I remember when foghat was going to come to Rochester. I’m pretty sure that they backed out due to lack of tickets sold. Bring your act to the Riverside concert series and we’ll bring you 17,000 people like we did for Tommy James and The Shondells. But I digress.
Originally, I thought, “Labor day weekend. What do I post about?” And then I thought, “Why don’t I just say that I’m taking a long weekend and not post about anything.” Nah, I can’t do that – I need to have the excuse ready for Monday if necessary.
Instead, I’m going to tell you about a concert that I just heard about. Take Back Labor Day will be a concert on labor day taking place in St. Paul, across the Mississippi River from where the Republican National Convention is scheduled to be next week.
But before you go running there, hoping to see your favorite Republican acts such as Toby Keith or Lorrie Line, I should mention that it’s essentially a protest concert put on by the Service Employees International Union. Scheduled to perform are:
Billy Brag
Atmosphere
Mos Def
Steve Earle
Allison Moorer
The Pharcyde
Tom Morello and Friends
I won’t actually be in attendance. I have other plans for labor day that may or may not involve painting.
Today’s song comes from yet another Swedish band. This time, we’re hearing from Marching Band. They sound a lot like The Shins did early in their career. Check out Make No Plans.
Imaginary girl,
this is a song for you,
Sorry it took forever.
- The Silver Seas
Last night, I heard The Silver Seas‘ Imaginary Girl helping advertise a washer and dryer. And here I was thinking that they were my own secret, or that their music had nothing to do with the ability to steam wash an item of clothing.
A performance by Bon Iver has been added to Okkervil Rivers’youtube playlist that I talked about yesterday. He really Bon Iver’s up the joint in his version of the song. It gets a little creepy about 2:15, but a good kind of creepy.
Sigur Ros is playing The Orpheum in Minneapolis in September and I can’t go, because tickets are sold out. Well that’s just sigurrific.
Between Ha Ha Tonka and Ra Ra Riot, we’ve got a real Ha Ha Ra Ra Tonka Riot on our hands. We may need some wet naps.
Never heard of Ra Ra Riot? True, I doubt that I’ve mentioned them before. Ra Ra Riot are a band out of New York City who were gaining momentum towards becoming the next big thing last year. Then their drummer died of an apparent drowning after a show in Massachusetts. The band decided to continue on, and have finally released a new album, called The Rhumb Line. It’s a very good headphones album – I’m not sure it plays so well in my car.
Okkervil River has a new album coming out on September 9th, and has begun some viral marketing for it by releasing videos of friends singing songs from their new album. Amongst these videos is one of New Pornographers lead singer, A.C. Newman singing the opening track from the new album with Will Sheff.
I should also mention that yesterday’s band, Shearwater, was begun as an outlet for Will Sheff and Jonathon Meiburg of Okkervil River to play slower songs. Unfortunately, with Okkervil River getting more popular, it has forced Meiburg to quit Okkervil River to focus on Shearwater. Interesting stuff.
I enjoy the video due to its slight creepiness factor, with both guys singing with their eyes closed and A.C. just belting out his part.
Hmm, brandy or beer?
Waters a good idea,
Wish that bar lady’d appear,
and come serve over here.
- The Streets
No, I’m not hungover this morning. Completely the opposite. But the thoughts aren’t coming for what to write and I’ve barely reviewed the music I picked up over the window. Perhaps I’ll reveal the two albums that I got off of emusic this week and how I got to them.
I took a break this weekend from building a deck to sit at my computer and dig for music. I started with The Mountain Goats‘ Heretic Pride, looking for people who had put that album on their top albums of 2008 so far lists. From there, I dug a little deeper, looking at lists that contained other music like Pete and the Pirates, Frightened Rabbit, or other bands that I’ve found this year and enjoyed.
From there, I stumbled on about six albums, and narrowed it down to two: Shearwater and The Marching Band. Both are mellow bands with different views on how to have a good, calming time. Shearwater does it by lulling you in with slow melodies and a nice lead singer, and then cranks up the volume with loud guitar riffs about every other song.
The Marching Band are blissful Scandinavian popsters. I don’t know what it is about Scandinavia, but I can’t get enough of bands from there. They’ve got a more complicated feel. On first listen, they sound somewhat like The Most Serene Republic.
I decided to play a song by Shearwater today. Check out the title track from their album, Rook.
When I saw the future,
The geeks were right.
- The Faint
When I saw the future, I saw me building a deck tomorrow, but obviously The Faint has no clue who I am. So, there will be no song about me building a deck. Maybe I’ll contact Bob the Builder and see if he has any deck-building song recommendations.
For those of you waiting for a new Decemerists album, you may need to wait a little longer for a full-length release. In the meantime, maybe you could check out their upcoming singles series. According to pitchfork:
Always the Bridesmaid: A Singles Series comes in three volumes. Volume I features “Valerie Plame” and “O New England” and comes out October 14. Volume II features “Days of Elaine”, “Days of Elaine [Long]“, and “I’m Sticking With You” and comes out November 4. Volume III features “Record Year” and “Raincoat Song” and comes out December 2.
It’s a slow news day, but I thought that I should mention that spinner no longer allows full-album streaming. After a track ends, you now need to click on the next track. It’s still a great service, but now just a little less user-friendly. Hey, you and I both know that this probably wasn’t their own doing.
Today’s song comes from The Faint and is called The Geeks Were Right. I heard this song on the radio and thought that The Faint had learned how to merge their sometimes extreme-synth rock into something more mainstream, but that’s really just this song. The rest of the album is what you’d expec.
Everybody knows,
It hurts to grow up,
And everybody does,
So weird to be back here.
- Ben Folds
Keeping it mainstream today, people. Ben Folds‘ new album, Way To Normal, has been leaked to the web. Or has it…?
Singer-songwriter Ben Folds responded to the inevitable leak of his forthcoming album Way To Normal in a unique way: he leaked it himself. Only the songs weren’t real — he spent eight hours recording “fake” versions of six tracks during a late-night Dublin, Ireland session in early July, then let friends work their magic on the Web.
Check out the link above for streams of the faked songs, as well as commentary from Ben Folds on each of the songs.
With Ben Folds coming out with his ninth album at the end of September, and Beck putting out his tenth album (I’m not counting Guerolito as an album) at the beginning of July, it got me thinking. Are Beck and Ben Folds the elder statesmen of my generation of music?
Off the top of my head, I can’t think of many mainstream acts with that many albums spanning that amount of time. Oh well, this is an argument for some other day.
Today’s song comes from Ben Folds. It’s his new single featuring Regina Spektor. Check out You Don’t Know Me.
Where I come from isn’t all that great,
My automobile is a piece of crap.
My fashion sense is a little whack,
And my friends are just as screwy as me.
- Weezer
I recently caught the new Weezer single, Pork and Beans, on the radio. I used to be a big Weezer fan, but I stopped listening to them sometime around Maladroit, which was right around the time I actually saw them in concert. Cardboard cutouts of the band would have probably been more animated than the real band was that night.
Listening to the song got me thinking – do I no longer like Weezer because they’ve become a dumbed-down version of themselves or is it because I simply outgrew them? Really, the question is, is it my fault that I no longer enjoy Weezer or is it Weezer’s fault?
I think that the tipping point of this argument comes from The Green Album, Weezer’s first album after a four-year hiatus. The songs on here aren’t noticeably different from the second-tier songs on The Blue Album, and you can’t fault a band for not being able to write another song like Buddy Holly or Say It Ain’t So.
This album feels like the band found a groove in 3-chord songs (a Weezer specialty) and decided to not let go. Sure, there’s an exception to the rule with Island in the Sun, but for the most part it’s they keep the simple structure that didn’t quite make them famous, but helped.
So, we’ve got a point in the “my fault” column.
As I said before, the band lost me around Maladroit. Did I not enjoy the heavier Weezer? Actually, I think I like this album more than The Green Album, due to its heavier, Weezer-outside-the-box feel. Sounds like we’ve got a second point in the “my fault column.”
Three years later, Weezer comes out with their fifth album, Make Believe, and I’m serenaded by my friend Sam singing “Beverly Hills. That’s where I want to be!” over and over and then laughing. He makes a good point. The lyrics in this song are particularly bad. Add a point to Weezer’s column. Actually, add two points to Weezer’s column for Beverly Hills.
Let’s take a step back. When I started writing this, I hadn’t chosen which side I wanted to win. That’s what makes this a good blog – my lack of responsibility to my readers. After writing about Make Believe, I’ve come to realize that Make Believe came out in May of 2005. I joined eMusic in October of 2005 because I was fed up with not finding music here in Rochester.
What does this mean? Without other options, I’m content to sit back and listen to three-chord Weezer till the cows come home. When I have other options, I’ll kick them to the curb. Point “my fault.”
So there you have it – it’s my fault that I no longer like Weezer. Three to two. That’s surprising. I really thought it was completely their fault.
Weezer’s new single is called Pork and Beans. Check it out.
P.S. What? I can’t buy this song with my pepsi points? Looks like this argument may need to go to overtime… some other day.
Baby come back,
You can blame it all on me.
I was wrong, and I just can’t live without you.
- Player
Today, my eMusic tracks reset, meaning I need to figure out what to download fast or start singing the above song to the computer in hopes that eMusic can feel my pain and give me back my tracks.
It’s been a while since I’ve been strapped for time to get music downloaded, and this month wasn’t really bad – I only had 12 tracks left and 18 albums in my “Save for Later” pile. The problem with my save for later pile is that it could be considered a place where albums go to die.
Searching for music based on 30-second clips isn’t always the easiest and I’m usually too lazy to go to somebody’s MySpace page to check out full tracks, so I’ll usually spend an hour here and there digging around and putting stuff on my save for later list to revisit once I decide that they’re good enough to warrant downloading or I hit the end of the month.
An interesting thing about eMusic refreshing your tracks is that they do it every 30 days – not every month. Every time that a month isn’t 30 days, the refresh date changes. Apparently this was done because figuring out that somebody who had signed up on the 30th of the month should get their tracks refreshed on the 28th of February was too difficult to code up.
With my final 12 tracks, I picked up 12 out of the 13 tracks from a band called Firewater. This album is interesting because of the story behind it. In 2004, lead singer Todd A. (I’m pretty sure that’s now his legal name) reeling from divorce and the re-election of President Bush, decided to leave the country and travel around India, Turkey, Pakistan, and Indonesia.
The band apparently already had a worldly sound, but because of his travels, they were able to incorporate even more interesting sounds into their (reviewer’s quote) “danceable” music. Personally, I’m not really dancing to this stuff, but it is interesting. The opening track, Borneo, kind of gives a run-down of why he left the country to travel and is today’s song. Enjoy!
More than words to show you feel,
That your love for me is real…
Then you couldn’t make things new
Just by saying I love you.
- Extreme
Does anybody remember this song?Just another late 80’s (technically early 90’s) hair band trying to get on the main stage by creating a power ballad. Then, once you have them hooked, knock them out with your real stuff. Bon Jovi made a career out of this method.
Back when VH1 had some interesting shows (i.e. when I was in college with nothing better to watch) there was a show about one hit wonders. On this show, they showed the video for More Than Words and then made fun of the drummer because he obviously didn’t play during their only popular song. Instead he was in the video reading a newspaper in the background.
There are a couple of things wrong with this show. First of all, Extreme’s subsequent power ballad, Hole Hearted, rocked its way up to #4 on Billboard’s hot 100, so you can’t really classify them as a one hit wonder. Secondly, in the same show they called Radiohead a one hit wonder. No wonder VH1 went down the tubes and is now showing Flavor Flav spin-offs.
Now, I know what you’re wondering. Why is he talking about Extreme? Can’t he get a little more recent?Why can’t I get this song out of my head?
That’s easy. I’m talking about Extreme because it’s a slow week and I don’t have anything else to write about. It’s recent because after more than 13 years, Extreme has decided to release a new album, titled Saudades de Rock. Oh, and do some math in your head. That’ll get rid of that song right quick.
What do I have to say about the new album, other than that it’s on spinner? Not much. Like I said, it’s a horrifically slow week for new music.
Today’s song comes from an album that I’ve had for a couple of months, but have held off posting. It’s not bad stuff – it could just use some help in the production and possibly the maturity of the band. Check out Echoes by I Was A Cub Scout.
This is where we’re supposed to make some claim about 2008 being a banner year for music or some such thing. But we can’t. If you pay attention to music — really live for the stuff — then every year, day, minute and second is a great moment for it. The musical waters don’t magically get a little more potent from year to year; instead they shift from city to city and genre to genre. The trick is figuring out where to look.
It’s been a surprising year for me so far. Last year was the year of the huge releases – The National, Arcade Fire, LCD Soundsystem, and Spoon. Radiohead threw themselves into the mix and started an internet revolution.
This year, if you look at the “Believe the hype” list, with the exception of The Hold Steady and The Raveonettes (I’m ignoring the classical and jazz records) these are all first releases. That’s surprising.
Since eMusic has already done most of the work for me, you may be hearing a decent amount of tracks from the “Incredible albums you might have overlooked” in the coming weeks. Then again, I’m pretty much out of tracks for this month, so I may need to get creative.
Before going to today’s song, I thought that I’d print an excerpt from an A.V. Club interview with Seth Rogan:
The A.V. Club: The cover of Rolling Stone calls Pineapple Express the greatest stoner film of all time.
Seth Rogen: It’s true. But the Jonas Brothers are on that same cover, so it kind of removes some of the coolness of that, I guess.
Take that, Jonas Brothers! Sweet, now I’ll get web traffic for mentioning the Jonas Brothers. It’s a win-win!
Today’s song comes from The Raveonettes. I’ve been ignoring this album because it feels like the sort of thing that I would put away fairly quickly. That being said, there are some good songs from this album. Check out Dead Sound.
Listening to the song got me thinking – do I no longer like Weezer because they’ve become a dumbed-down version of themselves or is it because I simply outgrew them? Really, the question is, is it my fault that I no longer enjoy Weezer or is it Weezer’s fault?
