But now we’re standing face-to-face
Isn’t this world a crazy place
Just when I thought our chance had passed
You go and save the best for last
-Venessa Williams

Come on, you know you’ve got this stuck in your head now. Especially the crappy piano.

I had a long post planned today, but it’s now 9 AM and I’m at work, so that’s just not going to happen. Sorry, people. I don’t recommend working 24 hours in a two-day period. So, here’s the abridged version:

A lot of bands save their best stuff for the encore after the show is over. Being that I live in Rochester, and the drive back home is at least an hour, more often than not, I’ve been forced to leave before the encore is over to be able to get home in one piece. That’s no fun, especially with tomorrow night’s concert, The Hold Steady.

The two times that I’ve seen The Hold Steady play, they end the night with a song off of their first CD, Almost Killed Me. It’s called Killer Parties, and the way they play it really ends the show well. At a Hold Steady concert, lead singer Craig Finn doesn’t sing or speak lyrics at the audience, he throws them. Granted, I’ve seen the Hold Steady in Minneapolis (semi-hometown show) and lollapalooza (most fun they’ve ever had), so maybe he’s not always this way.

Anyway, after throwing lyrics at you all night, they end with this song… a dazed recollection of a past night that fits really well with the show you just saw. Check it out.

I spent last weekend in Madison. It was halloween weekend there, but I didn’t go out to the State Street event. Something about spotlights converting the street into a funky sunless daylight didn’t appeal to me. Not even the promise of seeing Lifehouse could get me out there. Actually, I didn’t know Lifehouse was playing, and I’m having a hard time figuring out what their big single was. Lets see what wikipedia says. Oh, right. Hanging By A Moment. Good for them.

The party on State Street kind of prevented me from picking up a new CD from the record stores down there, since stores were closed early. I wanted to pick up the new CD by Tunng, called Good Arrows. Tunng is a band that combines folk music and electronica, also known as “folktronica”. Sweet. I know what you’re thinking, “Nick, that sounds horrible.” I’ll have to find a way to pick up a copy of it somewhere so I can share it with you people.

Josh Rouse and Maria Taylor were scheduled to play a show at The Annex in Madison on Sunday night. I would have liked to have been able to see that show. My brother is a fan of Maria Taylor, and I like Josh Rouse, so that would have been fun to see. Oh well. Maybe Chris can go and I can live vicariously through him. Or, we can use our twin powers and I can tell you exactly what the concert was like. Yeah, probably not.

I’ll just have to enjoy the fact that I’m going to go see The Hold Steady (with opener Art Brut) on Thursday at The State Theatre in Minneapolis. The only weird thing is that the State is not general admission, which is going to be weird, especially for a band like The Hold Steady. I’ll tell you what, though. We will be rockin’ in the rafters. I doubt that I’ll be able to write up a review for Friday. I’m just hoping to be able to drive home on Thursday night.

Today’s song comes from Emma Pollock, that Scottish guitar playing, Sierra Nevada drinking woman who opened for The New Pornographers. Here’s You’ll Come Around.

Full House?!? I love those Olsen twins!
- Little girl who disappeared for most of the middle episodes of Boy Meets World
(she was playing poker with her parents, which is why it’s funny)

Remember when TGIF ruled Friday nights? Unless you were my age and actually enjoyed sappy sitcoms, then probably not. Oh well, I’m currently in TGIF-mode because work has been kicking my butt all week long and it’s Friday and I’m heading out of town for the weekend and I don’t have to think about work… until probably Sunday when we get back and I have to log in and put out some more fires.

So what do I do at work when I get stressed out? It’s one of two things:

1. Listen to an album I’m familiar with that is mild enough to blend into my surroundings and act as a wall between me and everything around me.
2. Listen to hip-hop.

And so, even though Emma Pollock and Menomena have made my Wednesday and Thursday that much more bearable, today’s song will be coming from Aesop Rock, an underground hip-hop artist from Long Island. Here’s None Shall Pass.

They’re always after me lucky charms!
-Lucky the Leprechaun

Sorry. When I think of rainbows, I think of leprechauns, but not the scary kind from that series of horror movies, Leprechaun. Well, maybe the last three: Leprechaun 4: In Space, Leprechaun 5: Leprechaun in the Hood, or Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood.

Sidebar – in first grade, my grandma sent in a completed puzzle from the back of a box of Lucky Charms, and my brother and I got a congratulations letter from Lucky the Leprechaun. Let’s just say, we were the coolest kids in first grade that day!

I know what you’re thinking… “Get to the point already, stupid!” Fine, fine. I’ll do that.

Today, I’m reviewing the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows, which was released via MP3 downloads on October 10th. You may have read my post about it previously. Anyway, I picked up a copy and have spent most of Tuesday listening to Radiohead and only Radiohead to get a good idea of which of the old albums that this new album resembles the most. And here it is:

This new album sounds like Radiohead.

There you have it. I can’t figure it out, but this album sounds like Radiohead through and through, and there’s nothing else to really say about it. And yet…

I find myself wondering, “Where have the experimental tracks gone?” Radiohead is the first band that I listened to that had an “experimental” side to them. The opening track, 15 Step, starts out with a beat that sounds experimental, but soon you’re treated to Radiohead. Notice that I said treated. While I miss the experimentalism of Kid A and Amnesiac, it doesn’t take away from the album. I left out Hail to the Theif here because I kind of got sick of it.

I have a friend who told me that “there hasn’t been a good Radiohead album since 1999.” I don’t know if he was joking, but I can completely understand where he’s coming from if he was being serious. Kid A is as divisive of an album of an album as my generation has seen, with the possible exception of Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy. That’s right, I can throw out all-inclusive statements with the best of them.

So let me put it this way. If you like the old Radiohead, you’ll find things that you like with this album. Same thing for the fans of the new Radiohead. Then again, I Might Be Wrong. Who gets that joke? Only me? Ok, I can live with that.

If you’ve tried to find samples of this album, you’ve probably been listening to Bodysnatchers. Instead, I’ll give you Reckoner. Enjoy!

Are you true?
Do you know where the worlds going to go?
I don’t know if you do.
Are you true?
-The New Amsterdams

I’m not sure if I talk about The New Amserdams too much, but since their new album, At the Foot of My Rival was released about a month ago, I figured I’d talk about them today. For years, the New Amsterdams have fallen on my list of “bands that I won’t skip over while listening to random on my iPod”. Hey, I never said I was good at naming my quirks.

Anyway, back in the day (I think in this instance back in the day was 2005) I went to see a concert in a little hole in the wall at the University of Minnesota to see one of my favorite “bands”, The New Amsterdams play a show. I say “bands” because at the time I was confused as to whether it was just Get Up Kids lead singer Matt Pryor or if it was actually a new band fronted by him. At the time, the truth was something in the middle: he had a touring band for these shows. Now, he has a full-time band.

I think it’s time for some sidebars:

Sidebar 1: I remember having a college roommate getting angry at the thought that the lead singer of a band that he had never heard of having a side project. If the band wasn’t famous, then there shouldn’t be a side project, was what he reasoned. I then explained that the Get Up Kids keyboardist had a side project called Reggie and the Full Effect. That was fun.

Sidebar 2: Matt Pryor has a second side-project called The Terrible Twos, which is a children’s music band. He played at Kidzapalooza in the summer of 2006. Kidzapalooza is an event held at lollapalooza for irresponsible parents who think that it’s a good idea to bring their kids (and likely their kids’ strollers) to a crowded music festival.

I had a sidebar three, but I forgot it. My bad.

Anyway, back to the part about the show. It was on that night of the show that I learned that my favorite band at the time, The Get Up Kids, were breaking up, due in large part to Matt Pryor. I then watched him play no more than six feet in front of me for about an hour. It was one of the more musically conflicting nights of my life.

Between then and now The New Amsterdams have put out two CDs (three if you count Killed or Cured as an album and not an EP – I’m ignoring it since it was written while Matt Pryor was a member of The Get Up Kids). I didn’t like Story Like a Scar. In fact, I might have enjoyed the fact that I didn’t like Story Like a Scar I do, however, like At the Foot of My Rival. It seems like they have returned to what Worse for the Wear so good.

Today’s song comes from At the Foot of My Rival. Here’s Silverlake, just like the man-made one in Rochester that’s kept heated by the power plant so we can become overrun by Canadian geese. I guess things could be worse.

So yeah, life has definitely caught up with me the past couple of days. Well, life and lack of sleep. Anyway, on to the concert review!

Starting off the night was Benjy Ferree (myspace), a band out of Philly and D.C. They came out and tried hard to get the crowd to like them and enjoy the music, and I think it worked. By the end of the set, I was bobbing my head along with them. Hopefully this tour increases their exposure, because I’d like to see more of them.

Following Benjy was Scottish singer/songwriter Emma Pollock (webpage) whose name was misspelled on the ticket. It was spelled Emma Pollack. She stood up on stage in her flower patterned dress and sang some entertaining pop music. I’m listening to her CD, Watch the Fireworks, now. Some of her songs remind me a lot of Kristen Hersh without the smoky voice that makes her sound angry. I’m really enjoying this album.

Finally, The New Pornographers hit the stage around 10:20, 40 minutes before Spoon had gotten on the stage last week. This left me with the feeling that I’d be able to drive home that night. I was wrong. They took us on an adventure through New Pornographer goodness for almost two hours. I once again slept on Nate’s couch.

They opened the set with All Things That Go To Make Heaven and Earth and after that I stopped keeping track. They played multiple songs from all of their albums, including Mass Romantic. This band knows how to keep their old friends happy. Speaking of old friends, there were a lot of older people at the show, like 30 to 40 years old old. That’s a first for me.

The most entertaining exchange that night was when lead singer A. C. Newman thanked the crowd for showing up and said that there were a lot of shows they could have seen that night. Eventually, somebody from the crowd shouted out that The Black Crowes were in town that night, which prompted the drummer to play the drum line from Hard to Handle, followed by the bass player playing the bass line from that same song, followed by Kathryn Calder playing that same line on the accordion that had magically appeared in her hands. Dan Bejar then ran on stage since he kind of looks like Black Crowes lead singer, Chris Robinson. It all ended when the drummer tried to sing the part, “Hey little thing, let me light your candle…” and messed up. He was then made fun of by the rest of the band.

Overall, it was a fun night and it was great to see The New Pornographers play with Neko Case. When I saw them at lollapalooza two years ago, she was on her solo tour.

Today’s song is a fun one from a band called Office. Here’s If You Don’t Know By Now.

I saw The New Pornographers last night with Nate, but just like with Spoon, the show didn’t end until after midnight and I spent the night on Nate’s couch again. I’d like to write about the concert, though, but I can’t do that right now. I’ll post something later.

Here’s today’s song. It comes from a band called The Most Serene Republic and is called Why So Looking Back.

Today is blog action day. A day to create a little greener blog. Now, I’m not saying that my blog has been spouting noxious fumes or anything. Or am I?

Anyway, I thought that I would take today to talk about the new touring movement, known as green touring. Traveling around the country in a van, or tour bus does not exactly produce visions of butterflies flying, bees buzzing, or deer munching on grass in a field, unless you have yourself a wicked airbrushed van mural.

On top of the band’s touring vehicle, you also have the vehicles of all the fans coming to see the show, as well as the amount of electricity needed to properly rock your socks off. That’s a lot of carbon for a band to be responsible for, both directly and indirectly.

So what do you do? The first thing that comes to mind is to buy carbon offsets. This is the act of calculating the amount of carbon you produce and purchasing “offsets” which go towards projects that reduce the same amount of carbon you’ve created. While I like the idea of this, I’m in the camp who believes that you should focus on improving yourself before paying somebody off. Like, go to the gym instead of seeing the liposuction man.

As a Minneapolis concert goer, I had the privilege of taking the light rail downtown to see Spoon last Wednesday. Granted, I had to drive up from Rochester first, so that basically negated the whole ride, but for people who actually live in Minneapolis, it’s a great option. The light rail’s final stop is only two blocks away from First Ave. That rules.

For more information about green touring, especially stuff that I didn’t mention here, check out atctower.net.

Oh, and I’m seeing The New Pornographers tomorrow night at first ave. Gonna take the light rail in again. They’ll be giving an interview on The Current on Tuesday at 3:30. Hear an interview and hopefully get an in-studio performance.

Today’s song comes from the new Hot Hot Heat, Happiness, Ltd. Hot Hot Heat is a band that I’ve had to force myself to listen to their albums before I decide to like them. With Happiness, Ltd, I told myself to keep listening to it over and over until I liked it and now I do! Woohoo! Here’s Harmonicas & Tambourines.

In case you missed it (and you probably did, since I didn’t mention it on Wednesday) I went and saw Spoon on Wednesday night, and it was good stuff! The opening band, was a cover band for The Wipers, called T.O.G.P.T.F.F.S.O.T.W.O.T.H.E.A.T.S.Y.O.A.

In case you were wondering, that’s an acronym for

Three
Old
Guys
Playing
The
First
Five
Songs
Of
The
Wipers
O… umm…
T… yeah…
H… I…
E… guess…
A… I…
T… wait for it…
Six
Years
Old
A… eh, I lost it again…

I missed some of those because it took me a while before I realized that the lead singer was actually saying the name of the band instead of just explaining why a grunge-sounding band was opening for Spoon. They were ironically amusing.

After Spoon came the on-again, off-again The Ponys. And by on-again, off-again, I mean on my save for later list on emusic. Their 30-second samples don’t do it for me enough to pick up the CD, and unfortunately, neither did their 45-minute set. Aww…

Finally, at the ripe, young time of 11:00, Spoon came on the stage and rocked my world. It was the weirdest set list I’ve ever heard. They started out with their older stuff and took their time getting to their last two CDs. As in, 15 songs into the set, they still hadn’t played anything off of Gimme Fiction or Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. When they finally got around to those songs, they played four (maybe five) from Gimme Fiction followed by four (maybe five again) from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. My Mathematical Mind, indeed.

Oh, I’m playing My Mathematical Mind by Spoon today. Enjoy!

Here’s a funny story about a girl expecting an iPod getting rocks instead. Yeah, you think I’m mean. I think it’s hilarious that the second box also contained rocks. Oh, and doing a little research, apparently her parents used that 10% discount you get for getting a Target credit card to get her the iPod, which is why Target couldn’t return it.

We’re going to play a new game today. It’s called, “How much do I know about the music on my iPod game!” I hit shuffle songs and picked the first five that came up. They were:

Something corporate – Konstantine – I can play Konstantine on the piano. After it showed up first on my iPod today, I actually istened to it twice in a row, even though it’s 9 and a half minutes long. The song still gives goosebumps.

Carla Bruni – L’excessive – Not my favorite song off of Carla Bruni’s album, I’m still amused to listen to a language that I don’t understand at all.

Josh Rouse – Wonderful – A song off of last year’s Subtitulo, I can sing along to the chorus and some of the verses, but this is probably the song that I’m second-least familiar with in this list.

Mat Kearney – Girl America – I like to tell Erin that this guy sounds a lot like Summer Girls singing LFO. This is a mellow and pleasing (if not kind of boring) song.

Margot & The Nuclear So & So’s – A Sea chanty of Sorts – The opening track of Dust of Retreat, I usually find myself skipping it because it’s kind of a slow start to the album. Granted, it’s not really a fast album to begin with.

So there you have it. I got lucky and had songs that I had at least heard of before. That’s always a positive. I figured that I would play Konstantine for you. It’s good stuff.