Obstructed View

The Shins / St. Lucia at Terminal 5, New York, NY, April 29th, 2012

What is it with these bands and their Sunday night shows?  Cooldads have jobs with 8:30 meetings and kids that need getting ready for school in the morning.  Mad Men, Game of Thrones:  don’t bands like The Shins get that a cooldad’s entire week is spent gearing up for these things?

I’ll have to rely on HBO On Demand to catch up on this week’s developments in the land of Westeros, because, along with two other cooldads and one honorary cooldad, I humped it into the city to see The Shins at Terminal 5 last night.

We may have lingered a little too long over burgers and beer in Jersey City before the show, because Terminal 5 is not a place at which you want to arrive late for a sold-out show.  Terminal 5 is a large, multi-leveled, general admission-only space.  It’s actually a fine place to see a show if you arrive early enough.   You can stake out a space along the railing of one of the balcony levels or even grab some nice real estate on the floor and have a nice view of the stage.  There are several bars including an outdoor space on the roof.  On this night, though, our late arrival forced us to jockey for position and to suffer through mostly obstructed views.

Acts at Terminal 5 are quite prompt.  Opener St. Lucia started at around 8:15 and played a roughly half-hour set.  The Shins are playing three nights this week at Terminal 5, each night with a different opening band – St. Lucia, Chairlift, and Real Estate.  St. Lucia were unknown to me before last night, but I enjoyed them.  My research has dug up the fact that they are primarily a solo project of multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, producer, and South African native Jean-Philip Grobler.  They were a full band on Sunday night that included three keyboards and a saxophone.  Along with the drums and guitars, this all came together to create a distinctly 80’s synth pop feel.  I kept thinking about Level 42.

Even during St. Lucia’s performance, sight lines from our location were poor unless you stood up on one of the many small ottomans available.  The sound was good.  HD monitors showing the band hung from the walls, so there was that option, I guess.

The Shins came on almost right at 9:00.  James Mercer has mentioned in interviews during the entire Port of Morrow album cycle that The Shins have always been a vehicle for him to get his compositions out to the world.  The band rose up out of getting his friends to help him.  The current incarnation of The Shins is a new one, but they did an excellent job on songs from all four Shins albums.

The band opened with “Caring Is Creepy,” the album opener from their 2001 debut Oh Inverted World.  During the roughly hour and forty-five minute set, The Shins rattled off favorites like “Mine’s Not a High Horse,” “Saint Simon,” “So Says I,” and the classic “New Slang.”  For their performance of “Phantom Limb,” Amber Coffman and Haley Dekle of Dirty Projectors joined The Shins to do backing vocals.  This was hard to tell from our spot on the balcony until Mercer introduced them.

Port of Morrow tracks like “Simple Song,” “The Rifle’s Spiral,” and “40 Mark Strasse” represent a slightly new, more 70’s AM radio sounding, direction for Mercer.  Last night, though, they fit right in with the older material.

The Shins are godfathers of the mainstream indie genre, and James Mercer is one of the best pop songwriters working today.  The band showed all of that last night by showcasing their impressive catalog of mindie classics.  The songs sounded great and the new band played well.  Though, the size of the venue and our location minimized any form of connection that I felt with the band.

For shows in the New York area, sometimes Terminal 5 will be your only choice to see your favorite bands.  If that happens to you, make sure you get there early, try to forget about the crush of humanity that will head for the exits at exactly the same time you do, and have a good time.

Grimes, Visions, 2012

Sunday Run Album Review

And now for something completely different.

"Oh my God.  What are you listening to?"

That was CoolMom upon hearing Visions emanate from my tiny home office.  I guess the Depeche Mode fan has become less tolerant of bleeps and bloops in recent years.  For me, it's kind of gone the other way.  For example, I believe LCD Soundsystem achieved, perhaps, the two greatest examples of album sequencing in the history of popular music with Sound of Silver's "Someone Great"/"All My Friends" and "All I Want"/"I Can Change" from This Is Happening.

Grimes, though, is a stretch for me.  No guitar ever got anywhere near Visions.  Grimes is Montreal's Claire Boucher and I took her for a run with me on this beautiful early spring day.

Visions was put together by Boucher in her bedroom with GarageBand.  The title is appropriate as the record is all layers of synth, electronic beats, and vocal effects working together to achieve kind of a spiritual ambience.  Many of the vocals are not all that intelligible and Boucher's voice becomes just another instrument in the mix.  It's easy to imagine several of the songs scoring the dream sequence in a film -- a 1980's cyberpunk film.  The attention to detail on all of the tracks is impressive and really exemplifies what a lone artist can achieve.

"Genesis" is an example of one of those songs on which most of the lyrics sound like they're just a bunch of syllables that Boucher chants along to the beat in her pixie-like voice.  Single "Oblivion" is probably the most accessible song on the record, making it probably the most accessible that Grimes has produced to date.  That Cylon voice you may remember from the original Battlestar Galactica begins "Eight," a short track that also includes an altered, super-high register version of Boucher's voice. "Be a Body" is the clubbiest track on the album (and that's coming from someone who's been to a club maybe once, in college) and owes a bit to early Madonna.  "Skin" eases along on kind of a Bossa Nova beat with some more Minnie Riperton-style vocals.

In all, Visions really isn't my thing, but I think it does show a dedicated artist and I'm sure I'll embarrass myself plenty when I get caught mimicking the vocal on "Genesis."  As a neighbor of mine once said, "There is no right way, no pure way, of doing. There is just doing."  So don't dismiss this just because it's all bleeps and bloops.

It's pretty good music to run to, anyway.

Spotify

Covers Playlist

Have I mentioned that I love cover songs?  Well, I do.  Here's a Spotify covers playlist I've been maintaining.  Some of my favorites aren't available on Spotify, like Chromatics' "Into the Black," but there's still quite a bit there.

I've loved some of these for a while.  Friends introduced me to others.  Still others were turned up doing one of my "xxxband covers" searches.  Yes, I do those.

This can also serve as an experiment at using the new player Spotify recently came out with in their effort to achieve complete Internet music domination.  I'm pretty sure it's only going to work if you've got Spotify installed.  If you're on a smartphone, you may need the premium ($) app.  Just testing this here.  Not shilling for Spotify.  So enjoy if you're able.

Free Cloud Nothings

Live at the Grog Shop, Free Download

Cloud Nothings, whose Attack on Memory is one of my favorite albums of the year, have made available for free download five, live tracks from their April appearance at the Grog Shop in their hometown of Cleveland.

For the price of an email, you can have live versions of Attack on Memory cuts "Stay Useless,""Fall In/Separation,""Wasted Days," "No Sentiment," and "Can't Stay Awake" from 2010's Turning On.

Once a solo project by frontman Dylan Baldi, Cloud Nothings have since gone full band as they've toured more.  Based on this set, they're sounding pretty good.  Grab the songs below.

Running

I Went Running 

When CoolMom and I lived in Seattle, she spent one summer working in DC at the World Bank while I stayed home, played Wiffle Ball, and didn’t work on my dissertation.  I also ran quite a bit.  I’d run from our apartment up a hill to Volunteer Park where I’d do a few loops and then come back, or I’d run along this nice, paved jogging path near the university.  Dropped quite a bit of weight that summer.

I stopped running with any degree of regularity for several years after that, and then picked it up again right after the birth of CoolDaughter #1.  It was kind of my excuse for getting out of the house, since CoolMom never argued when I said I was doing something for my health.

Just this week, a friend of mine called my attention, via Facebook, to this article on whether or not music helps you run faster.  A short string of comments followed in which people discussed not so much the speed benefits of music while running, but whether they ran with music at all.  I waffled a bit, saying I didn’t need it outdoors, but that it was required on the treadmill.  I’m revising that here.  I run with music about 99% of the time.

I’ve never gotten to the point where running is a joy for me.  I don’t get any kind of a runner’s high.  I pretty much follow the same two or three routes, so the scenery is old hat for me now.  It takes me a good hour between telling myself I’m going for a run and actually getting up and going.  Today, for example, I got dressed for a run, and then ate lunch.

What running is for me, though, is a chance to listen to music for a solid thirty minutes to an hour without the phone ringing or emails beeping at me or someone yelling at me to turn it down.  I almost always listen to an album while I run, and choosing just the right one can take a while.  During my lunch today, I scrolled through the albums on my iPhone for a good ten minutes before coming up with just the right thing.  After a not-that-enjoyable work week, it was a decision among Fucked Up, Screaming Females, and The Men.  The Men won this round, and they did help knock out the cobwebs.  I'm sure they also sped me along at points.

That's all a long-winded way of saying that I had a bit of writer's block today, so I went for a run, listened to Open Your Heart; and it felt good.

Here's "Candy" from Open Your Heart.

And, since it's Friday Night,

Rock on...

Perfume Genius

"Dark Parts" Video

Over at the Matador Records blog they've posted the second video from Perfume Genius's great record, Put Your Back N 2 It.  The video features puppies, campfire dancing, and Perfume Genius's (Mike Hadreas's) mom.  "Dark Parts" is extremely reminiscent of some of Sufjan Stevens less over-the-top stuff, and the song, the video, the entire album are all pretty moving.

Grimes

"Genesis" on Later... with Jools Holland 

Over the last few years, one of the main reasons I find myself going to YouTube is to see the late-night TV performances by some of the acts that really interest me.  Even if the performances aren't available on YouTube, you can usually go to Hulu or to the show's site directly and just cherry-pick the ones you like, avoiding the monologues, the forced comedy bits, the movie sales pitches, and (most of) the commercials.  One of the best things, though, is that you get to see performances from shows that we don't even get here in the States like the great Later... with Jools Holland (Apparently, the Ovation channel broadcasts Jools in the States, but I'm not even sure I get that channel).

Later... has this great format that includes multiple bands playing songs to each other for most of the show.  Most of the time, the bands are all set up on the same stage and just take their turn after being introduced by Jools.  Last night's lineup included Jack White, Alabama Shakes, and Grimes.  Both Jack White and Alabama Shakes fall well into my musical comfort zone.  Recently, though, I bought Grimes's latest album Visions with the idea of reviewing something that, for me anyway, is kind of out there.  I'll hold back my opinion until I get the review up here, but here's Claire Boucher's performance from last night.  What do you think?

Allo, Darlin'

Europe, Full Album Stream 

Just in time for the start of their U.S. tour, popsters and subject of the latest Sunday Run Album Review, Allo, Darlin', are streaming Europe via Soundcloud.  The album, currently available in digital form, doesn't come out physically in the U.S. until May 1st, but you can listen to the whole thing right now.
 

Record Store Day Postscript

In Pursuit of Flexi Discs

That was fun, I guess. 

The swim carpool has gotten, overall, much more complicated in recent weeks.  Texts fly back and forth all day.  Sometimes, two different people show up to pick up CoolDaughter #1 for practice.  The bottom line, though, is that I almost never have to drive to swimming anymore.  So Saturday morning I had time to head over to Jack’s Music Shoppe by nine for Record Store Day.

I was after two things, mainly.  I got one, the “KROKODIL” single by St. Vincent.  It’s a red seven-inch, and it’s a great, hard rock track.  Jack’s, though, never got a copy of the Domino Records Smugglers Way flexi-zine, a twenty-four page magazine of sorts containing five, different colored flexi discs by the likes of Dirty Projectors and New Jersey’s Real Estate.  Flexi discs are really horrible sounding singles pressed onto thin, flexible vinyl that you can play on a turntable.  They used to be given out as promotional items on the backs of cereal boxes or as pages in magazines.

I’m not really a record collector.  I’m a married, suburban dad with a couple of kids and a corporate job, but this multi-colored, flexi thing just sounded great to me.  I can be a little bit obsessive sometimes, and I spent the next couple of days trying to get a copy on eBay.  I learned a bit about the power of marketing and group psychology during my pursuit.

Smugglers Way retailed, I think, for around twenty dollars, maybe less.  A few copies showed up on eBay by late Saturday morning.  I put in some bids, going up to around forty-five dollars once or twice.  The things sold for over a hundred bucks.  It's cool, but it's not that cool.  I gave up on ever owning this little magazine containing five, square, flexible, previously unreleased singles in blue, red, green, orange, and yellow.

Then, this afternoon, I peeked at eBay again.  A few more copies had appeared for sale, and I put in a few bids.  As of five-thirty today, I am the proud owner of Domino’s Smugglers Way flexi-zine -- for twenty-four dollars and nineteen cents.  I was lucky, but the market has definitely shifted as the Record Store Day 2012 frenzy has subsided.  Monday’s going rate seems to be around thirty dollars.

I’m not sure that the eBay price normalization on something like Smugglers Way really says that the level of interest generated by the marketing build-up and the limited releases of Record Store Day was just a weekend phenomenon.  Though, I wouldn’t have that much trouble believing that the “Hey, Record Store Day is every day” crowd are the only ones that will be paying any real attention to record stores until it all starts up again next year.

Like I said at the beginning, for me, it was fun, and I buy music almost every week of the year.  Sometimes I even buy it from a record store.  I could really see myself getting into collecting these flexi discs, too.

One last bit: I also, impulsively, bought Wilco’s The Whole Love box set.  That netted me a second copy of their Black Friday Record Store Day release of the Speak Into The Rose EP.  It comes on red, translucent vinyl, and I may do some kind of contest where the winner will get my extra copy.  Stay tuned.

Allo, Darlin', Europe, 2012

Sunday Run Album Review 

It’s funny.  I think my music listening goes in cycles. I’m not sure if it’s related to mood.  Have I really found myself mellowing as I’ve focused less on pop-punk and hard rock and more on plain, old pop?  I don’t think so.  I think it’s kind of a viral, six degrees of separation thing.  For example, Patrick Stickles of Titus Andronicus is a big fan of Fucked Up.  Fucked Up’s “Queen of Hearts” features Cults’ Madeline Follin on vocals.  Cults are one of a crop of enjoyable, new pop bands.  Another of those is Hospitality with their kind of tweeish, brit-poppy sound.  Allo, Darlin’ is a pop group based in Britain.

According to the series of ominous sounding text messages I’ve received from the New Jersey State Police over the last few days, we’re in the midst of a Nor’easter, so if I ever do go for a run today, I’ll be leaving the iPhone behind.  Instead, I’ve spent a boring, rainy Sunday hanging mirrors and listening to Allo, Darlin’'s Europe.

Allo, Darlin’ is the vehicle for Australian singer-songwriter Elizabeth Morris’s well-crafted pop compositions.  Morris doesn’t lose her Aussie accent when singing like so many other singers, and that’s an important component of Allo, Darlin’'s overall sound.  Other band members, Brits Michael Collins and Paul Rains, and Australian Bill Botting, do an excellent job of bringing to life Morris's songs about life on a new continent.

“Capricornia’s” twelve-string riffs harken back to Fables of the Reconstruction-era Peter Buck.  “Some People Say,” contains a line about wishing on satellites that made this Billy Bragg fan smirk.  In fact, much of the album is reminiscent of some of Bragg’s less political songs like “The Saturday Boy” and “St. Swithin’s Day” in overall atmosphere.  “Tallulah” is just Morris on ukulele, singing to someone she left behind in Australia about their times together and her new life in England.  Europe’s songs are all draped in ukulele, twelve-string, and lap steel and are a nice fit with a lazy Sunday.

Europe is available digitally now in all the usual places.  The album comes out physically, on Slumberland, in May, and if your own musical journey has somehow brought you to the singer-songwriter driven pop stage, then it's worth checking out.

Everything Dies... Edition

Friday Night

Rock on, Levon...

Friday Afternoon

20th Anniversary Edition 

Make-up post for missing last week.

Slanted and Enchanted, April 20th, 1992

Head home early and

Rock on...

Record Store Day Ramblings

Record Store Day 2012 

So tomorrow is Record Store Day.  I’ll be at Jack’s Music Shoppe in Red Bank checking out what’s on offer.  I hope to score the St.Vincent 7-inch and, maybe, the “Rocky Ground” single from Bruce.

I’ve always kept my old vinyl albums, and a year or so ago, I even bought a new turntable so I could listen to them.

Funny story:  during our recent home renovation, the young man doing the new A/V setup wanted to test the turntable as he had just hooked it up to the system. 

“Do you have one of those black things, so I can test this?”

“Black things?”

“Yeah.”

 “A record?”

 “Yeah, one of those.”

Kids.

Anyway, as I went through my music collection then, I was struck by the gaping hole that represented all of the cassettes I had purchased and, I guess, discarded in my teens.  Vinyl, CD’s, and digital files obviously blow cassettes out of the water as a medium; and I have no desire to go out and get a cassette player so I can play old tapes.

I haven’t kept and I don’t go out and buy records because of some belief in their superior audio quality, though.  I’m pretty certain that lossless digital audio, either in CD or file form, is a more accurate representation of the original recording than what’s captured on vinyl.  People have their preferences over what sounds “warmer,” or “fuller,” or “more present,” or any other relatively meaningless description, and that’s fantastic, but I think the science is on the side of lossless digital.

I keep my records and I continue to buy music on vinyl when I can because it’s just so much cooler than a CD or a bunch of files.  Several things make that true for me.  The album artwork is nice and big, and there may even be some on the back.  You get a sleeve with liner notes and maybe lyrics on it.  I know you can get those things with CD’s and files, but the artwork isn’t as big or you’ve got to print out some digital booklet.  Sometimes, the vinyl record itself comes in cool colors or with pictures on it.  On top of all that, nine times out of ten, you now get a digital download with the record, so you don’t even need a turntable to get the cool stuff and listen to the music.  The one time recently that I bought an album that, for legal reasons, didn’t come with a download, I emailed the band and they just sent me the files, no questions asked.  I really do think it’s that digital download thing that has kept vinyl alive, and not the marketing blitz around Record Store Day a couple of times per year.

For those reasons, and because I like going to the record store for similar reasons involving stuff that I think is cool, and because, as a cooldad, I still prefer to purchase whole albums, I’ll be out shopping tomorrow.

Maybe I’ll see you.  Happy hunting.

Here’s a report on Record Store Day from CBS This Morning.  I find it interesting and aggravating at the same time.

Little Silver

Dress Up Covers EP 

I love cover songs.  I used to think I just liked hearing my favorite artists perform songs I knew.  But more and more, I think there's just something special that happens when an artist chooses to interpret someone else's song.  That theory is given weight by this EP from Brooklyn husband and wife duo Little Silver as I had heard the original of only one of the selections, The Cure's "Pictures of You," prior to listening to the collection.  Little Silver are Erika Simonian and Steve Curtis.

Each of the songs gets, in the words of the duo's website, "an honest barebones LS treatment," and does achieve something special.  Most of the tracks include just Simonian and Curtis singing and playing their guitars.  The lone exception is a full band cover of The Speedies' "Let Me Take Your Photo," which probably represents the biggest departure from the original.  As with all good covers, the fact that Little Silver are fans of these songs comes across clearly in the performances.

Full disclosure:  Little Silver take their name from the town where I currently live, and Erika and I both grew up here and are old friends.

So don't take my word for it.  You can listen to Dress Up yourself for free and then purchase it directly from the band at their website.

A Night In The Borough Of My Birth

Eleanor Friedberger / Hospitality at the Bell House, Brooklyn, NY, April 18, 2012 

I’d had these tickets since February, I think.  It isn’t always easy, even for coolparents, to get a sitter in the middle of the week; and CoolMom gets up extremely early for her commute in the morning.  So this wasn’t going to be a date night.  Instead, after I finished up my evening’s carpooling duties, I headed into Brooklyn on my own.

The Bell House is a great place to see a show if you don’t mind standing.  CoolMom and I had a great experience seeing The National there a couple of years ago.  The performance space holds only a few hundred people.  The sound is pretty good, and they have a great selection of beers.  As a member of the bridge and tunnel crowd, I also think it’s great that there is ample free, street parking near the venue.  I waited to enter behind a line of people getting their ID’s checked at the door, then the doorman just waved me through without even asking me for mine.  This happened despite my having gone to the trouble of wearing my dark-rimmed glasses, WFMU T-shirt, and Puma Suedes.

I arrived a few minutes before the nine o’clock scheduled show time and had no problem finding a decent spot in front of the stage.  I was standing among a group of about four people with big, digital SLR cameras.  Their conversation consisted of asking each other “Who are you taking pictures for?” and answering with the name of the music blog that had sent them to the show.  You, though, get my grainy iPhone shots and reviews written without any notes.

Hospitality walked onto the stage a little after nine and started right in with “Sleepover,” from their excellent, self-titled debut.  They followed that with almost every song from the album in addition to one or two that I hadn’t heard before.  Lead vocalist and principal songwriter, Amber Papini, looked a bit nervous, but that didn’t hinder her performance.  She conjures images of New York with her lyrics, and her unique voice came across just as well live as it does on recordings.  The rest of the band did a great job providing the atmosphere for those lyrics.  After the set, I was already happy I’d made the trip.

Eleanor Friedberger took the stage with her band at around ten.  It was evident that things would sound quite different from last year’s Last Summer given the composition of her band:  guitars, bass, drums, no keyboards.  “My Mistakes” was easily one of my favorite songs from last year.  The album version goes for kind of a Haircut 100 vibe with keyboards and a closing sax solo.  Last night’s version, like much of the set, was great with its new rock, almost alt-country arrangement.  Friedberger sings in an almost spoken-word fashion, but she has a very good voice.  Her voice and the new arrangements had me thinking a bit about Neko Case, especially on “Scenes from Bensonhurst.”

The New York theme, initiated by Hospitality, continued during Friedberger’s set.  Like Hospitality, Last Summer, with one exception, is all images of New York – Brooklyn, mostly.  Friedberger introduced that exception, “Inn of the Seventh Ray,” as having been written about her least favorite city.

In all, it was a great bill.  Hospitality hewed closely to the sound, achieved on their album, that’s garnered them praise.  Eleanor Friedberger gave the crowd a totally different, fresh take on her songs.

Glad I sucked it up and drove in for the show.  It beat sitting on the couch watching the Yankees lose to the Twins.

New CoolDad Music Mascot

And I Shall Call Him Little J

Got my J Mascis "Throbblehead" from the good folks at Aggronautix  today.  Couldn't be more excited.  I will place him on top of my amp and he can be my guitar spirit guide, always monitoring my progress.

Here's "Is It Done" from J's 2011, all-acoustic Several Shades of Why. 

Levon Helm

"In the final stages of his battle with cancer" 

Earlier this month, Levon Helm canceled a date at Montclair's Wellmont Theatre.

His family released this statement earlier today:


"Dear Friends,
Levon is in the final stages of his battle with cancer. Please send your prayers and love to him as he makes his way through this part of his journey.

Thank you fans and music lovers who have made his life so filled with joy and celebration... he has loved nothing more than to play, to fill the room up with music, lay down the back beat, and make the people dance! He did it every time he took the stage...

We appreciate all the love and support and concern.
From his daughter Amy, and wife Sandy"

Now, I'm not going to pretend that I'm some kind of student of The Band, but Helm's vocals on "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," "Up On Cripple Creek," "Ophelia," and "The Weight" are what made those songs so great.  As the only true Southerner in a band that drew so heavily on the American South for its sound, he was a huge part of one of rock's most influential bands.

Though I may have never heard some of The Band's or Helm's own deepest cuts, I've heard Wilco, Blitzen Trapper, Deer Tick, REM, Arcade Fire, The Decemberists, Drive-By Truckers, The Hold Steady, and countless others.

So have a drink for Levon Helm tonight and wish him safe travels.

P.S., If you're on Spotify, Rolling Stone has put up a playlist of some of Helm's best performances, including his excellent cover of "Atlantic City."

Update 4/19:  Levon Helm passed away this afternoon.

Craig Finn

2012 Esquire Songwriting Challenge:  "Respective Coasts"

One of my favorite lyricists / talk singers, Craig Finn, has contributed a song called "Respective Coasts" to the 2012 Esquire Songwriting Challenge.  It's vintage Finn and, like his recent solo efforts, is pretty pared down when compared to The Hold Steady.  I've always loved Finn's work, and I've always been surprised at how the Catholic Rock flavor of his songs has appealed to me.  You can take the boy out of the church, I guess...

Finn's first solo album, Clear Heart Full Eyes, came out earlier this year and is worth a listen.

You can purchase "Respective Coasts," along with the rest of the EP, over at iTunes and raise money for Big Brothers Big Sisters.

The Esquire link features a promo video and some photos by Toms River, NJ photographer / director, Danny Clinch, who also took these shots.

(via @steadycraig)

Alabama Shakes, Boys & Girls, 2012

Sunday Run Album Review

Nothing really compares to seeing a band play live.  Sometimes you discover something great by arriving early enough to catch the openers.  Other times, you get close enough to one of your heroes to shake his hand.  Even if the band isn’t that great, though, the passion with which they play and the emotion of the crowd can be enough to make the experience a great one.

As I jogged around the neighborhood today with Alabama Shakes, I kept thinking about how great it must be to see them live.  Based on Boys & Girls, I’ll run out to catch Alabama Shakes the first chance I get, but I’m not sure that’s exactly what you should be thinking when listening to a studio album.

Don’t get me wrong.  I really enjoyed Boys & Girls, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that the energy of this band doesn’t want to be bottled up in album form.  Absent the crowd and without that feeling of the bass thumping you in the chest, Alabama Shakes sound almost like a really, really good cover or tribute band.

Their sound fits pretty squarely into Woodstock-era rock, and they do it well.  Janis Joplin, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Rolling Stones, and Motown are all obvious influences.  Lead vocalist Brittany Howard pours her heart and soul into her performance, and the rest of the band does a great job of keeping a familiar sound alive.  That sound, at times though, can seem almost too familiar.

Single “Hold On,” which earned Alabama Shakes some buzz, is one of the best songs of the year.  Other standouts include the soulful tracks “You Ain’t Alone” and “I Ain’t the Same.”

The lyric that really sums up Alabama Shakes comes from “Goin’ to the Party.”  Howard sings, “You’re goin’ to the party / By the end of the night / There’s gonna be dancin’ / There’s gonna be a fight.”  I don’t think Boys & Girls ever really delivers on that feeling, but I have no trouble picturing Alabama Shakes as the band at some pretty wild parties.

St. Vincent

Annie Clark's Full Set from Coachella

The Coachella Festival has been livestreaming all weekend.  Here is the full set from St. Vincent.

Other than a brief guest appearance at the Portlandia Live show in NYC during which she did an ironic cover of Pearl Jam's "Black," I haven't yet gotten a chance to see Annie Clark in person.  She is, absolutely, one of my guitar heroes.

All of her albums -- Marry Me, Actor, and Strange Mercy -- are fantastic, but she's really blown me away whenever I've managed to catch her playing a live set on something like Austin City Limits.  While the albums all contrast the sweetness of her voice and some orchestral arrangements with the darkness of her guitar work, it's during her live performances that she really lets fly with the shredding.

This set also includes a performance of "KROKODIL," a new song St. Vincent will be releasing as a 7" single for Record Store Day 2012.

This doesn't appear to be an official posting, so check it out while it's still up:

Update 4/26:  Above video's been dead for a while.  Here's the official Coachella version of "Cruel."

Titus Andronicus

X-Ray Spex Cover:  "Oh Bondage! Up Yours!"

Over at The NJ Underground, there's a link to Titus Andronicus's contribution to an X-Ray Spex tribute compilation called Rebel on the Underground.  Former TA guitarist and prolific blogger, Amy Klein, takes lead vocals on the New Jersey band's cover of "Oh Bondage! Up Yours!" and does a fine English accent.

Rebel on the Underground is a product of the Klein-founded Permanent Wave "network of feminist artists and activists."

Proceeds from purchases of the compilation go to benefit the Sweet Relief Musicians' Fund.

Cloud Nothings

"Stay Useless" Video

Remember that NYT article about "...everyone already likes what you like?"  Yeah, well, MTV's posted the video for, maybe, my favorite song of the year so far:  "Stay Useless" by Cloud Nothings.  The song is a short burst of a slacker anthem, and the video is a freaky, animated clip.

"Stay Useless" deserves to become a lo-fi, indie, pop-punk classic.

Get More: www.mtvu.com

Yuck

New Single:  "Chew"

One of my favorite records from last year is Yuck's self-titled debut.  They're really students of the late 80's early 90's indie / alternative sound and the album contains examples of songs in the styles of Dinosaur Jr., Yo La Tengo, and Sonic Youth.  For some, this was a drawback.  It made Yuck seem derivative, but I metaphorically wore out my digital copy throughout 2011.

Yuck just posted "Chew" via Twitter.  The song continues the sound of the album with plenty of fuzz, distortion and 90's revivalism.

Music Snobbery

NYT Magazine on the "Old-School Music Snob"

Alexandra Molotkow has a great piece in the April 6th New York Times Magazine on coming to grips with the fact that social media pretty much guarantees that "everyone already likes what you like."  I've struggled with this myself.  Not that I've ever been a trendsetter in my own musical tastes, but the mainstream popularity of bands like Arcade Fire, The Shins, Vampire Weekend, Fucked Up, etc. have sometimes made me feel a little sheepish about admitting how much I like them.  It's an embarrassing personality flaw, but I put it down to human nature.  And while I try to remain independent-minded about what I like, I do often refer to Pitchfork to get a feel for the mindie conventional wisdom on what I'm hearing.

Anyway, check it out.  If you're like me you'll recognize a little bit of yourself.

Screaming Females, Ugly, 2012

Sunday Run Album Review 

For all my supposed open-mindedness when it comes to music, I still love guitar-based rock, and J Mascis is one of my favorite guitar players.  He combines the string bends and multiple guitar solos of classic rock, the agression of hardcore, the loudness and distortion of shoegaze, and the jangle of minde pop in both his work with Dinosaur Jr. and in his solo work.  In an interview with The Guardian last year Mascis cited Screaming Females' guitarist and lead vocalist, Marissa Paternoster, as one of "the guitarists you really must hear."

I felt the same way after seeing New Brunswick, NJ's Screaming Females open for Titus Andronicus back in March.  Both their skill and style impressed me for many of the same reasons that I've always liked Mascis.  I've been listening to Ugly all week, including during a run on the day of its release.  If I can find time between exploring the area around Albuquerque, NM and stuffing my face with food and drink while on vacation with family and friends, I promise I'll take them out for a run with me today.

On Ugly, Screaming Females worked with legendary producer Steve Albini.  Albini produced one of my other favorite albums of 2012, Attack on Memory by Cloud Nothings, along with stone classics like Surfer Rosa, In Utero, and Rid of Me.  The collaboration works well here.

Jarrett Dougherty's drums lead right into Paternoster's guitar on album opener, "It All Means Nothing."  Right away, you can hear the influences of 80's and 90's guitar rock like Dinosaur Jr. and Sleater-Kinney.  Paternoster has a powerful voice and she uses it to sneer and wail her way through the song to great effect.  The rest of the album never feels overlong at its 53 minute running time.  That's due, in large part, to that guitar and that voice.

As much as Paternoster defines the band's sound, the rhythm section of Dougherty and King Mike on bass can't be overlooked, especially on songs like "Red Hand," "Tell Me No," and "Something Ugly."  And as much as the Screaming Females' sound is rooted in punk and hard rock, they still produce some excellent hooks on songs like "Rotten Apple" and "Expire."

Ugly could be a breakout record for this New Jersey band.  It's a hard rocker, filled with blistering guitar solos.  Screaming Females are way better musically than any band calling themselves "punk" has a right to be, and they're fronted by a true rock star.

Here's the hilarious, disturbing, disturbingly hilarious video for "It All Means Nothing."

Land of Enchantment Edition

Friday Night 

Happy spring break.  Happy springtime religious observance.

Rock on...

Exitmusic

Acoustic Performance of "The Hours"

One of the things that kept me from starting a music blog for so long was that I didn't consider myself enough of an expert to really contribute anything to the conversation.  I still feel that way.  One of the great things about this little exercise, though, has been finding things that I otherwise would have missed.

When I first set up the site, I created a Twitter account and started following bands, blogs, and record companies in an effort to keep up with all the new stuff that's going on in the world of mindie.  I quickly ran into a few problems:

1. I'm just one person with a day job and it would be impossible for me to keep up with everything.  Until I get an intern or a staff (Joking.  That will never happen.), there's a significant limit on the amount of stuff I'm able to track. 
2. It would get pretty boring pretty quickly if I just recycled all the links that I see recycled in my own timeline all day.  Like today: do I really need to write a post about the fact that My Bloody Valentine may be recording a new album when every other professionally-staffed music blog on the planet has already picked up on Pitchfork's story?
3. I like what I like.  Trying to be open-minded is great and all, but there are just some things that will never do it for me.  It would feel phony to post some "exciting news" about something that doesn't really interest me.

All that said, the flood of information to which I've been subjecting myself has borne some fruit.  Exitmusic are a duo -- Aleksa Palladano and Devon Church -- on the Secretly Canadian label.  I've seen them going by in my timeline for days now and I finally had to hear them for myself.  Simply put, they're good.

The three singles I've heard so far combine Palladano's voice with throbbing instrumentation that often starts simple and builds to achieve a really satisfying darkness.  "Passage" immediately reminded me of the feeling I get listening The Antlers' Hospice.

"The Hours" gets an acoustic treatment here, showing that the duo can achieve the same overall feeling without any studio effects.

Dive

"Geist" 7-Inch

Brooklyn-based, Beach Fossils offshoot, Dive, released a 7-inch this week called "Geist" via Captured Tracks.

I'm loving the atmospheric, shoegaze-y sound of this one, and I'll keep an eye out for the upcoming LP.

The Father Of Loud

Dr. Jim Marshall OBE, Creator of the Marshall Amp, Dead at 88

Jim Marshall helped define rock music both sonically and visually.  When, at the request of Pete Townshend and Ritchie Blackmore, he created an affordable amplifier to compete with the popular American amplifiers of the late 1950's and early 1960's, the "Marshall Stack" and the British sound was born.

Marshall's contribution to rock 'n roll cannot be exaggerated, so have a drink for him tonight.

Billy Bragg

Billy Bragg Coming to America

His website is currently buckling under the strain as U.S. fans rush to see if his upcoming tour will hit their city, but Billy Bragg is coming to the States.  He'll be at City Winery in New York on July 13th.

The tour coincides with the upcoming release of the Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions box set, covering the work that Bragg and Wilco did setting a group of Woody Guthrie-penned songs to music, later this month.  That set will include remastered versions of the first two Mermaid Avenue albums plus 17 previously unreleased tracks.

According to his Twitter feed, Bragg's concerts will feature a set of Mermaid Avenue songs, followed by a set of Bragg's own work.

CoolMom and I caught Billy during his last stop at City Winery, and I hope we can make it in July.

Bruce Springsteen at the Izod Center

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band at the Izod Center, East Rutherford, NJ, April 3, 2012

The man with the megaphone said, “253!”  We had 503 and 504.  Four hundred people were going to be allowed into the pit, starting with number 253, so we were winners.  CoolDaughter #1 and I high-fived each other, and after waiting for another hour, we were ushered into the arena.

Springsteen’s fans are a nice bunch, and I had fun chatting with a couple that had traveled from Kingston, Ontario just for this show.  Another group, who must have had numbers in the 250’s, had staked out a spot right up against the center of the stage.  Noting CD #1’s age and height, they made some space and let her move in right up front.

Then, the lights went out, and there they were.  I mean, right there.  Bruce and his beat up, old Telecaster were only yards away from us.  The band started off, as they have been for the whole tour so far, with “We Take Care of Our Own,” “Wrecking Ball,” and “Badlands.”

Here’s where I’ll point out that I went to a Yankee playoff game once.  My friend and I had these great seats for some reason, just to the first base side of home plate among the New York glitterati.  The Yankees won that game on a walk-off home run by Bernie Williams in extra innings.  The stadium erupted.  That was nothing.

The one word that keeps coming to my mind to describe the feeling in the pit during those first three songs is “joy.”  I felt it myself as I screamed, “Take your best shot!! Lemme see what you got!!”  And I felt it when CD #1 turned to me, mouth wide open in a silent scream of, “GAAAAAH!”

After the exuberant opening, the show was an emotional roller coaster.  Springsteen has a relationship with his audience, in the pit and beyond, like I’ve never seen in another performer.  He ended “My City of Ruins” with a band roll call, during which he asked, “Are we missing anybody?  Are we MISSING anybody?”  The crowd erupted in cheers, and some tears, for Danny Federici and, of course, Clarence Clemons.  He immediately followed with a raucous version of “So Young and in Love,” during which CD #1 got to sing into his mic.  “GAAAAAH!” again.

At another point, he noted “It’s fun in here, but there’s a lot of hard times out there,” before delivering “Jack of All Trades,” from Wrecking Ball.  It’s a slow, ultimately angry, song that seems overlong on the album.  Last night, the crowd sat and listened, mostly silent, until somewhat chillingly cheering the line, “If I had me a gun, I’d find the bastards and shoot ‘em on sight.”

The crowd was lifted again during a soul music medley of “The Way You Do the Things You Do” and “634-5789.”  During the latter, Springsteen climbed down from the stage and disappeared into the area of the pit to stage left.  One of our new companions assured me, “Don’t worry.  When it gets crazy, we’ve got her covered,” referring to CD #1.  I had no idea what that could mean, but I smiled and gave a thumbs up.  Then Springsteen popped up on a platform at the rear of the section, chugged a fan’s beer,  …and threw himself into the crowd.  He surfed all the way back to the stage, and I helped hoist him back up there.  For a moment, I held Bruce Springsteen -- The Boss -- above my head with my own two hands.

Once Springsteen was back on stage, things became serious again for "American Skin (41 Shots)."  The song which generated so much controversy when performed in New York in the wake of the Amadou Diallo shooting didn't appear to have that effect last night.  Everyone around me sang every word and cheered it at the end.  And Bruce never spoke of what everyone knew had moved him to begin performing the song again on this tour.

CD #1 was a trooper, but she has her limits.  We gave up our spot right in front of the stage for the last part of the show so that we could grab a soda and move to a roomier area of the pit.  From there, we watched “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out” and joined in the minute-long ovation that followed “...and the Big Man joined the band!”  The band stood stoic, hands folded as Springsteen encouraged us to cheer louder.

Last night, obviously, was great.  I had a concert experience I’ll never forget.  I hope I gave CD #1 an experience she’ll never forget.  For all of last night’s great moments, though, the one that will stand out most for me happened before the show even started when I looked over my daughter’s shoulder as she texted my wife from my phone.

“Rocks to be alone with DAD! He is so fun…”

It’s cool to be a cooldad.

Bruuuuuuuuce!!!!

Izod Center. East Rutherford, NJ. Tonight!

Welcome home, Boss.

Remember when this song was so controversial?  That was 11 or 12 years ago.  Still gets me choked up...

Big Day For Jersey Music

Springsteen First Izod Date / Screaming Females Ugly

I've had April 3rd, 2012 circled on the calendar for a while now.

Bruce Springsteen comes back to the Meadowlands for the first of two nights at the Izod Center.  CoolDaughter #1 and I will be there with all of the other general admission riffraff on the floor.

Almost more exciting, though, is tomorrow's release of the latest by New Brunswick's Screaming Females -- the Steve Albini-produced Ugly.  I was floored by the Females' performance at the Stone Pony last month, and the new singles they've released so far have more than lived up to what I saw at that show.

It's gonna be a good day.

The Walkmen

New Single: "Heaven"

Pitchfork posted a live performance of the title track from the upcoming Walkmen album, Heaven, as part of  the Pitchfork.tv "+1" series.  The band's been on a great run lately.  Their last two albums, You and Me and Lisbon, were fantastic.  This isn't a huge departure from either of those, which is a good thing.  As usual, lead singer Hamilton Leithauser gives it his all.  Performance starts at around 3:50.

La Sera, Sees The Light, 2012

Sunday Run Album Review

I was going to do a review of The Shins' Port of Morrow this week.  But then, I figured, there have been plenty of reviews of that record already.  They're all on the money:  the album's great; James Mercer is one of the best pop songwriters alive today; Mercer is The Shins are Mercer, etc.

While I won't do a review of that album here, I did want to acknowledge it this week.  James Mercer is really a mindie godfather.  I'm sure there are those who would argue, but I feel like the entire mindie genre was born the moment Natalie Portman put on those great, big headphones and smiled as she heard "New Slang" for the first time.  Even though Port of Morrow represents the first new Shins material in five years, Mercer's fingerprints are all over today's mindie pop.

With that as the back drop, I went for a run today with New Jersey's "Kickball" Katy Goodman and La Sera.  Sees The Light clocks in perfectly at just over thirty minutes, so there was no wandering the neighborhood this time as I listened to the last few songs.

La Sera is Goodman's side project from her regular band, Vivian Girls.  Where that band is all lo-fi, punk fuzz, La Sera is more polished.  Goodman plays bass in Vivian Girls.  Here, her collaborators Rob Barbato and Dan Allaire handle most of the instrumental duties.  The band's musical chops, combined with Goodman's vocal delivery, make La Sera a very different-sounding project from her day job.

The sound of the record comes closest to 50's/60's girl groups, but the jangly, arpeggiated chords on some of the tracks, like "I'm Alone," have a more 80's feel.  There's also a David Lynchian, B-movie darkness to the sound.  And, yes, I hear some Shins influence in the approach to mid-twentieth century atmosphere that permeates Sees The Light.

There really aren't any outright misses over the course of the short running time of Sees The Light.  Other album standouts include "Please Be My Third Eye," "Break My Heart," and "Drive On."

I mentioned to CoolMom while we listened to Sees The Light last night that, to the extent that there's a Jersey "scene" that's grown up around Titus Andronicus, Real Estate, Ducktails, Vivian Girls, and La Sera, the hallmark of it seems to be an updating of the sounds of rock's past.  Sees The Light plays with a lot of well-worn sounds and subjects, but it does a nice job with them and never strays into pure nostalgia.

Listen to "Break My Heart" here.