The Fix

Don’t have time to search out this week’s essential MP3s, streams and viral videos? That’s why we’re here.

Devendra Banhart “Don’t Look Back In Anger” (Oasis cover)
Yes, a bunch of new Oasis demos leaked all over the place this week. But just like the band’s last five albums or so, they’re horrible. Luckily, the same isn’t true of this beautifully wobbly cover of the Brit-pop group’s classic “Don’t Look Back In Anger” as reinterpreted by the blessedly cosmic Devendra Banhart.

(via I Guess I’m Floating)

Bart Davenport “Beg Steal Borrow”
Just in time for his new album, this East Bay singer-songwriter’s under-appreciated self-titled release is getting reissued. Luxuriate in this standout cut’s summer-breeze melody and the ex-Loved Ones frontman’s satin-smooth harmonies.
(via Antenna Farm Records)

The Last Shadow Puppets “The Age of Understatement (Acoustic)”
The Arctic Monkey’s frontman’s side project with Miles Kane is so good we kind of wouldn’t mind if Alex Turner never went back to his day job with the leading lights of British guitar rock. Here, the title track of the duo’s sweeping debut album gets the unplugged treatment.
MP3: “The Age of Understatement (Acoustic)”
(via Domino Records)

Shy Child “Astronaut”
With the Killers on a break, why not invest a little time into their slightly more punky keytar-slinging cousins? One listen to this slice of trendy, ’80s inspired mayhem and you’ll understand why Stella McCartney recruited them to soundtrack her line at last year’s Fashion Rocks.
(via Terror Bird)

The Dandy Warhols “The World The People Together (Come On)”
Dumped by Capitol, these Portland rockers have lost none of their pop sheen of affection for unwieldy song titles as they re-enter indiedom. This propulsive preview track from their self-released sixth album, Earth to the Dandy Warhols, has a bit of a Chemical Brothers vibe, which so does not surprise us.
(via Stereogum)

Tokyo Police Club’s debut full-length, Elephant Shell, sits in that purgatory between full of potential and full of crap. I call this zone a purgatory because it is quite possibly the most difficult place to be as a new artist. Unlike being written off as simply shitty, it’s a station that’s sure to garner mixed reviews and bombastic claims in either direction. Unlike being adored, no comparable ego massage comes from being OK. What are you left to do? Twiddle your thumbs?

Let me follow this rather bitchy opening with a disclaimer: Elephant Shell is not a bad album. Their sound is mobile, energetic—guitars bounce eagerly, like superballs, jostling around with speedy drum lines, occasional shouts, bright keyboards. When they’re on, such as in the ambitious “Sixties Remake” or racing “Graves,” the music is positively itching with eager fun, but the jubilation all too often comes off as hollow, put on, make-believe. Lead singer Dave Monks has a voice that squawks more than sings, adding a “quirkiness” to the music that is more aptly described as mildly irritating. The songs, so often orbiting around the same poppy post-punk territory, blur into one another uncomfortably. And here, my friends, is the album’s major flaw: that more than anything, it’s insecure and immature, the musical equivalent of puberty. This is not simply, or even primarily, because the band members themselves are so young. It is largely because they fail to convince the listener that they know who they are–that this identity they’ve tried on now is anything but the flavor of the month, one that will be traded as soon as it proves out of style or, worse, until they get bored.

Given how much this young band has been through in their already short career–blogosphere darlings, whirlwind multinational tours, getting signed to solid independent–Elephant Shell was destined not to simply exist as music, but instead to premiere as event. It’s expected that with so much scrutiny and pressure and expectation, TPC would be undergoing something akin to an identity crisis. But it makes Elephant Shell sound like a mask. I’m still waiting to hear what they really sound like.

On their feverish Water Curses EP, quirky musical entity Animal Collective bring human beings closer to the hidden world of sonic wildlife. With loopy effects and chirpy, insect-like mutterings it’s easy to lose all sense of time and place when listening to this four-song EP. Recorded in the same session as their latest album (the critically acclaimed Strawberry Jam), Water Curses recalls the topsy-turvy unpredictability of 2005’s Feels. On “Street Flash”, echoing vocals and melodic keys meld with samples of a creepily-channeled Wicked Witch of the West maniacal cackle. The result is an arresting song that is both joyful and ominous.

The fluidity of the title track comes across in flittering synth noises–are those bird calls?–that blend together in a cacophony of so-weird-it’s-pleasing aural flourishes. “Cobweb” employs a lazy tribal percussion and cooing call-and-response vocals that exclaim: “I’m not going underground,” perhaps in a cheeky sonic anthropomorphic way, or could it be a subtle statement of artistic modus operandi? The babbling brook sonic motif of “Seal Eyeing” brings the EP full circle. With a calming avant-garde lullaby quality, thanks to a simple trilling piano and vocal “ooohs,” this languid track slowly helps the listener descend back from the netherworld of Animal Collective to more familiar human turf.

My jaded ass does not listen to much new American music. Basically, if there is not a lilt of a British accent in the lyrics, I have no interest. Also, if something is trumpeted as the “next big thing,” I turn my nose up at it like a fluffy white bitchy kitty in a Fancy Feast commercial. Hence, my musical choices seem to be limited–much to the chagrin of my office mates–to a pastiche of old Phil Collins jams, Ella Fitzgerald, and random CD’s that my British cousins send me (The Pigeon Detectives, The Wombats, A Certain Ratio). I am not proud of this heinous character flaw–oh, blasted genetics!

So, imagine my rapture upon a recent trip abroad: I picked up the latest copy of NME (yes, I am a sucker, even when my dollar is worth only 49 cents to one pound) and an American band, Black Kids, was featured next to my dear sweet beloved Ms. Nash and the Kooks. Who were these Black Kids? They looked cool, NME said they were cool, and, best of all, I could not find the Kids’ music ANYWHERE! I wanted to know more. Suddenly I was 12 years old again, on a quest to get to the bottom of this seemingly mysterious group.

After several months of illegally downloading every song I could find online (the only way I could get their tunes, for the longest time, I swear!), including the insanely infectious “I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You,” and “Hurricane Jane,” from their debut demo EP, Wizard of Ahhhs, I finally bought a 12” for $12 from the UK. My pursuit of them left me feeling like a stalker in the bushes outside an apartment complex (minus the binoculars), but I finally had the delight of interviewing one of the Kids, a gem of a drummer, Kevin Snow, as the band made their way through the Grapevine from the Coachella festival to their gig here in SF. The sweet dear–his phone kept cutting off during our chat–but Kevin soldiered on, and persevered through four call-backs to make me swoon for more, more, more KIDS!

Coachella was the Black Kids’ first festival and Kevin described it as “totally surreal and exciting.” When asked what was his favorite tour tchotchke was, he confided that the band took the gold-framed Big Daddy Kane record album in the band’s Coachella dressing room in Indio. I have to say, I did fall a bit in love with his reply.

The band recently returned from the UK, where they worked on their debut full length with British rock icon Bernard Butler of Suede–swoon again! Could this band get any cooler? Oh, yeah, they could! When I told Kev–yes, I am now that down with him–that I loved Morrissey, he told me that the Moz father was supposed to come to one of the band’s UK gigs, but canceled at the last minute (OMG, could I please be your merch girl, Kids?!?!?!).

As his bus rolled towards The Bay, I asked Snow, a native of Jacksonville, Florida, if he had ever been to San Francisco. Yes, back in the late 1990s, when he and the Kids’ lead singer, Reggie Youngblood, had been on a cross-country, broken-down van tour with their old ska band, living on 75 cents a day. In an age when bands seem to break by just throwing a few demos up on MySpace and without doing any real time on the road, these guys have truly, truly earned it–they have literally been at it for ten years.

Watching the Kids perform later on that night at the packed, sweaty San Francisco Mezzanine, I saw what the hype was about. The Kids more than delivered–even as the openers on a three band bill–they completely wowed the jaded San Francisco crowd.

The time spent in their past bands showed in the polished stage performance, as Youngblood led the crowd through the singles, as well as their newer songs. Ali Youngblood and Dawn Watley are probably the most amazing female frontwomen I have had the joy to experience since seeing the Go-Go’s in fifth grade (and if someone at Vidal Sassoon does not snap up that Dawn as an ideal hair model, they are high). These ladies do not rely on stage dramatics/bizarro outfits (like my beloved Karen O, bless you, lady) or choreographed dance routines (Madge, a second bless you) to get through a song; instead, these hotties rock because they were actually having fun. They looked like they had to “Hit the Heartbrake,” (could I love a song anymore? I cannot remember the last time I moshed to a song) themselves. I wanted to go cocktail with these chicks. Even my best friend was getting down–and he historically only likes bands with back up dancers. No pretension, only desperation to connect with the audience at a darkened venue.

Yes, I am a fan, clearly. As a veteran of literally hundreds and hundreds of shows, it means a lot when after a gig people come up to you and say, “I never heard of that band, but now I love them.” That happened after the Kids.

Kevin had told me, “ I can’t believe this is happening to me.” You deserve it, toots.

John “Speedo” Reis, mastermind of San Diego’s Rocket from the Crypt and co-front man of Hot Snakes, has assembled yet another crew of forge-smithed journeymen, herded them into the van and has them on road. The new outfit, The Night Marchers, kicked off a thirteen-date, coast-to-coast, rock-venue luge ride last Friday in Mesa, AZ, and still have stops to make in Seattle, Denver, Chicago, Detroit and the major markets of the North East, in support of their debut release, See You In Magic (Vagrant/Swami), before crossing the pond for a run of UK dates in June.

Drummer Jason Kourkounis, ex- of Delta 72, who also sat behind Reis in Hot Snakes, boasts of the Marchers’ “all Greek rhythm section”, where he teams up with Montreal bassist, Thomas Kitsos. The line-up is rounded out by former Hot Snakes hand Gar Wood, who has traded the bass guitar he played in Snakes’ for one of the six-string variety in this new assembly.

The Night Marchers are considerably more straight-ahead than Hot Snakes, even reminiscent of a stripped down version of Rocket. Magic is a rapid-fire blast of one irresistible head-bobbing hook after another. The tunes on Magic endeavor to affect the end of hammering home these hooks by employing every instrument in the band as a percussion instrument. Guitars are beaten raucously as though by the right hand of a drummer pounding out a call to a battle march on his snare head.

By all reports from the early shows, it sounds as though Reis’ new outfit might well be worth catching if they are coming thorough your patch of weeds.

April 30 - Seattle, WA - Chop Suey
May 2 - Denver, CO - Larimer Lounge
May 3 - Omaha, NE -Waiting Room,
May 4 - Chicago, IL - Shuba’s
May 5 -Detroit, MI - Magic Stick
May 7 -New York, NY - Mercury Lounge
May 8 -Boston, MA - Middle East
May 9 -Philadelpha, PA - Warehouse Show
May 10-Baltimore, MD - Ottobar

It’s been said that time is the great equalizer, and though I haven’t stretched that metaphor to any absurd conclusions yet, it speaks to me regarding the last five or so years in indie pop. Every album I’ve loved, everything that I’ve found to be pushing the boundaries of pop music has seemed to be a variation on a theme. That is to say, to varying degrees, what we’ve heard has been more about reinvention than, well, just plain invention. Though that may be inevitable given the constraints of the medium, maybe I’m not ready to give up hoping that there could be something more worthwhile to get swept up in. Until then, I guess everything old will become new again. Everything new will be a bit like something old. Only time can qualify that theory, I suppose. Is originality in small gradations as important as the standards on which they’re modeled?

The point, however–the application to this needless abstraction–regards how much esteem one heaps upon a piece of art that is independently incisive and focused yet in deliberate debt to something else. In El Perro del Mar’s case, we could start with Phil Spector or Serge Gainsbourg and work our way up to Belle & Sebastian. From the Valley to the Stars–released by The Control Group on April 22–is a lush collection of songs drenched in hauntingly sincere melancholy, like her 2006 debut, Look! It’s El Perro del Mar!; they merit naming Sarah Assbring the most convincing baroque pop songwriter in recent memory. Her brittle, wispy voice, always looming on the verge of collapse; the compositions, restrained and minimal capturing every nuance in her inflection and highlighting emotions that are raw, bitter and self-deceptive. If this is a character Assbring is playing, she does it brilliantly. If it’s genuine heartache, someone needs to send her some flowers or maybe some candy (on a Saturday night, naturally).

It’s fair to say that El Perro Del Mar’s previous record was more immediate, more decisively melodic and a bit more florid than From the Valley to the Stars, but this is hardly a misstep. The austerity of the organ and recorder in “Glory to the World” provides a chilling backdrop to the dense vocals. “Somebody’s Baby” bounces cheerily despite it being a dour ode to a former love and the opposite is true of “Happiness Won Me Over.” Assbring’s voice conjures the weight of a lifetime and resonates as a true ambassador of sadness. I guess harping on to what the music is beholden to is overshooting the limitations of a record review and undermining the strengths of a great contemporary songwriter. It’s records this good that create the pregnant pause that triggers such realizations, though. Regardless of the history of sound or a certain public willingness, From the Valley to the Stars is another brilliant bullet point in Assbring’s career and one that isn’t encumbered by any too-tall shadows.

KIT hails from Oakland, CA–the name stands for “Keep It Together” or perhaps “Kill Interested Traitors,” but you’ll have to ask them if you want to know for sure. Short bursts of action seem to be the group’s M.O.; since their inception, they’ve all but limited themselves to appearances on split vinyl singles with bands like Deerhoof, Wives, and Mirror/Dash, Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon’s side project. Active mainly on the West Coast, theirs is an under-the-radar sound: a blend of no-wave guitar windmillery, chirping female vocals, and storming rhythms, as much a product of the Bay Area’s nascent art/rock/noise scene as it is the enlightened politics and do-it-yourself charm of operations like Kill Rock Stars and K Records. Moreover, KIT has survived two generations of said SF bands, from an early ’00s coterie of acts like Numbers and the Coachwhips to current thrillers like Sic Alps.

KIT’s two offerings on their Fuzz page acutely telegraph the group’s condition. “Tethered Wing” trades broken guitar strings for a panoply of small, cute electronic effects, as vocalist Kristy G shouts missives to the animal in question: “Get away!/Fly away!” The track itself revels in the struggle of this trapped beast via high-velocity drumming and restless energy, crumpling itself into a paper bag and throwing itself away by the time its brief runtime clocks out. “Star Sign” delivers the melody as promised, vacillating between single-note needlings and stuttering beds of thumping percussion for the vocals to ascend. Again, it’s over before you know it (KIT’s reputation as a live act is also one for brevity, understanding the audience’s inability to process such signals for longer than 10 to 15 minutes at a stretch), but still you come back for more.

KIT’s next performance takes place at a “mixtape exchange party” on May 3rd in San Francisco at ArtSF, 110 Capp St. Get your tape decks rolling once again, slap 90 minutes of music together and bring it on down.

Don’t have time to search out this week’s essential MP3s, streams and viral videos? That’s why we’re here.

Lily Allen “I Don’t Know”
The British pop tart gets serious on this leaked demo, contemplating her place in the world over a not-too-solemn synth score: “And I am a weapon of massive consumption/ It’s not my fault, it’s how I’m programmed to function.”

(via Fabulist)

Nine Inch Nails “Discipline”
After getting something like 17 albums of instrumental music out of his system, Trent Reznor returns to making manic electro-noise-pop on this track. The best part is that he’s giving it away for free.
(via Nine Inch Nails)

Scarlett Johansson “Anywhere I Lay My Head”
Produced by TV on the Radio’s David Sitek, featuring cameos by David Bowie and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and comprised entirely of songs written by Tom Waits, actress Scarlett Johannson makes what is possibly the first credible album by an actor. Ever. Here’s a taste.
(via Bring Me Up)

No Age “Eraser”
Sub Pop continues on its quest to sign on all the world’s most interesting bands. This Los Angeles fuzz-rock duo’s stratospheric tune must be the reason why.
(via Pop Head Wound)

Santogold “L.E.S. Artistes”
This week’s totally awesome ’80s throwback comes via Santi White, a sartorially savvy Brooklyn musician that records under the name Santogold. With M.I.A. producer Diplo at her side, she blasts hipsters while simultaneously offering them a wicked future anthem.
(via Captain Obvious)

Vampire Weekend: “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa (Black Dominoes Remix)”
It seems like we weren’t the only ones thinking Vampire Weekend’s take on Paul Simon’s Graceland album would sound a lot better with a twist of random noise and dash of Latin space.
(via Pretty Much Amazing)

Shinichi Osawa: “Star Guitar (ft. Au Revoir Simone)”
The Chemical Brothers’ best song gets a rough-hewn remake and becomes even better. Well, almost.
(via The Yellow Stereo)

Shoegaze fans, rejoice: My Bloody Valentine are coming back to the U.S. for what may be the most proper concert fest: All Tomorrow’s Parties, September 19th-21st, in lovely Monticello, New York, on the grounds of Kutshers Country Club. Can you think of a better place to roll around freaking out listening to looped feedback than a golf course?

If My Bloody Valentine alone aren’t enough to lure you to a weekend in the country (imagine the foliage!), read the rest of lineup, designed to make any indie rock fan who cut their teeth in the ’90s cream their figurative jeans: Shellac (Steve Albini), Mogwai, Polvo, Fuck Buttons, Autolux, the Drones, Low, Wooden Shjips, Edan, and Thee Silver Mount Zion Orchestra are slated to perform sets.

And how many times have you wished you could hear your favorite band play your favorite album in sequence, live? There will be plenty of that, too. Built to Spill will perform Perfect From Now On; Tortoise will re-enact Millions Now Living Will Never Die; the Meat Puppets will thrash out Meat Puppets II; and Thurston Moore will break Psychic Hearts.

Tickets go sale today (April 25) at atpfestival.com.

Even in the initial mania about Clinic, it was hard to tell the genuine from the gimmick. That was back in 2000, when Internal Wrangler spasmed into cult consciousness on quirky punk tautology–cannibalistic and obtuse and amazing–before achieving that bizarre sort of ubiquity that only comes from being in a commercial; in Clinic’s case, it was the coupling of “The Second Line” with Levi’s. In that marriage–between jeans and squiggly art-rock sung as if only barely in English–Clinic showed, perhaps somewhat unintentionally, how adept they were at branding. The band played shows dressed in surgeon’s regalia, complete with face masks and head coverings, mastered instruments fashioned from children’s toys, generally got a rep for coming off as possessed. Their fans–me, all of us–fucking loved it. Authenticity? Schtick? Who cares? Clinic strayed so completely from the earnest rock posture, and in a way so peculiar and mesmerizing, that it was irrelevant to ask what or why.

But the gig was up by 2004’s Winchester Cathedral , if for no other reason than that Clinic had blown their collective wad. The sound calcified into a trademark: like the taste of Coca-Cola or the cut of Levi’s, it was always and everywhere the same, even when dressed up in slightly different packaging. The trouble with Do It!–as much as it is a return to the spooky goodness of 2002’s Walking With Thee–is how wholly Clinic it is, their unmistakable sound a cage in which they are yet again convulsing. No matter what their initial intentions were, the gimmick has become genuine, and the genuine gimmick.

Do It! won’t put off Clinic devotees, and it’s reductionist to say there’s no newness here at all. I find that innovation especially on “Coda,” a waltz that closes the album and layers majesty upon majesty, what with churchly bells and organs, swirls of cooing vocals, and a spoken word dedication of the song to the “600th anniversary of the Bristol Charter.” And sure, folks wanting to experiment with Clinic are welcomed to pick up this record, and it may very well convert a good many of those seekers into fans. Yet all of this makes Do It! not a bad album so much as an unsurprising one–a rather disappointing place to arrive for a band so initially startling. Authenticity? Schtick? Who cares. I don’t anymore.

“Never judge a book by its cover” is an adage so beaten into our collective consciousness that it’s hardly up for debate any more, but if Saturday=Youth is any indication, it clearly has no bearing on album covers. An immaculately tailored Brat Pack of models poses sullenly in the orange glow of an autumn afternoon. It’s no accident that front-and-center sits a young Molly Ringwald look-alike, but the shot’s polish belies the carefully crafted throwback aesthetic. Instead of a 1986 John Hughes set, it comes across as a self-consciously nostalgic 2008 Vogue shoot, and the music follows suit.

The word “cinematic” has all but defined Anthony Gonzalez’s work as M83 and Saturday=Youth is perhaps his most literally film-inspired album to date. Instead of the layered synth-driven soundscapes of Before the Dawn Heals Us, Gonzales presents a more pop-inspired approach on his latest effort that comes across more “soundtrack” than “score.” Fittingly so; Gonzales is candid with his intention to pay homage to ’80s teen movies. “The soundtracks were perfect and the characters were so optimistic,” he tells XLR8R magazine, and unsurprisingly, the album’s sound palette leans heavily on sounds not heard since he was in high school. With Ewan Pearson (of Cocteau Twins fame) on board to assist with production duties, the warped electric drums and echoing keyboards on tracks like “Skin of the Night” are spot-on. However, the perfectionist, halcyon-sounding studio polish keeps the whole effort grounded in the present, leaving the VHS blur of its inspirational material conspicuously neglected.

Admittedly, it’s refreshing to hear a contemporary tribute to the ’80s without the smug and witless “irony” prevalent in today’s music and culture. The wistful buildup of the opener, “You, Appearing,” and even the thick shoegaze of “Dark Moves of Love” are beautifully crafted songs, but the highlight remains the underwater bass-kicks smothered in waves of synths near the end of “Couleurs”–a track that stands out like a sore thumb against the throwback pop that pervades the rest of the album. Ultimately M83 isn’t riding the crest of any cultural breakthrough here; an ’80s-inspired concept album in 2008 is hardly an original idea, ironic or not. If a slickly produced and idealistically nostalgic tribute to Breakfast Club-inspired teenage melodramas of yesteryear is what you’ve been pining for, then you’re in for a treat; otherwise you might just want to keep your head in the present and cherry-pick your favorite tracks from iTunes.

Matador’s reissue of Mission of Burma three-record catalog offers incontrovertible proof that Boston was the place to be in the 1980s. Sure, you could say the same about Austin and Minneapolis, but this year record companies are shining a light on Massachusetts’s finest. First, Merge issued the Big Dipper anthology Supercluster; next Taang will be tackling the Volcano Suns (in Biblical terms, Burma begat the Suns, while the Suns begat Dipper).

Signed to local label Ace of Hearts, Burma (1979-83) consisted of Roger Miller (guitar), Clint Conley (bass), Peter Prescott (drums), and Martin Swope (tapes). After the Signals, Calls and Marches EP and before the live Horrible Truth About Burma LP, Burma released 1982’s Vs.. It was their sole full-length with the original line-up (more on that below). Matador dubs these re-mastered CD/DVD sets The Definitive Editions (Ryko previously did the honors in the 1990s). In the press notes, Miller states, “We were trying to mimic the natural feel of a live performance.” They succeeded in doing just that, though the clear separation of each instrument represents an advantage over The Horrible Truth. If nothing surpasses classic Signals singles “Academy Fight Song” and “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver,” “The Ballad of Johnny Burma” and “That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate” come close (this edition features four bonus tracks and a DVD of their second-to-last Boston gig).

After the group’s demise, which came about largely because of Miller’s tinnitus, he formed the non-touring outfit Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, Prescott started the Suns (who reunited in 2005), and Conley worked as a TV producer before creating Consonant in 2001. If Burma’s legendary reputation rests largely on moves made decades ago, the good news is that their ecstatically received 2002 reunion and subsequent albums, Onoffon and Obliterati, did nothing to tarnish that legend (only Swope opted out). Few musical groups, post-punk or otherwise, can make the same claim. Reunions may be a dime a dozen, but Mission of Burma, in their patented mix of fury and control, was a one-of-a-kind band.

Don’t have time to search out this week’s essential MP3s, streams and viral videos? That’s why we’re here.

M83 “Graveyard Girl”
Like a John Hughes movie put to music, the latest from former My Bloody Valentine soundalikes M83–aka French producer Anthony Gonzalez–is a brilliant throwback to high school life in the early Eighties. In other words it sounds like the precise intersection of New Order and The Psychedelic Furs.

(via The Yellow Stereo)

Frank Black “I Sent Away”
The Pixies frontman resumes his low-key solo career with an appropriately lo-fi solo track that lurches forward on rapid fire punk riffs, spit-out verses and a manic harmonica solo. Nice but still not as good as “Monkey Gone To Heaven.”
(via The Yellow Stereo)

She & Him “Why Stay Here”
Ever wondered who exactly goes on eBay to buy those old K-Tel compilations from the ’70s filled with songs by the Carpenters and Olivia Newton-John? The most likely culprits are Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward.
(via Merge Records)

Does It Offend You, Yeah “We Are Rockstars”
The next pack of young British punks certain to salvage the music industry this week, according to the NME. To our ears, this is fairly standard industrial noise on just a touch of ecstasy.
(via KEXP)

MGMT “Destrokk”
“You are soft/ We are hard,” the Brooklyn duo contends on this track. That’s kind of rich considering they wear women’s sunglasses and play the kind of retro synth-pop last heard when people with aerodynamic hair and pirate shirts ruled the charts.
(via Yukon Promotions)

Lykke Li “Dance Dance Dance”
A Swedish singer with just the right combination to break millions of indie-boy hearts: Big eyes, little voice, crazy ass song.
(via Control Group Co)

Weezer “Pork and Beans”
The latest single from the Los Angeles quartet features topical lyrics that sound like they were written by that dude in Train that always sings about soy mocha lattes. But the music, a riveting blast of guitars, more than makes up for it.
(via Consequence of Sound)

Peter Bjorn and John scored an unlikely summer hit last year with “Young Folks.” For a follow-up, the Swedish group’s singer and guitar player Peter Morén is striking out with a wistful solo album, The Last Tycoon. Recorded at home and taking its name from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s final unfinished novel, the disc features guest spots by The Concretes’ Daniel Varjo, singer-songwriter Tobias Froberg, and The Tiny string arranger Leo Svensson. Morén told us how it all came together.

Fuzz: How much of a backlash did you see with “Young Folks”?
Peter Morén: It pays my rent, so for me it’s no negative backlash. That’s up to other people to decide. But I don’t think it is very representative of me or even the band as a whole.

Did you deliberately engineer something lo-fi to get away from it?
Yes and no. We always try to do something different from the album before, and it would be stupid to make a solo record that is in the same mood and sounds like the band. The thing is that I started to record this album way before “Young Folks” became a hit. And I actually don’t think it is especially lo-fi. Since recording equipment has evolved so much you actually use the same stuff at home as in a proper studio.

Then what makes it more than a demo?
The amount of work I put into it. And that I brought in a lot of extra people, like strings and drums and vibraphone–stuff I can’t play myself. I do make demos and they are either just voice or guitar, but much more lo-fi recorded than this album. For Peter Bjorn and John we never make demos. The record is the demo.

How did you decide when to bring in other people?
I tried to do as much as possible myself, but I knew I wanted instruments on it I just can’t play, so I had to bring in people. But I did instruct them carefully.

What was your total budget?
I don’t know exactly, but it became more expensive than I thought. There are always a lot of costs you don’t count on.

What’s the connection with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished final novel The Love of the Last Tycoon?
It’s definitely not a concept album as some people think. I just liked the name at first. It suits this very low-key album to have a grandiose pretentious title; make it kind of self-ironic and funny. I saw the movie a couple of years back. But there are some themes there I connect with, the end of an era, the hard struggle in combining love and relationships with ambition and career. Basically failure. Pretty eternal, elemental stuff, really. I write about it, but would write about it anyway, without that title.

What are Bjorn and John doing while you’re on tour–are they safely off the streets?
I think so. John is taking it easy and Bjorn is producing, as he always does.

Peter Moren - 2008 Tour Dates
04/21 - New York, NY - Mercury Lounge
04/22 - Cambridge, MA - Middle East Upstairs
04/23 - Montreal, QC - Cabaret Musee Juste Pour Rire
04/24 - Toronto, ON - The Mod Club
04/25 - Columbus, OH - Wexner Center
04/26 - Chicago, IL - Schubas Tavern
04/28 - Vancouver, BC - Biltmore Cabaret
04/29 - Seattle, WA - The Triple Door
04/30 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge
05/01 - San Francisco, CA - Swedish American Hall
05/02 - Los Angeles, CA - The Hotel Café
05/03 - Los Angeles, CA - Troubadour

Back in the mid-’90s, when it really felt like music mattered, there was a band who encompassed the ready-to-implode danger of Exile on Main Street-era Rolling Stones and the feral sensuality of Lou Reed’s shape-shifting masterpiece Transformer. That band was Jonathan Fire*Eater, and for a tumultuous hot minute they ruled their little pocket of college radio-approved alternative rock with their major label debut Wolf Songs for Lambs. With hard to decipher pseudo-intellectual musings and pithy euphemisms, Wolf Songs for Lambs chronicled sexual escapades and eloquently recounted drug-fueled hallucinations that helped to bolster the band’s Lower East Side rock n’ roll aesthetic. Unfortunately, like most promising bands of the ’90s Jonathan Fire*Eater broke up–due mainly to the outlandish antics and drug use of lead singer Stewart Lupton.

While three members went on to form the successful off-the-radar quintet the Walkmen, Lupton went back to school, cleaned up his act and eventually formed Dylan-esque outfit The Child Ballads along with co-vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Betsy Wright, drummer Hugh Mcintosh and guitarist Judah Bauer. On their debut EP Cheekbone Hollows (Pop. 1/2 Life), Lupton and company transport the listener to an almost high-minded fairytale town called Cheekbone Hollows where whimsical stories become grounded by earthy percussion, slide guitar, male-female vocal harmonies and tongue-twisting lyrics. Taking their name from a 19th century compilation of poems, this outfit is a far cry from Lupton’s debauched past with an easy-going sound that’s more akin to urban country than the sometimes inconsistent flying off-the-hinges rock. With solid tracks like “Old Man October,” which incorporates a shaky pop percussion with falsetto “ohhhs,” and the dreamy “Laughter From the Rafters” which employs Lupton’s signature growl and a romantic “Beast of Burden” sway, the Child Ballads show that musical maturity isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The songs of the Breeders, ever since the outset, seemed to exist to scratch one particular hook, feeling, or comment out of Kim Deal’s little black book of ideas. Even if these ideas didn’t have anything to do with one another, or sounded as if they were borne of a mistake (the lopsided, erratic “Cannonball,” the group’s biggest success, being a prime example), their best albums benefited from this repeated sense of accomplishment and discovery. This sensibility allowed Pod to play out like a diary being read aloud; its success, and the stature of its membership–Pixies, Throwing Muses and Slint among them–helped to engender the rambunctious, good-natured response of its follow-up, Last Splash, right into the alt-rock bonanza of the early ‘90s. Here was a band we could trust; a group that could accompany us through the good times and unburdened freedom surging through our culture.

The goodwill, it seems, didn’t hold up, through the band’s high-publicity hiatus due to drug busts and a shift in output (Kim with the Amps and Kelley Deal with the Kelley Deal 6000, both stalled follow-ups), as well as a public that had moved on beyond the free-for-all promises of the Breeders’ hits in favor of less difficult sounds. 2002’s comeback, Title TK, felt turgid and rushed, making the build-up for Mountain Battles a little less than urgent. Yet what we have here is the band dealing with uncertainty: with themselves, with each other, and with the world they left after Last Splash. And it’s made for their most vital music in that entire span of time

What we have here is a pensive record, an album arranged backwards, it seems, filled with slow, uncertain ballads and chunky, first-thought experiments that mostly work despite themselves. It’s not outwardly odd, but each track dutifully takes one idea down, works it out, then moves on. Some fare better than expected: “Night of Joy,” a cool, candlelit sleepwalk through ringing, clear guitars and a snaking backbeat, astounds with its tenacious choral pattern, holding out as long as possible before its shift back down to a breezy, minor-chord struggle with its own uneasiness. It’s the album’s early standout, and the track that lingers the longest after it rolls to a close, providing the weight necessary to give rousing, albeit lightweight, offerings like “German Studies” (a vehicle to recite German text over a loose-limbed halftime rocker) and the torchy, occasionally jarring slur of “Spark” the support they need to prop up the album’s middle.

Their A-list material here, between the Pixies-esque swagger of “Walk it Off” and cheery bright uplift of “It’s the Love,” still manages to coexist with the fuzzy scrap and slowed-down drums of “No Way,” and the unadorned drone of the title track. It speaks to where the Breeders have been; a prevailing theme of anger and isolation in the lyrics punctuate the supposed realities of what they felt while there. There’s nothing here you haven’t heard on any other of their records, but the sense that Mountain Battles was earned more than deserved never fades into the background, and in that context makes it their most vital release to date.

Over the past year, Frightened Rabbit have sort of disrupted the general process of gaining indie seniority and have popped up all over the map like pimply, over-anxious freshman pledges hoping to go Greek. Some impressive tour partners (We Are Scientists, Pinback, French Kicks) have proven the existence of a viable allegiance to these young Glaswegians and, listening to The Midnight Organ Fight, it should come as little surprise why.

The core of The Midnight Organ Fight is dichotomized into a section of distinctly straight-forward indie rock songs and a section of restrained pop balladry. Most tracks are underpinned by bouncy fingerpicking and melodies immediate enough to make Ben Gibbard turn a shade of green. The melody, in fact, is the glue over a backdrop of some fairly pedestrian arrangements. In the instances in which instrumentation does stand out, it does so haphazardly. Throughout the album’s fourteen tracks, the band pick up and clumsily (albeit sometimes endearingly) affix drum machines and flourishes of synths and strings to the canvas. It seems natural to attempt to enrich and fill out the lanky garage-founded form on the follow-up to last fall’s Sings the Greys, but, more often than not, the accessorizing feels forced and superfluous.

But instead of begrudging Scott Hutchison’s (Frightened Rabbit’s chief songwriter) acknowledgment of the promise he possesses, there are some stand-out tracks here that warrant bookmarking Frightened Rabbit for now. “The Modern Leper” is one of the best tracks these guys have penned yet. Where, at other points in the record, Hutchison lapses too far into relational sentimentality, “The Modern Leper” perfects a balance between introspection and metaphor and weaves it into a soft epic shaped something like Springsteen’s “Thunder Road.” In “Keep Yourself Warm,” FR delivers those same anthemic qualities, as Hutchison labors through understanding relationship dynamics.

The Midnight Organ Fight is infinitely more polished and professional than anything Frightened Rabbit has done to date, but it’s to a fault. There are a number of reasons that could have caused such shortcomings–the band’s youth, the haste of the record’s release–but none of them justify dismissing Frightened Rabbit just yet. Consider it a minor work, perhaps, but don’t vote ‘em off the island yet.

The prairie dominates America both physically and mentally. That center of the map, smack dab between the wilds of the West and the tame, yet furious East, is our heartland that the so-called real American politicians like to invoke so often. Omaha-based Neva Dinova know this land, have read its storybook, and are flush with its sounds. In their own wresting with past and present–pop-flavored guitar distortions juxtaposed with slow-going countrified strumming–the band emanates timelessness, creating music that would sound equally right crackling from old vinyl as it would cooing directly in-ear from a pair of new-fangled headphones. Their land ambles with folktales that live in the retelling with lackadaisical yet absorbing vocals by singer Jeff Bellows. Conjuring the voices of your grandfather or the town drunk who’s always stationed at the end of the bar, the stories he weaves either wash over or suck you in, and both interactions have their justifications and purposes. You May Already Be Dreaming can fall into easy listening, so you might not pay attention to the details, but much like that land they come from, it only passes by if you choose not to notice. Tune in, and its patterns, fables and rhythms become yours.

The other day I was driving with a friend through Santa Monica. I had been listening to Blood On The Wall’s Liferz before I picked her up, and by the time we said our hellos and settled into the rhythm of start-stop LA traffic, my favorite track, the dreamy “Lightning Song,” had started. “This is my favorite song on the album,” I said. “Tell me what you think. And be honest.”

The song–all one minute and forty-nine seconds of it–passed all too quickly. I turned to my friend expectantly, but her face gave away nothing. After a moment, she finally said, “Maybe I don’t get this style of music. I just don’t see why you think this is so good. I mean, I think I could play this. The girl doesn’t even have a good voice. She’s not even really singing; she sounds like she’s stoned or on Xanax or something.”

So it began.

Me: That’s not the point. The song is two notes the whole way through, so of course you could play it. It’s deliberately simple, don’t you see? It’s minimalist. The girl–Courtney Shanks–sings like that because that’s her style. Do you see that they were going for a specific mood and tone on this song?

Her: I just don’t like this. I don’t get it. No, do not play it again.

It went on like this–no, I went on like this–for the next five minutes. By the end, she barely conceded the point: “I get what they’re trying to do. It’s ok, I guess. Just not my style.” Stalemate. We stopped talking for a moment, and then we heard Courtney’s brother, Brad, wail like a hysterical spinster over the grungy stomp of “Sorry Sorry Sarah” (I really like this song, too, by the way). My friend threw me a glance and smiled slightly. “I’m sorry, but I think this band really sucks.”

Aw, fuck it. You can’t convert ‘em all, right?

Let’s be clear: Blood On The Wall is a misnomer. Put all thoughts of mascara-smudged eyes, asymmetrical haircuts and the word “screamo” out of mind. The band certainly have elements of both “pop” and “punk” in their sound, but not in the way that, say, Alternative Press might espouse. Back in 2005, their second album Awesomer was a blast of fresh air from a distant-but-familiar place–namely, the late ’80s and early ’90s independent rock scene. Anyone who literally or figuratively missed the golden years of The Pixies, Sonic Youth, and their ilk found kindred spirits in this Brooklyn trio. Guitarist/singer Brad Shanks, bassist/singer Courtney Shanks, and drummer Miggy Littleton are noted music fiends, and that’s part of their appeal: it’s not inaccurate to view the band as a group of record collectors who decided to write songs as the next logical step in the expression of their shared love. In the wrong hands, this could have been disastrous, but thankfully, Blood On The Wall have good taste and lots of understated talent. Their skuzzy, danceable blend of noise rock goes down with a kick, and while it might make you a little drunk with nostalgia, it also makes you wanna riot right now.

Liferz is louder and more primal than its predecessor. The reason for this has mostly to do with Brad’s approach to his guitar. In lieu of the hook-y guitar leads and furious one-note diddles that defined Awesomer, Brad has opted to up the distortion and just pound out power chords this time around. It’s not necessarily a bad way to go, but some of the best songs from Awesomer were the ones where Courtney’s simple bass lines were allowed to dominate; on Liferz, with the exception of the aforementioned “Lightning Song,” the bass sounds muffled underneath the guitar fuzz.

The Shanks siblings are one of the best vocalist tag-teams making music right now. Much of their appeal has to do with the dichotomy of their voices: Brad’s over-the-top wail is a nice counterpoint to Courtney’s breathy come-ons. Even when Courtney sings with urgency on a song like “GoGoGoGo,” it’s the half-off-the-couch kind of alarm; you figure she’ll just sit back down after that brief spell of panic. Brad, on the other hand, howls on that fine line that separates the absurd and the sublime. On album closer “Acid Fight,” he hilariously narrates a psychedelic trip gone horribly wrong, caterwauling lines like “Is it my face?!” and “What’s that! What the fuck is that?!” as the rest of the band gloriously rumbles along. I have no doubt that the guy sings with a shit-eating grin permanently plastered on his face, and his good humor is infectious, to say the least.

But Blood On The Wall aren’t for everyone. They’re goofy and brash, and their music, while not lacking in pop hooks, is probably too willfully noisy and primal for many. Their music brings to mind a long night carousing during the wicked hours, a blur of sloppy, joyful hedonism in the city. It’s the type of night where there are no regrets because you simply can’t remember much of what happened after 2AM. Or maybe you do, and as Courtney coos in “Rize,” “I don’t wanna talk about what we did last night…”

Blood On The Wall is a band’s band: they’ve clearly listened to cool music, picked out the bits they liked best, and made their own songs with their heroes in mind. They’re not scared to showboat their influences, and that they’re able to do so and still conjure a sound that is all their own is impressive. That said, Liferz isn’t as good as Awesomer. For example, “Hibernation” is a solid opener, but it’s got nothing on the stuttering “Stoner Jam” that introduced Awesomer. The tracks on this album bleed too easily into one other, and quite a few of the songs sound the same without repeated listens. Of course, this is one of those albums that warrants multiple listens; while Liferz might not be as great as Awesomer, it’s still very much an awesome record.

The Best Side Project Ever

Until someone saves my baby and me from the fire, my perception of a hero will remain vague at best. I won’t discount or remove myself from Jungian archetypes, but this is an age where we’re categorically asked to name our heroes as a means of self-definition (MySpace, anyone?). So our heroes are, in part, an idealized reflection of ourselves, and the last time I checked, that familiar mirror has enough cracks to throw back a hundred different faces. Then what does it mean when I say that Hot Snakes are unsung heroes to me? I think I’m the kind of person who feels that virtually all the best things in this life remain removed from the glare of ubiquity, willfully contained in a world of their own. So, strangely, I see Hot Snakes as heroes all the more for their marginal presence in the greater scope of music history. Hot Snakes were too old, too good, and too self-satisfied to care about making anyone else like them, but that’s fine. I’m happy to toot their horn for them, and here it is: Hot Snakes are a special band, and you should listen to their music.

When Hot Snakes put out their first album in 2000, that abominable wet fart of a genre called rap-rock was finally in its death throes, and mainstream hip-hop got addicted to stupid pills and started becoming, more and more, a fatuous caricature of itself. (Soulja Boy, what?) Meanwhile, The Strokes came on the scene, were hailed as saviors of rock ‘n roll, and put indie rock on the map, for better or for worse. I say this because, in the most technical sense, indie rock has become a genre, a sound, and a look as opposed to a way of creating and marketing one’s music. (History is cyclical and record labels are co-opting motherfuckers: the same thing happened to both “punk” and “alternative” rock. And get Our Band Could Be Your Life to read up on the original indie rockers.)

But I mainly bring up the dubiousness of “indie rock” to point out that, if nothing else, Hot Snakes were the definition of indie–meaning independent–rock. Lead guitarist John Reis created a label, Swami Records, for the specific purpose of putting out Hot Snakes’ first album. Singer/guitarist Rick Froberg is a gifted illustrator who did all the artwork for Hot Snakes’ albums, made their promotional posters, and designed their website. And, perhaps most importantly, it was clear from the get-go that Hot Snakes simply did not give a fuck. They wrote songs and put out albums at their own leisure (although three albums and a live EP in four years isn’t really making music “leisurely”), toured when they wanted, littered their lyrics with inscrutable in-jokes, and, to the detriment of fans, never really took themselves seriously as a band. The twin nuclei of the group were very involved with other projects: Reis with his main band Rocket From The Crypt and his new label in San Diego, Froberg with his artwork in New York. In this way, Hot Snakes are the best side project ever. And yet, at the same time, during their brief existence they captured the ethos of what real bands (ideally) should be all about. As my man Frank Costello said, they call that a paradox.

To date, Hot Snakes represents the artistic zenith of Reis and Froberg’s long but intermittent partnership. Fresh out of high school in 1986, the two formed the band Pitchfork in San Diego before guaranteeing their punk rock immortality with the influential math-rock outfit Drive Like Jehu. Hot Snakes are correctly seen as a leaner, more concise version of Jehu, a band noted for their sprawling, structurally complicated tunes. Hot Snakes’ songs are invariably beat-heavy, guitar-centric blasts of punk ‘n’ garage fury, and for the casual listener, they all might sound the same on first listen. From raw debut Automatic Midnight onwards, the band didn’t change the formula much, they just kept streamlining their aesthetic; they cut out all the fat of a song and presented only what was best. This is why Hot Snakes will never be as obviously influential as Jehu: the succinctness that defines Hot Snakes songs is evidence of an artistic maturity that can’t be imitated after a few years playing shitty punk rock. (Less is more because it’s harder to do well.)

Misguided critics marginalized Hot Snakes on the basis that they aren’t doing anything particularly new, and, for that, they claim, the band is less than relevant. But while Hot Snakes’ music was made within the context of pre-existing sounds–recalling Suicide, The Wipers, Mission of Burma, Neu!, and even Ennio Morricone–they transcended any influence with their idiosyncrasy. There’s the ingeniously inventive dueling guitar work that is neatly summed up with descriptors like frenetic, sinister, and catchy. It’s a testament to Hot Snakes’ talent that they filled their songs with indelible hooks–sometimes several within a song–without ever sounding saccharine or trite. The minimal use of distortion allows every melodic turn to be that much sharper and the rhythm section, already a lurching beast, to sound all the more explosive. Riding over it all is Froberg’s voice, an instrument that warrants more detailed description:

In the traditional sense, Rick Froberg does not have a good voice. It’s best described as a bark, a yelp, or a howl; it’s reedy, a bit adenoidal, and often sounds strangled when he reaches for those high notes. And, yet, it is captivating and ideally suited for the music; he knows how to use his voice. In short, while he does not have a good voice, per se, Froberg is a great singer, and that distinction makes all the difference because–eight-octave range my ass–if a singer doesn’t know how to use his/her voice, what’s the point? In this way, Christina Aguilera is a terrible singer (case in point: the “look-what-I-can-do!” raping of “Lady Marmalade”), and Froberg is a great one (case in point: every Hot Snakes song).

Oh right, the songs. Well, in the spirit of “less is more,” I’ll describe two:

“10th Planet” is a highlight of Hot Snakes’ debut, Automatic Midnight. The guitars play a game of one-upmanship in the opening seconds, and the tension keeps rising, suggestive of an imminent showdown. The tension finally bursts, and the band sounds like the last gang in town as they take the offensive. We’re privy to a reckless tour through a city of ghosts, propelled by a one-note death march and a pummeling back-beat. The song threatens to overwhelm the listener until the uplifting chords of the break chime in, but any elation is grounded by Froberg’s sober declaration: “It’s a dead, dead, dead town.” Froberg’s lyrics manage to be both corrosively dead pan and, at times, maddeningly elliptical. You know he’s pissed at something, at someone, but exactly who or what isn’t clear. And whether he’s being sarcastic or earnest…well, it could really be either. Or both. “10th Planet,” like many Hot Snakes songs, is beautiful in the way that Larry Clark’s early photography or Paul Bowle’s short story fiction is beautiful–a striking combination of bleak fury and detached sympathy.

Hot Snakes’ last studio album, Audit In Progress, closes with a surprise. “Plenty for All” is the poppiest song they’ve ever written, and fittingly contains the most overtly optimistic lyrics that Froberg has ever sung. Over a fist-pumping rhythm section and a ridiculously catchy clarion guitar line, Froberg berates the narcissism of this generation and implores us to look beyond ourselves: “Your patrons, your guests/Manufactured phonies hung-up on themselves/Bring ‘em all with you/It’s all for the best/We got space out here in the West.” This song sums up the lyrical tone of Hot Snakes’ songs with equal measures of caustic indignation and resigned compassion, and it’s heartening to hear them quit on a note like that. Speaking of which…

When Hot Snakes quit in the summer of 2004, it was done matter-of-factly and without any explanation beyond the fact that the band simply wanted to stop. They made a last tour of North America before Froberg posted a brief hand-written farewell note on their site that, somewhat aptly, manages to come off as both affectionate and cynical:

“Thanks for sharing this with us. We’ll miss this–and you. We made a few great friends. I hope things get better, but they probably won’t. Love you still. -Rick Froberg”

Since they called it quits, Reis and Froberg started new bands, Reis having started The Night Marchers with original Hot Snakes drummer Jason Kourkonis, and Froberg is now with Obits. Both groups played their first shows this year, and while they’re predictably good, that indefinable magic that permeates Reis and Froberg’s music–and distilled to perfection with Hot Snakes–is missed. Hot Snakes made it look easy, and if you break it down, it doesn’t look like much without modifiers: three peerless albums, two incendiary live releases, a faultless live show and–poof!–they were gone. In regards to Hot Snakes and their prerogative, John Reis summed it up back in 2001 in an interview with Punk Planet: “We’re driven by the explosive sounds of punk rock and rock ‘n’ roll music. In this day and age, where it seems like style is so much more important than actual substance, you have rock ‘n’ roll in blackface–it’s all become self-parody. You have just nauseating amounts of irony added and complete lacking of anything meaningful or anything that has that explosive quality… it’s kind of like going into an Old West town where they made westerns–you see all these buildings, but behind them is nothing. You have these big, heavy sounds, but there’s nothing of meaning or substance to anchor that to anything, so it’s just floating bullshit being shoved down your throat.”

Hot Snakes are officially “sung” heroes now. Their work is still out there, so go and get it. Pass it along if you feel so inclined. This blunt tool of language might as well be used to sing of the things that bring us happiness, and hopefully I’ve done that here. Spread the joy. Like Amiri Baraka said, “You got to be a spirit. You got to sing–don’t be no ghost.”