Ryan Adams and The Cardinals

Heads up on this concert announcement. When you see a gig announcement in your town (vintage posters) for The Cardinals, note bene that it’s really the tried and true Ryan Adams and The Cardinals. I’m sure he’ll have something bitter and/or obtuse to say about it on stage, which is his normal m.o., from what I’ve seen.

August 23 ~ San Francisco ~ Fillmore
August 26 ~ Seattle, WA – WaMu Theater *
August 27 ~ Vancouver, BC – General Motors Place *
August 29 ~ Edmonton, AB – Rexall Place *
August 30 ~ Calgary, AB – Pengrowth Saddledome *
September 1 ~ Winnipeg, MB – MTS Center *
September 4 ~ Ottawa, ON – Scotiabank Palace *
September 5 ~ Montreal, QC – Bell Centre *
September 7 ~ Boston, MA – Bank of America Pavilion
September 9 ~ London, ONT – John LaBatt Center *
September 25 ~ Schenectady, NY – Proctor’s Theater
September 26 ~ Syracuse, NY – Landmark Theater
September 27 ~ Rochester, NY – Auditorium Theater
September 29 ~ Columbus, OH – Palace Theater
September 30 ~ Cleveland, OH – Palace Theater
October 2 ~ Indianapolis, IN – Murat Theatre
October 3 ~ St. Louis, MO – Fox Theater
October 5 ~ Madison, WI – Overture Hall

Black Francis

I like people who get excited about things. Black Francis (a.k.a. Frank Black, a.k.a. Charles Thompson, a.k.a. former frontman of The Pixies) gets passionately obsessed about weird things like fringe Dutch musicians. To paraphrase, “Is he weird, is he white, is he promised to the night?” Yes? Bonus.

In the last year Black Francis has released two EPs/short LPs, Bluefinger and SVN FNGRS. I was never a big fan of the Frank Black (and the Catholics) solo stuff, but these new discs more than deserve the old moniker. They rock like nothing I’ve heard of his since The Pixies, and the live show was impeccable.

Bluefinger is a theme album, based on or at least inspired by the drug-crazed life and times of Herman Brood. The disc contains a cover of You Can’t Break a Heart and Have It (by Herman Brood and His Wild Romance), in which you can hear coked-up pounding anguish that makes it such a good song for Black Francis. You can hear how it would influence him. Sort of like, if you listen real hard to Nirvana, it makes so much sense that Kurt Cobain‘s first band was a Creedence Clearwater Revival cover band.

Listen to Threshold Apprehension from Bluefinger and When They Come to Murder Me from SVN FNGRS on his MySpace, but know neither song is as intense as the overall vibe of the discs.

But if I had to choose, I’d pick SVN FNGRS (vowels are so uncool) for sure. The incisively short songs vamp (or is it harp?) on those good ol’ bloody themes: birth, sex, battle, death. Watch the video for the song I Sent Away. The album’s title comes from the seven-fingered-and-toed Cúchulainn, a mythological hero from Irish folklore “known for his terrifying battle frenzy or ríastrad, in which he becomes an unrecognizable monster who knows neither friend nor foe.” Sounds like the transformation that occurs when pasty, bald (and blue suede shod) Charles Thompson rips into a two-minute song as Black Francis.

I saw Black Francis with a bass player and drummer perform almost every song from both discs at The Slowdown in Omaha, Nebraska. The jukebox, the beers, the size (capacity 470!), the jaw-dropping bookings, the overall aesthetic … everything’s perfect in that bar/venue. And Charles commented more than once on how great the club is for performers.

The Slowdown’s excellence comes from the fact that it was created by owner/operators who are musicians themselves–folks from Omaha’s own Saddle Creek Records (Conor Oberst/Bright Eyes, Cursive, et al.).

I highly recommend The Slowdown … and so do others. It was named Esquire’s Club of the Year.

Getting back to the obsessions of Black Francis. He has recorded songs to accompany the 1915 film Der Golem, which I think will be released as another album soon. This is the third film I know him to sing about, joining the ranks of Eraserhead and Un Chien Andalou.

Toadies

There’s no feeling in the world better than when you first find out your favorite band is coming to town.

Except the feeling when you learn that one of your favorite bands is back together, releasing a new album, and touring. Can you see me jumping up and down?!?!

The new Toadies album, No Deliverance, comes out August 19. Stream the title track at their MySpace.

An article/interview at Spin ends by quoting lead singer Todd Lewis on “what the Toadies, especially after all these years, can offer fans and the music industry that no other rock band can:

‘Balls. A ton of balls.'”

And they’ve got lots of tour dates in which to teabag us with their incredible charisma and raucous stage presence.

The Toadies broke up seven years ago while I was living in Dallas, just a couple of years after Tripping Daisy called it quits. It was a one-two punch to my rock-show loving soul. Two of my favorite frontmen, first Tim DeLaughter (a long post of mine) and then (real first name Vaden) Todd Lewis, gone away. Each quickly moved on to another great project, The Polyphonic Spree and The Burden Brothers, respectively. But I always missed l’original.

Before I rhapsodize about The Toadies, I do want to briefly plug The Burden Brothers’ discs Buried in Your Black Heart (buy it) and Mercy (buy it and listen to some of it). I can’t do much better than this Village Voice description: “BB are a kick ass hard rock combo who riff off Kyuss/Queens of the Stone Age’s neo metal blues and Weezer /Pixies power chord sing-alongs.” It’s more in your face than you’re expecting, and who doesn’t want that? When I saw them, they hadn’t released a proper album yet, just a homemade EP, and for a 15-minute song they thrash-jammed while Todd was repeating (screeching) the phrase Dirty Sanchez, which whipped the crowd into an absolute frenzy.

The Burden Brothers were/are something of a local supergroup, with Todd joined by Taz Bentley, the former drummer for Reverend Horton Heat. BB is shuffling other personnel right now but haven’t “broken up.” [It is hard to do … ]

Now, on to The Toadies!

In 1994 the album Rubberneck broke. Yeah, it’s the one with Possum Kingdom, which you know you crank on your radio every time it plays on “’90s at noon.” You also know you’re unsure what it’s about … you’re hoping you’re not getting too excited about date rape while you sing along from the drivers’ seat.

Here are some more YouTubed music videos for songs from Rubberneck: Tyler, Backslider, and Mister Love.

It wasn’t until 2001 when the band struggled through record company problems to get Hell Below/Stars Above released. The title track is perfect in so many ways, pushing the band into a dynamic range they had not previously revealed.

Both albums are amazing. So, so solid. I can’t wait for the new one in August!

In the meantime, grab these rare tracks from a die-hard fan:

Toadies’ I Hope You Die

Toadies’ Possum Kingdom (Live)

Toadies’ cover of Talking Heads’ Not in Love

And also download the mp3 of this cover of (you guessed it!) The Pixies’ Where is My Mind.

Kanye West at Bonnaroo 2008

I didn’t think I’d say anything more about Kanye West’s ante meridiem show. But I had to put something up after reading Stereogum’s post about Kanye’s cap-locks blog rant regarding his postponed-then-much-delayed fizzle at Bonnaroo.

I stayed for the show, and I was glad to do so. I hadn’t seen a rap show in a decade (Ice Cube), and I think that Kanye has done some brilliant or at least incredibly interesting things.

But I agree with the commenters who say a simple apology or even acknowledgment of the audience’s tenacity in standing sardine-style waiting for him would have gone a long way toward building good will. Also, if he would have mentioned that his crew forwent some of the pyrotechnics in favor of actually getting on with the performance, we wouldn’t have been so disappointed in his “Glow in the Dark” tour’s much-hyped light show. Watch video of some people’s reactions at Bonnaroo (wait for the end for a woman to say “S my D, Kanye”) courtesy of Spin.

His blog post? Even if there is a “sorry” or two in there, and despite the logistical obstacles, his lyrics from the song Stronger say it all:

“You should be honored by my lateness
That I would even show up to this fake shit”

Live and die by the pen, dude.

—

Putting Bonnaroo aside, I’m uncommitted about how interesting Kanye is at this point … particularly after being initially fascinated by the three different music videos for the intense yet catchy song Flashing Lights, and then being horrified at the “she was asking for it” message at the end of one of them (the third one here on MOKB). In the chorus he says to his girl, “As I recall, I know you love to show off / But I never thought that you would take it this far,” which is innocuous in and of itself until paired with images implying the drunk golddigger’s rape at the end of the vid. Very uncool.

Trampled Under Foot (TUF)

Kansas City blues band Trampled Under Foot gave a stellar CD release concert at Uncle Bo’s last Friday night in Topeka, Kansas.

Their latest release, May I Be Excused, is available for purchase here. My copy is still on its way, but judging from the evolution of their live shows (and because of the rough recording quality of some of their older work), this must-have 12-song disc will certainly be their best, showcasing their songwriting skills and commanding vocals. They won the 2008 International Blues Challenge in Memphis (in a field of 90 bands), and just in case you think these kids are fooling around, also note well that “big brother Nick” won the Albert King Award for Most Promising Guitarist at the IBC.

These incredibly talented siblings–vocalist and bassist Danielle, guitarist Nick, and drummer Kris Schnebelen–are part and parcel of the larger family of regional blues musicians. This is Kansas City, after all, and it ain’t known for its techno. So singeth Muddy Waters (listen here to Kansas City Blues).

Their mom and dad were musicians in KC-local Little Eva and the Works. Nick worked with the bands K-Floor (a.k.a. Killin’ Floor) and Buddahead on the east coast before returning to team up with the fam. Danielle came up in the KC scene via Fresh Brew Band, The Nortons (watch her here), and regular Friday gigs at the Grand Emporium as Danielle Schnebelen and the Rush Hour Rendezvous. She recently married Brandon Hudspeth, the front man for local blues group Levee Town.

This post updates (and eclipses) Stella Splice’s February review.

—

The Trampled Under Foot performance on June 27, 2008, was in the basement of the downtown Ramada. If you can rock the Ramada in northeast Kansas, you can rock any place imaginable.

I’ve also seen the band at other, bigger venues: B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ, which is a must-go club for all those passing through, no matter the act, and also The Jazzhaus. These three shows, over the course of time, were like core samples of TUF’s evolution from great to call-everyone-you-know killer great.

I’m going to act like I’ve seen the hard-touring TUF crew a bunch of times and sketch a “typical” show.

They open with an instrumental, tuning you in to their groove. Then maybe Nick steps up to the mic, tearing into the most danceable sort of blues number with a voice that sounds chock-full with decades of whiskey, cigarettes, and no-good women. His smile is the biggest I’ve ever seen this side of a Crest commercial, but it’s twisted with a love for the bended blue notes he shakes out of his left-handed guitar (she’s a lefty, too). We hear the first round of Nick’s solos, and even the most recalcitrant concert-goer wants to hop up and see if they’ve got any boogie-woogie left in ’em.

The third song: it’s Danielle’s turn to sing. You could have listened to a Nick-fronted band all night, and been ecstatic for the chance. But once the force of nature that is her voice emanates from that woman’s soul, you just want more “D,” the little sister on bass. I recommend listening to the title track May I Be Excused on their MySpace. The butter-smooth song showcases Danielle, and even though it comes in just shy of seven minutes, she still makes you wanna beg for more. Don’t think for a minute that that song captures her energy on stage, though. In fact, my one and only criticism of her is she gets so into the vocals she sometimes twists her head away from the mic, and I don’t want to miss even those split seconds.

The rest of the show will go back and forth with Nick and Danielle trading songs. The real gems are when they (plus Kris, who is underused for this function) chime in on each others’ choruses, for that familial harmony that rings so true.

For the last song of the first set, D will leave the stage while Nick solos his ass off, guitar behind the head, taking you through a technical and emotional tour of blues history. Then Nick will leave Kris alone on stage for the sort of drum solo that makes you regret your current occupation–“Why didn’t I choose percussion in grade school?!?” Eventually, after waves of tom riffs and powerfully silent two-beats that make you yell out in hearty agreement, Kris drops back into keeping time and the others join him to finish off the song and the set. But not to worry, there’s so much more to come.

To kick off round two, Nick sets up at the trap set. He plays guitar and two-foots the bass and the top hat perfectly. It’s not a novelty; it’s just a great song that he plays himself. And it’s gotten much, much better over time.

The rest of the show may include Nick on the Dobro, a round of solos by each band member during the bridge of a couple of songs, a jam with a fellow musician (last night on the Hammond B3 organ), and a whirlwind of covers. Over the course of three shows, I heard Aretha Franklin’s Chain of Fools, which turned people into crazed fools on the dance floor, Gladys Knight & the Pips’ Midnight Train to Georgia, Howlin’ Wolf’s Killing Floor and his Howlin’ for My Darlin’ (which Nick rocks with absolute authority, as if he penned it himself), the Janis Joplin version of Summertime, I Shot the Sheriff by Bob Marley and The Wailers, and Danielle workin’ it out on Etta James’ At Last. (D says Etta is her biggest influence.)

The most crowd-pleasing of their older original music is Honey Bee and Virginia Creeper, both streaming on TUF’s MySpace.

At the end of a third set, the band tried to get off the stage and no one wanted to let them. Brilliantly, Danielle satisfied the crowd and sent us off to bed with a sweet a cappella cover of Janis Joplin’s Mercedes Benz with big brothers on harmony. Very nice.

The Swell Season at Bonnaroo 2008

The Swell Season captured the spirit of Bonnaroo best, of all the great bands I saw (pictures). You can download the show, transformed magically into mp3s, here, or any of 15 other live shows of theirs here.

I expected great things from Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, but I also know it’s hard to put a sweet sound out into the great outdoors and manage to maintain intimacy and vibrancy all at once. Their songs did just that, and their humility and joy refreshed us despite the mid-day heat. The two musicians really did fall in love while filming the movie Once and making the music that became not just a soundtrack but also this group The Swell Season. They interacted on stage just how I’d hoped: adoring looks, encouraging cues, an ever-so-slight touch on the shoulder while they worked out what to play next.

If you haven’t bought any of their stuff yet, I would recommend the collector’s edition of the Once soundtrack that also includes a couple of live cuts and a making-of DVD. Perhaps it talks about how they fell in love while filming and touring. And the actual movie DVD is out now, too, if you missed it in theaters. If you saw the movie, you won’t be surprised to know The Swell Season covered two Van Morrison songs, Astral Weeks and Into the Mystic.

Glen was much more of a showman than I expected. He orchestrated the audience without commanding us (see future post on Metallica at Bonnaroo), encouraging us to cut loose with no inhibitions in the spirit of a festival. We were hungry for this sort of communal happiness, and the packed audience ate it up and gave it back to the performers on stage tenfold.

Glen and Markéta were accompanied by Glen’s usual band (since 1990) The Frames. I’ve not been able to get into their records, but this show made me want to keep trying until it takes. The drummer was an incredible mix of charismatic and seriously absorbed, the guitarist and bass player were great role players, and the violinist played so emotively I actually looked for another woman singer when he laid harmonies over and under Markéta’s soaring vocals.

The song I loved best was originally a Frames song, called God Bless Mom. It’s not anywhere online live to show you. I’ll keep a lookout. The video for the original version of the song does nothing to capture the dynamic range with which The Swell Season infused it.

I love The Pixies. I was amped for a Pixies cover by a downloadable concert of The Swell Season at the 9:30 Club offered by NPR here. So when the band left the stage and Glen and Markéta had a confab and then broke into a cover of Levitate Me, I went ballistic. You can’t see me going apeshit about five rows back in  the crowd, which is only due to the camera angle, but it’s still fun to watch them.

The band worked a jam for a while, which was unremarkable in and of itself. But Glen asked poets to come up on the stage, and two people took the invitation. The man who went first looked at the crowd in awe, genuinely taken aback by the sea of people focused on him. Glen nodded in shared astonishment, and with that bolstering moment the dude plowed into a really good poem. I tapped him on the shoulder later and thanked him for letting us all be part of something special, and he seemed to take the compliment as seriously as I meant it.

Final note: They did an encore, Hey Day (written by Mic Christopher), which was racous. What more could ya want?

Iron and Wine at Bonnaroo 2008

I really like Iron and Wine. I have loved the direction in which they’ve grown, fleshing out their sound and increasingly embracing grooviness. Woman King was my favorite until The Shepherd’s Dog, and there’s nothing more exciting than knowing one of your favorite active bands is cranking out ever-better discs [buy them!].

A lovely little review exultingly examines the change in Beam’s sound:

“Basically a one-man band until this release, Beam left his four-track machine behind in his bedroom and expanded his music to include polyrhythmic textures, percussive flourishes, and multicultural influences. Nothing too radical here, but if you’re familiar with the hushed intimacy of his earlier work, it’s significant.”

The author likens Iron and Wine’s shift to the change in Paul Simon’s career ushered in by Graceland. The comparison is too forced, but the article is endearing nonetheless. I mean, what (beyond over-exuberance) can be faulted in sentences such as this: “At its best, Iron & Wine’s music feels magically haunted like a Southern Gothic musicbox found in an attic that chimes intimate secrets into your ear.”

Now that I’ve established I’m a fan, I can safely say I hated seeing Iron and Wine live at Bonnaroo. They sounded good, all eight musicians. Sam was crooning, she was harmonizing and plucking her violin strings, the xylophone was hyping the beat, the trap set and auxiliary percussion balanced their contributions perfectly, et cetera, et cetera, as Yul Brynner pontificated. They even jammed out the riffs, as is appropriate for Bonnaroo.

But it was uninspiring. When I see a band live, I need the lead singer to acknowledge the audience exists. Make eye contact just once. Crack a smile or a joke better than the bitchy:

“Last time we were here, you guys danced like crazy when we played fast and shut the hell up when we played a quiet one,” Mr. Beam said from the stage after a few songs. “Are you going to do that again?” [from this lame NYTimes review]

It’s a festival, dudes; at least look up from your perfectionism and try to have a good time once in a while. Us audience members want to have a good time or at least be transfixed as we were for the similarly contemplative set by José González. Instead, I and my compatriots felt alienated and fidgety. In fact, two-thirds of us voted with our feet and left our primo spot center stage to catch Little Feat or Ben Folds.

I was seriously considering traveling four hours each way to see Iron and Wine earlier in the year. I’m glad now I didn’t spend the ticket and gas money. I love live music more than most things in life, but for this band I will be henceforth content to hear the songs, in all their brilliance, on disc or (for the live jams) online. If that appeals to  you, check this MPR show or the umpteen downloadble concerts.

Bonnaroo 2008

7th annual Bonnaroo

700 acres

70 miles from Nashville

70,000+ people (not quite sold out at 80K)

Bonnaroo 2008 YouTubes

Bonnaroo 2008 Downloads

Dig it. I had a great time at Bonnaroo.

But in comparison to other festivals, it felt surprisingly less hippied out, which was disappointing. I didn’t feel like I was going to randomly get hugged by someone overwhelmed with love for his/her fellow man in line at the Port-a-John. Everyone seemed pretty self contained, going about the business of seeing great bands but not really engaging with each other like I’d hoped. Maybe it’s the sort of drugs that are in vogue? I’m not sure.

In good news, with all those people standing crushed together, trampling the Tennessee earth as they herded from stage to stage, I never saw a single act of violence, or even aggression. Hell, I never even heard a malicious comment (except those directed at the excruciatingly tardy Kanye West). All in all, a most excellent display of humanity. Bravo. Even the Highway Patrolmen who pulled us over for whipping a U-turn on the interstate let us go with little more than an admonishment : )

My friends and I asked many people what “Bonnaroo” means. The only answer besides “dunno” was “have a good time!” I think this was just a gut reaction, but it is actually accurate: “The word Bonnaroo, popularized by New Orleans R&B giant Dr. John with his 1974 album Desitively Bonnaroo, is a Cajun slang word meaning “a really good time.” The name was chosen for its literal meaning, and also to honor the rich Louisiana music tradition that inspired the organizers’ desire to provide many styles of quality live music for appreciative fans. The word Bonnaroo is actually a creole-French construction taken from “bon” (french for “good”) and “rue” (French for “street”).” Thanks, wiki.

I’m going to be rolling out posts about bands I saw at Bonnaroo, but here is a scattering of thoughts that aren’t strong enough to stand on their own.

Matt from You Ain’t No Picasso is the only music blogger I read (shocking, since I read a bunch) who was there. He took some killer photos of My Morning Jacket‘s epic set, and his review of his fellow Kentuckians is better than I could do from my location way back from the stage, under a tree to escape the worst of the rain.

Yes, Kanye was inexcusably late. Yes, he was so late the sun started rising about 15 minutes into the show. Yes, the “light show” we were promised did not deliver. Yes, there was booing. But the booing subsided after the fans who continued to wait realized they were making a choice to stay and thus needed to either leave or shut the hell up. It was a refreshing bit of groupthink that changed the crowd from something that made me think “Great shades of Altamont” to “Wow, these people have mellowed out.” Or maybe we just became stupefied with sleepiness and lost the energy needed to be pissed.

The New York Times’ Bonnaroo blog sucked. Dude stayed at the Country Inn and Suites. He had an epiphany of festival-going when he got out of the media corral and onto the lawn with the hoi polloi. Wecome to the fold, eh. The posts were short, lame, and showed a lack of research. It’s really too bad. Example.

More to come.

Death Cab for Cutie

The new Death Cab for Cutie album Narrow Stairs doesn’t come out until May 13 (tour schedule). You can watch the (fairly uninspiring) video for the album’s first single I Will Posses Your Heart.

But the real news is the Death Cab Daytrotter Session that features downloadable or streamable mp3s of both old and new songs. Set list, including the quite good Cath:

1) A Movie Script Ending from The Photo Album
2) Cath from the forthcoming Narrow Stairs [recommended]
3) Styrofoam Plates from The Photo Album
4) Talking Bird from the forthcoming Narrow Stairs
5) The New Year from Transatlanticism
6) Why You’d Want To Live Here from The Photo Album

Speaking of old Death Cab, here’s a YouTube of Title and Registration (off of Transatlanticism … I never did get in to Plans …), which is cribbed from the DCFC documentary Drive Well, Sleep Carefully. The multi-venue concert DVD is aptly named because I think of Ben Gibbard’s music as driving to the mountains music, particularly The Postal Service.

The National, Radiohead, and Neil Young and Crazy Horse

This post is nothing more (or less) than a hub to some free mp3 downloads of fantastic live performances.

The National – Black Sessions

The National – White Sessions

Radiohead – Live at the BBC (April 1)

Neil Young and Crazy Horse – San Francisco 1978

Commercials’ Music

I like the song I heard for the Nike Sparq Training commercial. It’s Saul Williams’ List of Demands.

I also like the song in the parkour/soccer FIFA Street 3 commercial that VSL turned me onto. The track, La Pelota, feat. Alejandro Londono, is made by some ad agency music production company (Massive Music).

The two are similar. Not worth buying a disc, but worth a listen or a download.

Viral commercials launched both José González (Sony Bravia ad) and Hem (Liberty Mutual ad) for me, so don’t knock it. I don’t even want to get in to the iPod star-maker ads (’cause other people already have, ad nauseum).

Oh, and file the Meat Loaf/Tiffany pairing in this GoPhone commercial under random. I get a kick out of it, actually.

Chaka Khan, Al Green, Diana Ross & The Supremes, etc.

I totally missed the great Chaka Khan‘s double-Grammy disc Funk You (listen/buy). For fun, here are three very different YouTubes of her, a classic song, her on drums, and a jazzy tune.

Muzzle of Bees introduced me to the disc Dirty Laundry: The Soul of Black Country. Review here, tracklist here, and buy it here. We’re talking a great compilation here, including James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, The Pointer Sisters, Bobby Womack, Etta James, etc.

Stop, children, what’s that sound … everybody look at this delicate but soulful cover of Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth covered by Sergio Mendes & Brazil ‘66, which you can download at Aquarium Drunkard. Buy the disc.

Aquarium Drunkard also alerts us to the amazing double disc of Diana Ross and The Supremes rarities, available here. Find their cover of Stevie Wonder’s Uptight for download here. Also, you can stream Diana Ross’ recent album of just covers, I Love You, in its entirety here.

In late May, Al Green comes out with a new disc Lay It Down that is evidently star-studded, as if Al weren’t enough. Preview a track at Soul Sides; it’s Al with Anthony Hamilton (my review of him) performing You Got the Love I Need Babe. You can also stream Al Green’s remastered greatest hits album here.

By the way, if you get a chance to see Al Green live, pay the money and sit in the front. It’s a life highlight. Check the tour dates, such as his shows co-headlining with Gladys Knight!

To bring this post full circle to yesterday’s, the Estelle/Kanye song American Boy contains the lyric “The Pips at they Gladys.” Fun!

The New Pornographers and Okkervil River — Write Your Own Review

The New Pornographers (with Neko Case) and Okkervil River performed Thursday, April 17, at the Georgia Theater. Gigs on this tour have been reviewed by music bloggers before (Chromewaves, ChartAttack, The Wheel’s Still In Spin). Now it’s your turn.

WRITE YOUR OWN REVIEW!

Instead of reviewing the show, I am asking my fellow concert-goers to post their own reviews and reactions in the comments section of this post. So bring it on, folks! Enthuse, critique, swoon, and/or squabble at will!

For those of you who don’t know, the beautiful cauldron of musical ferment that is Athens, Georgia, spawned R.E.M., The B-52s, Pylon, Widespread Panic, Neutral Milk Hotel, Indigo Girls, Drive-By Truckers, Danger Mouse, etc.

Watch a ten-minute taste of the 1987 documentary Athens, GA: Inside/Out about the camaraderie of the artists active in this mid-80s in this college town. And if you really want to geek on the Athens music scene, take a musical history tour.

Record Store Day

Record Store Day is Saturday!!!

Find your local brick-and-mortar purveyor of shiny silver (and sometimes hefty black) discs-o-music in this list to determine if there is any performing, DJing, or autographing going on near you.

Examples include a Metallica meet-and-greet at Berkeley’s Rasputin Music, Collections Of Colonies Of Bees performing with many other acts at Milwaulkee’s Atomic Records, The Donnas DJing at Hollywood’s famed Amoeba Records, The New Pornographers performing among others at St. Louis’ Vintage Vinyl, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club performing among others at CD Central in Lexington, KY.

EVERYONE within range of an independent record store can enjoy goodie bags and give-aways.

And besides the discs you’ve been procrastinating buying, you can purchase a Record-Store-Day exclusive 7″ (two songs) from Vampire Weekend and a 10″ (three songs) from Stephen Malkmus. Oh, and in case you’re not excited yet, 7″es from Built to Spill, R.E.M., Death Cab for Cutie, and The Black Keys. Good grief! Find track listings here and here, respectively.

James

Last week James came out with a new album– their first since 2001. It’s called Hey Ma, and you can buy it or, while waiting for the cheaper U.S. release, stream bits of each song here. Be sure to check out the song Whiteboy, which is a mix of every British act I can think of, or maybe just the bands they thoughtfully listed on their MySpace (as opposed to oh so many bands on MySpace who use that answer in which to jack around).

The Modern Music offers you the title track mp3 for download.

It’s well established that James’ music sort of has to grow on you. But the new disc has a fuller, yet cleaner sound than the previous albums. They built their own studio, and their mastery over the recording quality really shows. Plus, there is judicious but joyful use of horns, which are sort of a nice foil to Tim Booth’s voice.

For a blast from the past, watch these YouTubes of their most famous song Laid, of Sit Down, and of Getting Away With It. Actually, to avoid the cringe-making fashion, just push play and then interweb elsewhere.

And if you’re across the pond (they’re of course not touring the U.S.), check here for tour dates and some info on getting a code with which to buy tickets early.

Megafaun

I once lamented missing out on Megafuan‘s tour … but we have all been granted a second chance to see them gig at a variety of very, very small venues. Like, holy crap I didn’t even know that bakery considered itself a venue sort of small. This is an incredible opportunity. They’re a great new band.

April 12 – Broad St Cafe (Burly Time Record Release Party II) – Durham, NC
April 23 – Local 506 – Chapel Hill, NC
April 24 – TBA W/ Great White Jenkins – Richmond, VA
April 25 – Barnard College – New York City
April 26 – IOTA w/ Old Ceremony – Arlington, VA
April 27 – Pilam (Day Show) – Philadelphia, PA
April 28 – The Space – Hamdon, CN
April 29 – Union Pool w/Greg Davis – Brooklyn, NY
April 30 – Knitting Factory w/ David Grubbs and Greg Davis – New York City
May 1 – Lily Pad w/ Keith Fullerton Whitman and Greg Davis – Boston, MA
May 2 – Monkey House w/ Greg Davis – Winooski, VT
May 3 – Cafe Latino w/ Greg Davis and Missi St. Pierre – North Adams, MA
May 4 – Garfield Artworks w/Paleface – Pittsburgh, PA
May 5 – Rumba Cafe – Columbus, OH
May 7 – Bears Place – Bloomington, IN
May 8 – Lemp Art Center – St. Louis, MO
May 9- TBA w/ Jon Mueller – Milwaukee, WI
May 11 – Hideout w/ Jon Mueller and Jim Becker – Chicago, IL
May 12 – Project Lodge – Madison, WI
May 13 – Nucleus – Eau Claire, WI
May 14 – Kitty Cat Klub w/ The Pines Minneapolis, MN
May 15 – Beaners – Duluth, MN
May 16 – Vaudeville Mews w/ the Pines – Des Moines, IA
May 17 – Gaslight – Lawerance, KS
May 18 – Edesia’s – Manhattan, KS
May 20 – Harvest Records – Asheville, NC
May 23 – Williamsport Art Center – Williamsport, PA

Buy the six tracks on their EP Bury the Square. You can download two of them, Find Your Mark and (banjo-rific) Lazy Suicide, from either Stereogum or Aquarium Drunkard.

The Breeders

How do we love thee, Kim Deal! Let us count the bass lines. The Breeders‘ (Kim and Kelley’s) new album Mountain Battles comes out tomorrow. It’s the best sort of rocker girl jukebox music, and lord knows jukeboxes the world over could use a bit more of that. There are too many girlies and not enough Deals out there. Stream the whole album!

The new disc was produced by Steve Albini using no digital whatnot whatsoever (except on the title track, “which pains me so hard,” says Kim). Read about this recent manifestation of his “All Wave” push here: “This should not be construed as a call to arms, but could become at least as significant as the Ska revival or perhaps the WNBA,” and his 1993 treatise The Problem with Music here.

It’s been six years since the twin sisters’ last album, and can you believe Last Splash was 1993?! For old times’ sake … Check, check; ahh-oooooooo-ah, ahh-oooooooo-ah … watch them play Cannonball on The Jon Stewart Show back when they were touring with Nirvana on its tour for (Albini-produced) In Utero. That performance, that song, those voices … if I would have seen that I would have made some sweeping statement about these being rockers, not women doing rock music, which would necessarily relegate them to the margins … well, read what Kurt Cobain said about The Breeders (and The Pixies, for whom Kim was the bassist).

Back to the new disc. You can watch them screw around on a YouTube video while you listen to the very agreeable song Overglazed and the crystal-clear We’re Gonna Rise. Or download the mp3s of the infectious Bang On and Night of Joy.

Now buy the thing and go see ’em live.

Apr 25 – Coachella – Indio, CA
Apr 28 – Canes – San Diego, CA
Apr 29 – El Rey Theatre – Los Angeles, CA
Apr 30 – Slims – San Francisco, CA
May 2 – House of Blues – Las Vegas, NV
May 3 – Clubhouse – Tempe, AZ
May 5 – Emos – Austin, TX
May 6 – House of Blues – Dallas, TX
May 7 – Meridian – Houston, TX
May 9 – Bottleneck – Laurence, KS
May 10 – Pops – St. Louis, MO
May 23 – Richards – Vancouver, BC
May 24 – The Gorge – George, WA
May 25 – Berbattis Pan – Portland, OR
May 27 – The Depot – Salt Lake City, UT
May 28 – Ogden – Denver, CO
May 30 – First Avenue – Minneapolis, MN
May 31 – Metropolitan University – Chicago, IL
Jun 1 – Magic Stick – Detroit, MI
Jun 3 – House of Blues – Cleveland, OH
Jun 4 – Pearl Street – Northampton, MA
Jun 5 – Paradise – Boston, MA
Jun 7 – Toads Place – New Haven, CT
Jun 8 – Theatre of Living Arts – Philadelphia, PA
Jun 10 – Webster Hall – New York, NY
Jun 11 – 9:30 Club – Washington, DC
Jun 13 – The Loft – Atlanta, GA

I’m interested to hear what the set list is like, especially since Kelley said, “I’ve never felt excited about bands on tour. I never want to hear more than three new songs, just the old stuff. But this time, I’ve told Kim we should just start off with [1993 hit] ‘Cannonball’ and only play the new album from there.”

The Black Keys New

The Black Keys‘ album Attack & Release comes out today! Huzzah! Buy it!

Download two tracks from it, or stream them from their MySpace.

A small article from Nonesuch quotes the band talking about their collaboration with Danger Mouse, “Now, at 27, we maybe just realized we had stopped being broke, and stopped being dip-shits, and we could learn from other people who make records … I’m more pleased with the sound of this record than any we’ve ever made … Rather than mask things in, like, a low-fi fog, we can make things sound big and fucked up at the same time.”

I’ve been waiting impatiently for this album, and so far I like it. It is big. It is good. But the new direction, using input from people not named Dan and Pat necessarily makes it different. This album comes from someplace outside of their growly souls. It feels like driving music, beatin’ it down the highway. The other albums feel like … well, see my review from yesterday.

I also like the way this AP article phrased it: “Fans of the Black Keys expecting another trip to a Mississippi juke joint with their latest release are instead headed to a Memphis R&B lounge.”

Get your tickets for their U.S. tour quick; those suckers are sellin’ out.

April 4 – Crystal Ballroom – Portland, OR – SOLD OUT
April 5 – The Showbox SoDo – Seattle, WA – SOLD OUT
April 6 – Commodore Ballroom – Vancouver, BC – SOLD OUT
April 9 – Ogden Theater – Denver, CO – SOLD OUT
April 10 – Slowdown – Omaha, NE – SOLD OUT
April 11 – First Avenue – Minneapolis, MN – SOLD OUT
April 12 – Riviera Theatre – Chicago, IL – SOLD OUT
April 13 – The Vogue – Indianapolis, IN
April 15 – Royal Oak Music Theatre – Royal Oak, MI
May 12 – 9:30 Club – Washington, DC
May 13 – 9:30 Club – Washington, DC
May 15 – Terminal 5 – New York, NY
May 16 – Show moved to the Electric Factory – Philadelphia, PA
May 17 – Orpheum Theatre – Boston, MA

Their tourmate is Jay Reatard, who makes great clean-the-house music (that’s a compliment). Kids everywhere would love his high-energy Brit punk if only they weren’t Adderalled into oblivion. Download three tunes from Jay, check his blog for videos, and buy his disc.

Bonnaroo Muxtape

To check out the Muxtape phenomenon, where anyone can upload up to twelve songs for the listening enjoyment of the cyberworld at large, I made a mix of songs by artists who will be performing at Bonnaroo Music Festival. See the complete list of bands from which I chose here.

Listen to the Stella Splice Bonnaroo Muxtape

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings – Nobody’s Baby 2:28 100 Days, 100 Nights 2007
Little Feat – That’s A Pretty Good Love 4:49 Ain’t Had Enough Fun 1995
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss – Rich Woman 4:05 Raising Sand 2007
Levon Helm – False Hearted Lover Blues 3:30 Dirt Farmer 2007
Drive-By Truckers – Two Daughters And A Beautiful Wife 3:06 Brighter Than Creation’s Dark 2008
My Morning Jacket – Golden 4:58 12.1.06 @ the electric factory, philadelphia 2006
The Swell Season – Into the Mystic (Van Morrison cover) 5:05 NPR 2007
Jack Johnson – Rodeo Clowns 2:52 Live From Bonnaroo 2002
Rogue Wave – Lake Michigan 3:48 Asleep at Heaven’s Gate 2007
Iron and Wine – White Tooth Man 3:57 The Shepard’s Dog 2007
José González – Down the Line 3:11 In Our Nature 2007
CRS (Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West, Pharrell) – Us Placers 3:54 2007

Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead

Currently artists on RIAA-affiliated labels get 13% for album sales. The push is for that to decrease to 9% (with Apple pushing for just 4%). I’m no expert; read about it here. So what else is available to artists, and how are consumers responding?

Bands interested in self-determined distribution, keeping 75% of the take, can make such arrangements via INDISTR. CD Baby is another sans-label option that works sort of like Cafe Press‘ just-in-time production.

As we all know, Radiohead‘s In Rainbows took the initative to set up a name-your-price roll out, and people are paying way more than they have to for the thing, due to shame or guilt or a feeling of social responsibility or a feeling of connection to the artist. The economics are fascinating. Nine Inch Nails‘ Ghosts I-IV is available free on BitTorrent or for five dollars on Amazon mp3. Hard copies of each are fancy and expensive, for the hard core fans. This combo of digital and box set has been wildly lucrative for these wildly popular bands. Both bands are rocking Amazon’s mp3 sales chart and last.fm’s charts.

CASH Music looks to be a promising way to follow in Radiohead’s footsteps by letting fans choose a price. Or bands can use a site like Amie Street that charges according to the popularity of a track.

There are ways to make money that do not involve actually selling music. Free music can work using the right promotional/business model, keeping in mind people who download songs do not necessarily represent a lost sale; they probably wouldn’t have bought the song if that were their only choice and might spend money on the band in some other way or at least influence its popularity. Other ways of making money: concert tickets, merchandise, asking for donations, and now investing directly in a band so they can circumvent record companies. Read this great article about direct band investment companies SellaBand and slicethepie. Also, indie labels and some bands are using RCRD LBL, article here, which hosts free mp3 downloads and pays the band from advertising revenue from the site’s very savvy sponsors. Way cool.

However, the underlying assumption of all of these models and alt-distro-options is that people have piles of disposable income and leisure time. In the first world, bands can get people to pay a price commensurate to their level of established popularity. But what about consumers in burgeoning markets, such as China, et al., who 1) have more depressed economies and less disposable income and 2) no market value, real or remembered, for music entrenched in the culture. Tunes (and other media) are free or sold for a pittance; there’s no good old days of $16 discs to refer back to as a benchmark. So cutting lose the value of songs to the market’s whimsy won’t work the same there.

For instance, “The labels say that piracy has made the effort [of releasing records in China] futile. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, a trade group, estimates that 85 percent of the CDs sold in China are counterfeit. Leong Mayseey, the federation’s regional director for Asia, says the piracy rate for downloaded songs is close to 100 percent.”

I think the answer in burgeoning markets such as China is probably going to be something akin to RCRD LBL’s model; tunes will probably have to be paid for by advertising, not sales. I base this on the way that bands are making money touring in China. Ticket prices are lower there, necessarily, based on income, and so shows’ revenues are supplemented with sponsorship deals. Also, the culture is geared differently, not to the cult of personality for frontmen/bands but to the cult of the brand, according to this NYTimes article: “Here there are virtually no artists who have more credibility than the brands. Coke is a lot cooler brand than any young musician today in China.”

So, really, what will work in China? What else can the music industry use as a benchmark to model solutions domestically and abroad? Will some B-school student quit messing around with his or her PowerPoint presentation and try to glean some lessons for us from some other industry breaking into the Chinese market, like tennis shoes? Yao Ming might have some ideas … great article here.

DeVotchKa and Basia Bulat

I have previously gushed about DeVotchKa here and Basia Bulat here. Check those posts for lots of info and goodies.

I wanted to remind you that the new DeVotchKa album A Mad and Faithful Telling is out today. Buy it at your local record store (mine was nearly out) or online here! If you need convincing, listen to the full-album stream.

Chromewaves offers you free downloads of both her live cut The Pilgrimming Vine and their song Along the Way. These are in addition to the songs downloadable at my earlier posts. Also, the official video for BB’s In the Night is watchable here, and she did a Daytrotter session where you can grab a new song and a couple of cool covers. Also, MPR just put out a three-song stream from DeVotchKa’s performance at SXSW.

These two acts are doing a rash of shows together at some perfect-sized, cool venues:

April 28 – San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore
April 29 – Eugene, OR – McDonald Theatre
April 30 – Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom
May 2 – Vancouver, BC – Richard’s On Richards Cabaret
May 3 – Seattle, WA – Showbox SoDo
May 4 – Boise, ID – Big Easy Concert House
May 7 – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue
May 8 – Milwaukee, WI – Turner Hall Ballroom
May 9 – Chicago, IL – Vic Theatre
May 10 – Indianapolis, IN – The Vogue
May 11 – Nashville, TN – The Mercy Lounge
May 13 – Atlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse
May 14 – Asheville, NC – Orange Peel
May 15 – Richmond, VA – Toad’s Place Of Richmond
May 16 – Washington, DC – 9:30 Club
May 17 – Philadelphia, PA – The Fillmore – TLA
May 18 – Boston, MA – Paradise Rock Club
May 20 – New York, NY – Terminal 5
May 21 – Pittsburgh, PA – Diesel Club Lounge
May 22 – Newport, KY – Southgate House
May 23 – Saint Louis, MO – The Pageant
May 24 – Omaha, NE – Slowdown

Radiohead

The BBC will host Radiohead for two concerts and multiple interviews on April 1. Mark your google calendars for this Radiohead Fools’ Day.

For the skinny on the broadcasts of the shows, check the website, which also offers links to the band’s other cool doin’s, including the very watchable (i.e., you can understand what Thom York is saying) February performance of House of Cards on Later … with Jools Holland.

Radio Moscow

Radio Moscow rocks. This is the band that you want at the bar on your birthday.
These dudes hail from Alive, The Black Keys‘ current label, and it shows. Alive is sponsoring a gig at SXSW, with Radio Moscow and some labelmates. See HearYa for the full scoop and great links.

You can download six live cuts from a HearYa session here. Buy their 2007 disc for ten bucks and download the track Frustrating Sound here so you can get amped for these upcoming shows:

March 12 – Kansas City, MO – Riot Room
March 13 – Tulsa, OK – The Continental
March 14 – Austin, TX – SXSW – Fado Patio
March 15 – Austin, TX – SXSW
March 27 – Minneapolis, MN – 400 Bar
March 28 – Milwaukee, WI – Cactus Club
March 29 – Chicago, IL – Beat Kitchen
April 4 – Des Moines, IA – GDP

UPDATE 3/15: An additional date has been added: March 17 – Lawrence, KS – The Replay Lounge

Spoon

Tonight, March 8, Spoon will be on Austin City Limits; what a great fit. Check for showtimes here.

They recently did a Black Cab Session that is quite good. I wasn’t sure their music would translate, but I was mistaken. Watch it here.

Spoon‘s tour dates are as follows, * with The Walkmen and White Rabbits:

April 2 – Kansas City, KS – Uptown*
April 4 – Chicago, IL – Vic Theatre*
April 5 – Cincinnati, OH – Bogart’s*
April 6 – Detroit, MI – Emerald Theater*
April 7 – Pittsburgh, PA – Carnegie Music Hall*
April 9 – New York, NY – Terminal 5
April 10 – Philadelphia, PA – Electric Factory*
April 11 – Baltimore, MD – Sonar
April 12 – Norfolk, VA – Norva*
April 13 – Durham, NC – Carolina Theatre
April 14 – Atlanta, GA – Centerstage*
April 16 – Ft. Lauderdale, FL – Revolution*
April 18 – Nashville, TN – Vanderbilt University (Rites of Spring)
April 19 – Indianapolis, IN – Vogue

Buy their cds.

Bon Iver

This is a follow-up post about the lovely, plaintive Bon Iver and the album For Emma, For Ever Ago.

Buy Justin Vernon’s break-up (and mono) inspired album, download some tracks, watch his videos, or just listen while you read your favorite blogs.

The new news is threefold.

There’s a new review by the ever-effusive Daytrotter.

There’s this interview on AV Club, in which dude addresses why there’s so much (surprisingly awesome) falsetto: “For the most part, I’ve been influenced by black singers and singers I couldn’t sound like. Whenever I tried to do a dark note or a bent note, I would just sound like Hootie And The Blowfish. [Laughs.] I was really insecure about it, so I just ended up writing rock ‘n’ roll songs where I didn’t have to do that. But I feel so much more comfortable being able to access painful melodies. I feel freer singing the high stuff.”

Also, you can stream or download all of Bon Iver’s D.C. concert at the Rock and Roll Hotel (which is a pain in the arse to get to without a car…) courtesy of NPR. You can grab tourmates Black Mountain‘s set there, too.