Dancing About Architecture 03.10.09
Posted by Ian Wright on 03.10.2009
Thoughts on the Crystal Antlers album, the battle of the indie titans, expitfork fest, Miley Cyrus vs. Radiohead, a new song from St. Vincent, video footage of the making of Dan Deacon’s new album, Dark Was The Night live.
The bit at the start
I didn't wrote about Crystal Antlers' in a blizzard gig in Dublin a few weeks back because it was pretty awful to be honest. Aside from the closing song of the main set there was little of the vicious wah-wah guitar that impressed me so about their self titled EP as it sliced through the otherwise impentrable racket the Long Beach band made. As well as that the wailing of the organ overwhelmed everything else that was happening on stage. After navigating icy roads and being worryingly stuck behind an articulated truck whose back end slid every time it broke during a trip that took 3 times longer than it normally does to get into town it's probably the least satisfying live music night out I've had in quite some time.
Having heard the band's debut long-player Tentacles things have become a little more clear. The organ still dominates the record but its place in the mix is no where near as domineering as it was live. For the most part Tentaclessounds as though it would happily exist in that early 70's period when garage rock was morphing into punk. Front man Johnny Bell's taut voiced bellows contrast with his melodic basslines and in spite of the dense, unremitting din that pours out of the speakers he and the rest of the rhythm section give the songs a swing without which many of the songs might have seemed very mundane. The one thing I'd say against the album as a whole is that closing track "Several Tongues" aside, were it not for a couple of wonderful ("Vapour Trails" is especially good) instrumental pieces that crop up throughout the album it would be a really samey sounding record.
Tentaclesis slated to be the final new release from Touch And Go and while it might not quite stack up to some of the albums from the Chi-town label's staggering back catalog it is a fine farewell wave from a label that has never shirked away from putting out music for no other reason than they thought the bands that made them were cool.
Beg, borrow, buy, steal or download this album.
Tom Waits – The Early Years Vol. 2
Some of the demos of his early songs are great.
You news, you lose
Wayne vs. Win.
There were a number of spats between musicians that cropped up last week. The most interesting one was the one that erupted on Thursday between Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips and Win Butler of Arcade Fire.
In an interview with Rolling Stone Coyne was quoted as going on a bit of a tirade against Butler and his crew.
From Rolling Stone:
"I'm a fan of them on one level, but on another level I get really tired of their pompousness," says Coyne. "We've played some shows with them and they really treat people like shit. Whenever I've been around them, I've found that they not only treated their crew like shit, they treated the audience like shit. They treated everybody in their vicinity like shit. I thought, 'Who do they think they are?' I don't know why people put up with it. I wouldn't put up with it. I don't care if it's Arcade Fire or Brian Eno. If either of them walked into a room and treated people like shit I'd be like, 'Fuck you, get outta here.'
He continues, "People treat Arcade Fire like they're the greatest thing ever and they get away with it. Those sort of opinions change my view of their music. They have good tunes, but they're pricks, so fuck 'em. Who does Arcade Fire think they are? I've been around groups. I've been around the Edge from U2 and he's the fucking sweetest guy ever. I was around Justin Timberlake when he was young and he was just a normal, nice, kind person. Anyone can be polite and kind and people who have the privilege and money and attention should understand that. If they don't, then fuck 'em."
Later that day Butler responded on his band's website with the following:
Whether or not Arcade Fire really are assholes I don't know. I've met most of them briefly and they all seemed like pretty nice people but then again it was in a "Hey, I think your band are really cool that was a great set you played. Oh, thanks dude" which is hardly likely to get them acting like douches to me. And Wayne Coyne does seem like an awfully nice dude.
But one thing he is wrong about is saying that the band treats their fans like shit. I know of plenty of occasions where the band have snuck fans into the venue for sold out shows just to fuck with scalpers. Hardly the act of a band that treats its fans like shit.
Fork fest.
The first bands playing this year's Pitchfork festival were announced last week and once again it looks like indie rock's most prominent web site are putting together a pretty impressive lineup. There's only 10 names announced so far but that short list includes Built To Spill, The National, The Jesus Lizard and The Walkmen.
For this year they've come up with a rather novel idea for the Friday night. The set lists by the bands will be chosen by the attendees of the festival. When someone buys a ticket they'll receive in an e-mail a link to where that person can vote for what songs they'd like to hear. Personally I can't wait for the Tortoise version of "Freebird".
Tickets for the festival which takes place in Chicago's Union Park from July 17-19 go on sale this Friday and voting for the sets will end on June 12.
Night by night breakdown.
Friday, July 17
Built to Spill
The Jesus Lizard
Yo La Tengo
Tortoise
Saturday, July 18
The National
Pharoahe Monch
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
+ many more!
Sunday, July 19
Grizzly Bear
The Walkmen
Vivian Girls
+ many more!
Dark Was The Night. In concert.
So the Dark Was The Night comp is pretty awesome huh? There's that amazing Sufjan Stevens track, cool stuff from Antony, Bon Iver and a bunch more on it but they're not done yet.
On May 3rd Radio City Music Hall will play host to "Dark was the night live" which will bring together a number of acts who contributed to the album including Dirty Projectors, Feist, My Brightest Diamond, the National, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, and TV on the Radio's David Sitek with plenty more to be added.
Proceeds from the gig, just like the album will go to the Red Hot Organistation.
Another fight.
On top of Wayne Coyne and The Arcade Fire dissing each other thee was a much less widely covered incident involving Miley Ray Cyrus and Radiohead over the Oxford band snubbing her at the grammys. On a Portland morning radio show Cyrus told how Radiohead are the only band in the world she "would cry over" as "they're the reason I love music" but when she tried to get her people to arrange a meeting at the grammy's between the pop tot and the miserabilist behemoths she was rebuffed as the band "doesn't really do that".
Cyrus went on to say that "The reason I'm in this business is to make people happy," obviously suggesting that Radio head aren't and went on to say that, "I left 'cause I was so upset. I wasn't going to watch. Stinkin' Radiohead! I'm gonna ruin them, I'm going to tell everyone."
You can listen to the interview in full below:
Boy Thom Yorke is really gonna regret it when his kids turns out to be massive Hanna Montana fans.
I love St. Vincent
As I reported a couple of weeks ago there's a new St. Vincent album in the works. It's called Actor and last week Annie Clark released a song from it called "The Starngers" for free download. You can listen to it by clicking the play button below I think all that time playing in Sufjan Stevens' band has rubbed off on Annie.
Dan Deacon's Bromst is a bit of a beast, come December time when I and many other rock hacks compile their end of year best-of lists I'm pretty certain that it will feature highly on many of them. A giant leap forward from Spiderman Of The Rings.
Pitchfork.tv have a 4 part "making of" for the album (which if one cares about such things is probably a precursor to an absolutely mammoth score from them for the album) it's genuinely fascinating stuff. Well if you're a bit of a geek.
Rarely has a MySpace bulletin raised my spirits so.
But this makes me really happy.
Mission of Burma is currently recording demos for their 4th studio album following 2006's The Obliterati.Check out some photos from inside the studio here.
The YouTube video of the week
I really don't care for her music but Lily Allen is utterly charming.
If you can you should go to these gigs.
Grizzly Bear
03-26 Newcastle, England - The Castle Keep
03-27 Barrow-in-Furness, England - The Canteen
03-29 Leicester, England - The Musician
03-30 Birmingham, England - Glee Club
03-31 Glasgow, Scotland - Captain's Rest (two shows)
04-01 Dublin, Ireland - Academy 2
04-03 Edinburgh, Scotland - The Bowery
04-15 London, England - Scala (not acoustic)
Writing under the influence
Without which this column would not have been possible:
Actually I was watching TV
The bit at the end
Watchmen, was alright.
Ed Droste, after getting in the shit with web sheriff over leaking an Animal Collective track by accident got a personal message from WS asking them to hire them to protect their upcoming album. The irony is delicious.
Kind of a weird column this week. Loads of embedded content. My internets were acting the prick earlier and I had to cross post a load of content from my blog this week that I'd already done. Speaking of which …
