Interpol, Turn on the Bright Lights, 2002

Friday Flashback Mini Review

Matador just announced a special Tenth Anniversary Edition of Interpol's debut LP, Turn on the Bright Lights.  I listened to that record almost non-stop following its 2002 release.  Interpol were New York indie darlings back then and even ended up beating out Wilco for the top spot on Pitchfork's 2002 year-end list.  I hadn't listened to Turn on the Bright Lights in a while, so I decided to put it on today and put down some quick thoughts.

There are some strange lyrics on Turn on the Bright Lights.  "NYC" includes the line "The subway, she is a porno.  The pavements, they are a mess."  We get "Sleep tight, grim rite, we have 200 couches where you can...  Sleep tight," etc. on "PDA."  One of my favorite lines opens "Obstacle 2:"  "I'm gonna pull you in close.  Gonna wrap you up tight.  Gonna play with the braids that you came here with tonight."  Those lyrics, though, are part of the whole feel of the album.  There's a distance, a coolness that allows the listener to just go with it when Paul Banks is at his most indecipherable.

Carlos D's pummeling bass, Daniel Kessler's post-punk riffs, and Paul Banks's voice and delivery drew lots of comparisons to Joy Division at the time; but, to me, the sound of Turn on the Bright Lights, while somewhat revivalist, sits firmly in early aughts New York.  Just beneath the exterior of steely calmness and cool lie the emotions of pain and loss, ready to break through at any moment.

Rock on...

Grizzly Bear Premiere New Video

"Yet Again"

Grizzly Bear announced via Twitter today the premiere of their new video for the excellent Shields track, "Yet Again."

Emily Kai Bock, who did the video for Grimes's "Oblivion," directs and does a nice job of capturing the feeling of the beautiful song's freakout ending.

Support Your Local Record Store

If You Can...

The latest Dum Dum Girls EP, End of Daze, came out today.  I headed over to my local, independent record store like a good citizen; and, not unexpectedly, they didn't have it.

Sure, I could have told them to order it whenever I heard the news that this record was coming out, but I didn't.  So now I have to wait.  This is the problem.  You want to be a really cool cooldad and support local businesses and preserve the institution of the independently-run, local record store.  It's really impossible for them (or any business), though, to stock everything that everyone may want at any particular time.  Yeah, they can order it for you; but really, at that point, don't you just say, "I can do that myself?"

So, I'll head over to Sub-Pop or Insound and order myself a copy online (my laziness also caused me to miss out on the limited-run, clear vinyl "Loser Edition") and ponder the plight of brick and mortar businesses.

In the meantime, I will put this video on endless repeat; and Dee Dee's voice will make the waiting less painful.

The Fresh & Onlys, Long Slow Dance, 2012

Sunday Run Album Review

I was born in 1970.  While I do remember some flashes of my first five years in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn -- the general layout of my family's apartment, helping my father pick out his 1969 Dodge Dart, my parents bringing my new brother home from the hospital -- I don't remember much before about 1975, the year we moved to New Jersey.  As much as I'd like to say that I was right there for the birth of New Wave in the mid 70s, I think I was a bit more concerned with learning to ride a bike and with somehow turning myself into a Yankee fan as some sort of pre-teen rebellion against my familiy's National League bias.  As the mid 70s turned into the late 70s and early 80s, I probably started thinking about girls.

Terms like "new wave," "post punk," even "punk" probably have their own specific meanings in an academic, musical criticism sense.  To me, like "psychedelic," they only have meaning in terms of the sounds they call up in my head.  "New wave" is mid 70s / early 80s Cars, Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, The Knack, etc.  PunkISH, I guess.  But also much more concerned with musicality and poppiness.  That's what I kept thinking about as I (finally) ran through the neighborhood yesterday listening to Long Slow Dance, the latest from San Francisco's The Fresh & Onlys.

Long Slow Dance is the band's fourth LP, and it's my first encounter with them.  There's an unmistakable "new-waviness" to the entire album.  "Fire Alarm" and "Euphoria" are the straight-ahead, early MTV, new wave tracks.  New wave combines, though, with a western or country sound on several songs.  On songs like opener "20 Days and 20 Nights," the title track, "Presence of Mind," and "Dream Girls," the Ennio Morricone-sounding guitar leads combine with the rhythm to provide an expansiveness that works really nicely with the romantic, lovelorn lyrics.  Tim Cohen sings with a sense of pleading and desperation as he warns us all about the dangers of love.

The vinyl version of Long Slow Dance is available as a limited-edition, clear LP (Mexican Summer).  That's the version I have.  It's appropriate as there's a "glassiness" to the album's production, as if it were all recorded inside a giant snow globe with the sounds bouncing and echoing everywhere.

I worry sometimes that so much of mindie, and pop in general, derives its sound from an earlier time.  It's hard to fault a band like The Fresh & Onlys, though, when they produce an album like Long Slow Dance.  Sure, there are definite retro aspects to the sounds and themes.  But part of what makes popular music popular is that it's able to grab something inside of you and take you someplace.  It's really effective if it can do that without being corny or clichéd.  As I plodded along past my old grade school yesterday, I couldn't help thinking about sitting in the backseat of one of my parents' Darts (we had a Swinger, too), wondering why some girl in my fourth-grade class never looked at me.

Happy Birthday, Boss

"Thundercrack"

He's gotta be about 24 years old here.  I love this song and this performance.  Danny.  Clarence.  Stretch socks.

Get Yours? Edition

Phone Frenzy Friday

I'm still happily plugging away on Android, and my corporate overlords just provided me with a little Windows phone to replace my dead Blackberry.

I hope everybody else got what they wanted today.

Rock on...

Dinosaur Jr., I Bet on Sky, 2012

Gotta Get Off My A$# and Run Album Review

Sometimes, as you get older, you get restless.  You want to try new things.  If what you're doing now isn't something you love or are passionate about, the rut and the sameness of it all can become too much.  That's when people start exploring career changes and other experiences that can provide some fulfillment.

But there are a lucky few that find their niche.  They become good at what they do.  So good, in fact, that they have perfected the way they do it.  I think of Mariano Rivera throwing the same pitch, time after time, and still baffling opposing hitters.  Dinosaur Jr. have become like that.  They have their thing.  They've perfected it.  They're into a phase now where they do it over and over again.  And it's good.

I Bet on Sky is Dinosaur Jr.'s tenth studio album, the third following a decade-long break and featuring the reunited original line-up of J Mascis, Lou Barlow, and Murph.  While it may have slightly more general appeal than its predecessors, Beyond and Farm, it is still a Dinosaur Jr. record.  That means Mascis's almost mumbled, drawling vocals and ferocious guitar soloing.  That means that you can always predict the places where the music will swell to a wave of noise as a song builds to the chorus.

The themes haven't changed much either.  Loneliness is probably the overriding theme of almost all Dinosaur Jr. songs, and the collection on I Bet on Sky is no exception.  Whether or not the word "alone" comes up explicitly in any given song, as it does on single "Watch the Corners," that feeling of being an outsider looking in is usually there.  Even more upbeat-sounding tracks like "Almost Fare" and "I Know It Oh So Well" include lyrics like "Now, there she is. / What should I do? / What should I give?" or "I got home again. I watched you float away..."  You can almost imagine a young J Mascis at home, alone in his room, with his collection of 1970's classic rock, 1980's hardcore, post-punk, and country records spread out on the floor with something spinning on the turntable, volume set to 11.

I Bet on Sky, like Beyond and Farm, also includes two contributions from Lou Barlow, "Rude" and "Recognition."  These are nice to hear, especially since I've recently reacquainted myself with Barlow's songwriting through his non-Dinosaur Jr. Sentridoh and Sebadoh projects.  Both are bouncier indie pop.  They feature Barlow's much more conventionally "good" voice along with the embellishments of the big Dinosaur Jr. sound and some Mascis soloing.

I guess not everything has stayed exactly the same.  Dinosaur Jr. are sounding ever so slightly more commercial than they have in a while, kind of like they did on (the Barlow-less) classics Green Mind and Where You Been?  One or two of the songs may actually be kind of funky sounding.  Really, what we've got here, though, is a band doing what it's always done and doing it well.  It really takes a special talent to throw just one pitch and remain so dangerous.  Dinosaur Jr. definitely have it.

Titus Andronicus Single, Album Cover

"In a Big City"

Remember those things I said in my review of River City Extension's excellent Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Your Anger?  Those things about the forces influencing much of the music and many of the bands from New Jersey?

Well, Titus Andronicus have made available the first single from their upcoming Local Business via a lyrics video at their tumblr.  As promised, it's a straight-ahead rock and roll track.  It also chronicles the attempts of someone who "...grew up on one side of the river" to make something of himself by moving to the other side.  It's nice to see one of the teased "brief respites from the usual doom and gloom" in Patrick Stickles's admission that "...some of my dreams are coming true."

The band have also revealed the cover artwork and some pre-order details.  Local Business comes out on XL Recordings on October 23rd.

Video for "Cherokee"

Chan Marshall-Directed Video from Sun

Cat Power, a.k.a. Chan Marshall, maintains a very interesting and active Twitter account.  It was there that she announced the completion of her new album, and it was there that she posted several behind the scenes shots and insights during the making of the video for Sun's opening track, "Cherokee."

Well, the video is finished.  A newly-blonde Chan Marshall directed it, and it takes place in a post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested desert.

1992 Edition

Flashback Friday

1992 has been on my mind lately.  I think the release of Bob Mould's Silver Age along with the re-issue of his classic album with Sugar, Copper Blue, has just started me thinking about what was going on 20 years ago.

It was a big year for me.  I graduated from NYU and met CoolMom.  I started my first full-time, grown-up job and got my first solo apartment in Hoboken, NJ.

For this Friday, therefore, I've put together a Spotify playlist covering some of the music from 1992.  Technically, some of the singles on the list probably came out in 1991; but they're all from 1992 albums.

Rock on...

Django Django, Django Django, 2012

Wednesday Run Album Review

Psychedelic.  Like "dream pop," which I'm guilty of overusing myself, psychedelic gets thrown around a lot lately.  So much, in fact, that it's becoming kind of hard to know what it means.  I mentioned it in my review of Hair by Ty Segall and White Fence, even throwing in "psych-" as a modifier for "rock" and "punk," probably contributing in my own small way to the confusion.

To me, the term psychedelic immediately brings to mind some of the songs on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band -- specifically, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "A Day in the Life."  I think it's all those Lennon "aaah, aaah, aahh"'s.  And while I know that there are and have been plenty of American psychedelic acts; because of the Beatles association, I always think of it as being a British sound.

Django Django are a London (by way of Edinburgh) quartet whose self-titled, debut full-length contains many elements of both 1960's psychedelia and the genre's 1980's / 1990's revival (Stone Roses?).  The band also add some "math"-y or art-rock elements to achieve a sound that, as I found out upon returning from my lunchtime run with Django Django yesterday, earned them a place on the 2012 Mercury Prize shortlist.

The album opens with three tracks that rely heavily on some 1980's-video-game-sounding electronics and beats.  I'm still trying to figure out if the opening sounds on "Introduction" remind me more of Pac-Man or Centipede.  "Introduction" bleeds right into "Hail Bop," whose brit-pop sound cuts clearly through the synths and effects.  The same can be said of excellent single, "Default."

Not all of the songs, though, rely so heavily on obvious electronic effects.  "Firewater," is much more guitar-centric and has a definite 1960's sound.  The same can be said of "Love's Dart."  Both songs, though, have something a little more programmed and inorganic going on with the rhythms that connects with the overall sound of the album.  The most, relatively speaking, conventional-sounding track on the album is probably "Life's a Beach."  It's got the jangly guitar you'd expect from the title, but it also contains an almost gothic keyboard break leading into some "aaah"'s.

The all-knowing Wikipedia says that, "a psychedelic experience is characterized... ...by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly ordinary fetters."  I don't know about that, but Django Django do attempt to embellish and liberate conventional British pop and take it in some new directions.  Django Django may not be mind-expanding, but it manages to be different from much of today's mainstream indie music while remaining accessible and fun.

Cat Power, Sun, 2012

Tuesday Run Album Review

People change.  Kind of.  They get older.  They have experiences. They begin to get a better sense of their place in the world.  That's the key, I think.  Most people stay the same at their core.  But they learn to relate to the outside world much better as they get older.

Chan Marshall had a reputation for being shy, introverted, even scared.  My own introduction to her music as Cat Power was a song on which she seemed to be saying that she understood why Kurt Cobain committed suicide.  Her early live shows, apparently, were characterized by her constantly apologizing to the audience and suddenly cutting sets short.  Her songs were delivered in her beautifully pained voice over spare arrangements.

Then, on 2006's The Greatest, Marshall teamed with the Memphis Rhythm Band for a set of more upbeat-sounding, if not necessarily more upbeat, songs.  According to this 2006 New York Times piece, Marshall had sobered up and had developed a new, more positive outlook.  This showed in her live shows.

Sun, which came out last week on Matador, finds Marshall looking out from herself, recognizing her place in a universe that doesn't revolve around her, and asking her listeners to do the same.  The spareness of her early work is gone.  The band is gone.  Sun is self-produced, self-performed and includes loops, drum machines, electronic effects, and in some cases *gasp!* Auto-tune.

Marshall chastises herself for "bitchin', complainin' when some people ain't got shit to eat" over a looping keyboard riff on single "Ruin."  She's traveled the world and seen things and gained perspective.  On "Real Life," it turns out that Marshall's met people, too:  a doctor who wants to be a dancer, a teacher who wants to be a dreamer.  But she sings that, "real life is ordinary."  Real life on "Human Being," though, also means using your own voice to sing, using your two hands to build things, and recognizing that there are people getting "shot on their own street."  "Nothin But Time," an eleven-minute track featuring an assist from Iggy Pop on vocals, rolls along with advice for a kid who could just as easily be a younger version of Marshall herself.  "You got nothing but time... ...never give away what you always wanted."

This is all wrapped up in some very un-Cat Power-like music.  In a recent Pitchfork feature, Marshall said that her songs used to be all down-tempo because she felt that she wasn't a particularly good musician.  The electronics, while sure to give pause to some long-time fans, have obviously freed her to pick up the pace while maintaining her usual unorthodox song structures.  And her voice is still there.  That smoky southern drawl comes through and makes all the songs on Sun Cat Power songs.

Cat Power sounds different on Sun because Chan Marshall's changed.  Kind of.  She's still Cat Power, sensitive singer / songwriter.  It's just that now she sounds almost thankful for it.

Wild Nothing, Nocturne, 2012

Sunday Run Album Review

Why do we like certain things and not like other things?  How do you describe how something sounds?  That's what I think about every time I decide to do one of these album reviews.  Music is one of those areas, like politics or sports or religion, where people often speak in absolutes.  "Nickelback is the worst band in the world!"  "Kid A is the greatest album ever recorded."  I try not to do too much of that here.  For better or for worse, I try to latch onto the positive aspects of the things I hear, even if they don't really grab me on the initial listen.  Someone likes most of this stuff, after all.

Sometimes, though, I come across something that I really like and want to review here; but I just can't figure out what I like about it.  Or, more precisely, I can't figure out a way to put into words the reasons I like it.  That's what's been happening with Nocturne by Wild Nothing.  I've been listening to, and enjoying, the record since its release.  I just haven't been able to figure out what to say about it.  I took it for a run today and decided to give it a try.

Wild Nothing is Blacksburg, Virginia's Jack Tatum, and Nocturne is his sophomore full-length.  Like Captured Tracks labelmates, DIIV, Wild Nothing mines the 1980's post-punk sound.  While DIIV tends toward the darker aspects of that sound, though, Wild Nothing follows that sound's evolution to shimmering pop on Nocturne.

The record opens with "Shadow" and its I-feel-like-I've-heard-this-somewhere-before, Cure-inspired riff.  That riff runs through the entire song and sticks in your head long after the first listen.  The title track combines guitars, synths, and vocals into a meticulously produced package in a way similar to what's been so successful for a band like Phoenix.  The jangly guitar that runs through "Only Heather" is a sound I've been in love with for a few years now.  Before I even knew its title, "This Chain Won't Break" reminded me, on some level, of Erasure's "Chains of Love."  It still does.  Though when I compare the songs side-by-side, it's less obvious to me.  Some of that 1980's darkness does show up on tracks "Paradise" and "The Blue Dress."

Maybe it's the way in which Tatum takes these different styles and creates a wonderfully unified album that makes it difficult for me to pinpoint exactly what it is that I find so appealing.  But Nocturne is one of those rare albums that works well both as background music -- there aren't any jarring shifts or songs that don't fit -- and as something that rewards critical listening.

And I've been in a bit of a 1990's mode lately, attending concerts by Sebadoh and Built to Spill and hungrily pre-ordering albums by Bob Mould and Dinosaur Jr.  I know what I like about those bands:  clever songwriting, guitars, loudness, noise, all wrapped up in a poppiness and a sense of time and place.  Nocturne is more subtle than that.  I think it's just taken a while to reconfigure my mind into appreciating a different, but still familiar, sound that takes me to a different time and a different place.

...With Some Indie Record That's Much Cooler Than Mine

"Favorite Songs" Playlist Snub

The original, I mean...

Here's a Vaccines' cover of a song I'd never, ever admit to liking.  Like ever.

Back to My Home Planet Edition

Friday Night

As a left-leaning, native New Jerseyan, it's hard to put into words the culture shock that can come with watching a Dallas Cowboys / New York Giants football game on one set of TV's, while images of the Democratic National Convention play on another set of TV's at a packed-to-the-gills Dallas area bar.

In addition to placing me in a pretty hilarious fish-out-of-water situation, my business trip to Plano, TX made for some light blogging this week.  I promise to make up for it over the weekend.

In the meantime, it's nice to be home.

Rock on...

Real Estate - Suburban Dogs from RichsLaw on Vimeo.

Happy Labor Day

Hope You Enjoyed Your Weekend

I say this every year, and I believe it:  I was able to grow up in an affluent New Jersey suburb, to have my teeth straightened, to go to the doctor when I needed to, to have my dad coach my baseball teams, to take vacations with my whole family, and to earn a degree from a private university not only because my parents worked so hard, but also because my dad was in a union.

Whatever your own opinions, take a minute today and think about all the people who helped build the country.

That Was Wunderbar

Built to Spill at The Wonder Bar, Asbury Park, NJ, September 1st, 2012

When I heard that Built to Spill would be playing at Asbury Park's Wonder Bar, I snapped up a pair of tickets for CoolMom and me.  Like Sebadoh, whom I'd seen about a week ago, the influential Boise band, fronted by Doug Martsch, have been a favorite of mine for a long time.  The quirky lyrics, Martsch's high-pitched vocal delivery, and the band's bright and noisy guitar sound combine to form a package that will hook me every time.  I don't think Built to Spill have hooked as many people as their twenty-year catalog of work would warrant, but that's what allows CoolMom, me, and a bunch of absolutely die-hard fans to see a band this good at a sold-out venue as small as The Wonder Bar.

CoolMom has been under the weather for the last few days, and it saddens me that the end of her summer vacation has been marred by her slight illness.  She was determined to make this show, though, so we headed to Asbury for what was, likely, our last trip down there for the summer.  We enjoyed some burritos on the boardwalk at Pop's Garage and then headed over to The Wonder Bar.

We were early for the show, so we took a seat at the long, winding bar, and enjoyed a few beverages.  I was wearing my Jersey Shore Roller Girls t-shirt; and Kid Kill-O-Watt, injured jammer for the Anchor Assassins, introduced herself to us and told us to make sure to make it to the next bout on September 29th.  Brush with fame.

At around 8:30, RevoltRevolt took the stage.  CoolMom and I really enjoyed their set.  RevoltRevolt's 1990's indie-rock inspired sound evoked Pavement, The Pixies, maybe some Dinosaur Jr.  It took us back to our grad school days in the Pacific Northwest.

Helvetia, a project of former Duster member Jason Albertini, was up next.  Built to Spill's Jim Roth is also a member of Helvetia, so he was in for a long evening of performing.  Another really good set.  Like RevoltRevolt, Helvetia drew on some late 90's sounds; but the Helvetia sound was more experimental, more swirling and atmospheric.

For both openers, the floor of the performance space was only sparsely populated.  At the end of Helvetia's set, though, people began jockeying for position at the front of the stage as Built to Spill prepared for their set.  It would be about an hour before Built to Spill took the stage.  I had a few curmudgeonly moments during that hour as people tried to push and shove their way to a better position, but CoolMom held her ground impressively.

The band came out, tuned up, fiddled with some pedals and launched right into "Traces," "In the Morning," and "Reasons."  The crowd loved it and the whole room was transformed.  On "You Were Right," the entire bar sang and pumped their arms along with, "You were wrong when you said, 'Everything's gonna be alright'" and with each of the famous classic rock lines that Martsch sings throughout the song.  Other classics like "Liar," "Strange," and pre-encore closer, "Carry the Zero," whipped the crowd into a similar frenzy.

I love the styles of all of Built to Spill's three guitarists.  Martsch is one of my guitar heroes.  He's not a shredder by any stretch, but he pours an emotion into his solos that I think is rare in indie rock.  Roth and Brett Netson also take leads, and when all three are playing together, the sounds they achieve are really amazing.

In this Asbury Park Press article from a few days ago, Doug Martsch says, "We don't scream out and call for attention.  We just make music."  That was the band's approach last night.  Other than the "Awww, thank you," after each song, there was almost no stage banter or interaction with the crowd.  There were the usual shouted requests (even "Play 'Freebird'" which just never gets old, does it?); and in such a small room, you could tell that the band heard every one.  But they played the set they came to play.  It didn't matter that they left out some favorites, though, when you looked up at Martsch on the stage, playing guitar with his eyes closed and a little smirk beneath his beard.

Built to Spill didn't need to tell jokes and stories to connect with the room.  They did it throughout their hour and forty-five minute set by just making music the way they have for the last twenty years.  I'm still hooked.

I Never Travel Far Without a Little Big Star...

And It's Here...

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.  Stay in school.