musica" TV show, April 4, 1997]
10 Oddity [from the God Save the Clean compilation]
11 Type Slowly (live) [from the Free Tibet compilation]
12 Neil Hagerty Meets Jon Spencer in a Non-Alcoholic Bar [previously unreleased, KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic", February 25, 1997]
13 Maybe Maybe [previously unreleased version, KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic", February 25, 1997]
14 Date w/ IKEA [BBC Radio One John Peel Live Session, August 21, 1997]
15 Fin [BBC Radio One John Peel Live Session, August 21, 1997]
16 Grave Architecture [BBC Radio One John Peel Live Session, August 21, 1997]
17 The Classical [BBC Radio One John Peel Live Session, August 21, 1997]
18 Space Ghost Theme I [previously unreleased, recorded live at WFNX, Boston, February 12, 1997]
19 Space Ghost Theme II [previously unreleased, recorded live at WFNX, Boston, February 12, 1997]
20 Beautiful as a Butterfly [previously unreleased, BTC sessions outtake]
21 Cataracts [previously unreleased, BTC sessions outtake]

Track 12 on Disc 2 is wonderfully named.

ATP, ATP, NYC

Such was the (apparent) success of the recent ATP New York that it's already been announced that it's happening again next year. Once again taking place at Kutsher's Country Club the weekend will take place from September 4-6. Like this year ATP will curate the Saturday of the event with a yet to be announced (if it's not Thurston Moore/Sonic Youth I'll be shocked) guest curator programming the Sunday. Also like this year the Friday night will feature a number of Don't Look Back performances where classic albums get played in their entirety.

From the point of view of seasoned ATP watchers you might argue that this year's event was a little samey, plenty of the performers this year have played numerous ATP events over the years. This of course can be countered by pointing out that this was the first time an ATP had taken place on the East Coast of the US and it was entirely appropriate to put on the kind of bands that have been rocking British holiday camps for the past decade or so. That being said now that they've got them all out of the way hopefully future ATP's will be a little bit more adventurous.

Los Campesinos! extras.

So Los Campesinos! then. Those crazy kids are putting out their second album of the year next month (November in North America) and We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed is going to come with all sorts of attractive extras to entice you to do more than steal the album off of the internet like I did.

What sort of extras?

Well first of all there's a 30-page zine that features contributions from the likes of Xiu Xiu, Grandaddy, Tender Forever, Menomena, Parenthetical Girls, and the Beautiful South's Paul Heaton. Also included is a band-made DVD documentary of what they got up to at the Oya and Summersonic festivals this sumemr. And a poster drawn by Jeffrey Brown.

Most interestingly it seems that the band have pulled out all the stops to make the thing as collectable as possible. Everything is stuffed into a 14cm x 19cm x 2.5 cm two-piece card box, and available in one pressing. As the band explains, "There will be one, worldwide run of CDs, and then it will be out of print." And NO SINGLES!!

The album by the way is pretty good but more of the same from the band. However given how quickly they made the record after their first I hardly think it fair to expect a quantum musical leap forward from them.

Broooooce.

You know how to ensure the SuperBowl halftime show isn't awful?

The people who run it do.

The NFL announced last night that Bruce Springsteen And The E-Street Band will play at next year's Superbowl in Tampa.

Whoo … I'm still not staying up till 2 AM on a Monday morning to watch it though.

Unless the Saints are there.

So I'll probably be in bed.

Christmas … On Mars

It's been a long time coming but The Flaming Lips' long awaited (mainly because of curiosity rather than expectation that it'll be good) Christmas On Mars will be released on DVD on November 11th.

In addition to the 86 minute feature bonus materials include interviews with the band and a featurette called From Drawings to a Movie: Inside Wayne's Endless Yellow Notepad which plots out the how Wayne Coyne (finally) turned his idea into a film.

There's also a deluxe edition on the way which will come with a CD of the film's soundtrack, which frankly has some fucking bizarre song titles:

01 Once Beyond Hopelessness
02 The Distance Between Mars and the Earth -- Part One
03 The Horrors of Isolation: The Celestial Dissolve, Triumphant Hallucination, Light Being Absorbed
04 In Excelsior Vaginalistic
05 Your Spaceship Comes From Within
06 Suicide and Extraordinary Mistakes
07 The Distance Between Mars and the Earth -- Part Two
08 The Secret of Immortality: This Strange Feeling, This Impossible World
09 The Gleaming Armament of Marching Genitalia
10 The Distress Signals of Celestial Objects
11 Space Bible With Volume Lumps
12 Once Beyond Hopelessness

On a roll this time?

The third War Child charity compilation is on it's way in the last week of November and for this iteration they've come up with a novel concept. Heroes will be a covers record but with a twist. The people who originally wrote the songs will handpick the people who cover their songs.

Already signed up are The Hold Steady to cover Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City", Beck covering Dylan's "Leapord-Skin Pill-Box Hat" and Rufus Wainwright will perform 2 songs from Brian Wilson's Smile. Less encouraging is Duffy covering Paul McCartney's "Live And Let Die" and The Kooks having a crack at The Kinks' "Victoria". Hot Chip are also doing Joy Division's "Transmission" but I'm not sure how I feel about that one.

There is also set to be songs by David Bowie and Johnny Cash (though lord knows how he's going to pick someone to cover him) on the comp but it hasn't been announced yet who'll be doing them though I wouldn't be shocked if TV On The Radio or Arcade Fire got tapped up to do the Bowie song.

The YouTube video of the week

Is having the week off

If you can you should go to these gigs.

Los Campesinos!

10-08 Berlin, Germany - Popkomm
10-14 Brighton, England - Komedia ^
10-15 Liverpool, England - Academy 2 ^
10-16 Leeds, England - Irish Centre ^
10-17 Dublin, Ireland - Whelans ^
10-18 Glasgow, Scotland - School of Arts ^
10-20 London, England - Electric Ballroom ^
10-21 Bristol, England - Fleece ^
10-22 Manchester, England - Academy 3 ^
11-09 Brussels, Belgium - Botanique !
11-10 Cologne, Germany - Luxor !
11-11 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Melkweg !
11-12 Munich, Germany - Atomic Café !
11-13 Bologna, Italy - Estragon !
11-14 Rome, Italy - Piper !
11-15 Milan, Italy - Rolling Stone !
12-18 Paris, France - Maroquinerie (Wichita Xmas Party) !

^ with Times New Viking, No Age
! with Sky Larkin, Lovvers

Ryan Adams And The Cardinals

09-29 Columbus, OH - Palace Theater
09-30 Cleveland, OH - Playhouse Square
10-02 Indianapolis, IN - Murat Theatre
10-03 Cincinnati, OH - Taft Theater
10-04 St. Louis, MO - Fox Theater
10-05 Madison, WI - Overture Hall
10-07 Ames, IA - Stephens Auditorium
10-09 Kansas City, MO - Uptown Theater
10-10 Tulsa, OK - Brady Theater
10-11 Grand Prairie, TX - Nokia Theater
10-13 Austin, TX - Paramount
10-14 Houston, TX - Verizon Wireless Theater
10-16 Tuscaloosa, AL - Bama Theatre
10-17 Atlanta, GA - Verizon Wireless Amphitheater
11-08 Dublin, Ireland - Ambassador Theatre
11-10 Manchester, England - Academy
11-11 Newcastle, England - Academy
11-13 Leeds, England - Academy
11-14 Edinburgh, Scotland - Picture House
11-16 Cambridge, England - Corn Exchange
11-17 Birmingham, England - Academy
11-19 Brighton, England - Dome
11-20 London, England - Brixton Academy
11-22 Southampton, England – Guildhall

Writing under the influence

Without which this column would not have been possible:

I've been watching The Wire tonight.

The bit at the end

The Isn't Anything remaster sounds astonishingly good. A really nice job. I now can't wait to hear the Loveless one.

Semi permanent plug for my blog. Mostly I've been writing about football this week.