Concert Review / MOIP + 123 @ Brillobox

It had been a long while since I'd seen a proper Meeting of Important People rawk band show. It felt like a year or more, but it was really only like 6 months. Still, that's WAY too long to go without a rip-roarin' set of garage pop tunes, guitar flailing, fast-paced drums, and good ol' fashioned fun times.

I grabbed dinner downstairs at the Brillobox before the show. You have to try the seitan gyro. I think it's pretty new on the menu (I hadn't seen it before) and it was absolutely delicious. Perfectly spiced, nice texture, generously saucy. Yummo. I went upstairs a short while after The Whiskey Holler started their set. I'd only caught these dudes once before, at the Thunderbird back in September, and I was really surprised by how great they were that first time. I wasn't expecting them to be bad, not at all, but it was one of those really pleasant surprises where you don't know the band, have no expectations, and then they rock your socks off and you find yourself grinning halfway through because you know you've stumbled on greatness. Yeah, it was like that. This time around, the crowd was kinda chatty and the band was playing as an acoustic duo (or trio, perhaps?) so it didn't come across nearly as well as I remembered/had hoped. I still enjoyed their twangy rock tunes, but I wish everyone else was paying better attention. I suppose I should have gone up and stood closer but I didn't feel like navigating the already dense crowd. They play around town a lot, so I'll be sure to catch 'em again soon, and I recommend you do the same. In the meantime, dig this live recording from a Howlers set. It is fantastic. Also, check out this story they posted on their blog last month. Love the story-telling style, fellas.



Meeting of Important People got up next and did what they do best: everything. Josh announced that they'd essentially taken the entire fall season off from concert-playing and put together an entire new full-length album of material that they're very eager to share. Huzzah! They've slipped a couple of new songs into their repertoire over the last year or so, and I've wondered how those were coming along and whether they had any album plans. Now we know. Check out the Kickstarter campaign that they launched last week for more info about it; they want to do all the recording themselves, sans labels and PR and all that monkey business. More power to ya, boys. And readers, throw 'em a few bucks. You won't regret it when you hear what comes out of it all. As I was watching them play, I realized that I've written so many review of their shows, it's pointless to reiterate the fun and tunefulness they exude, so I went and did something I remember doing way back when I was just a fanboy, listening to their record on my iPod, seeing them for the first or second time: I copied down their setlist on my phone while they played. Yup. This is direct copy/paste from the document so you can see my silly notes, unedited.

britney lane
hanky church
(verba nets vs. ver baah nets)
leaving here
its alright to let the old folks go (with bullshit indie rock ending)
one o clock
big muscles
we gotta get outta this place
I know every street
innocents abound (guest shaker)
dead man
good for your bones, punk rawk
training song
leap the dips
boys
??? New song, for when you're higher than hell
nothings goin on
school (nirvana)


1,2,3 came up last and played a bunch of songs from New Heaven, and one new song from an upcoming thing they're working on. The crowd was really into it, although it seemed a little thinner than it had been earlier. I learned that the bassist used to be in Juliana Theory. There's a fun fact for ya. They played my favorite tune of theirs, "Riding Coach". That one always sounds good, and I'm really impressed with how well it comes across in person, too. It almost feels like a headphones song, but they nail it live, even Nic's falsetto. Great stuff. I noticed they had their own sound guy working the board, which I don't see too often from local bands, so they must be prepping him for a tour or something? Sounded pretty good, considering the usual Brillo crowd which, by the way, was waaaayyy worse during this set than usual. Nic actually called out a group of super chatty folks right in the front. "Hey, girl in the glasses, yeah, you, hey, you" … and she still didn't notice! Somebody standing behind her had to poke her drunk ass (not literally, she was just being a drunk ass) to get her attention and get her to shut up so they could play a quiet tune. Yowza. Meanwhile, some other really drunk girl kept "dancing" and stumbling around and falling onto the stage, and Josh's ride cymbal kept falling off the stand (the top notch was broken, I think) and a pink-haried lady in the front kept graciously going up to fix it when it tumbled (which happened at least four or five times). Overall, it was a kinda up-and-down set, logistics-wise, but the music sounded good to my ears, which is all that really matters, right?

Some old, some new: British Sea Power

Okay, the holiday season is wrapping up, students are getting back into the swing of classes, musicians are warming up and starting to tour again, and labels have awakened from the sleepy late-December doldrums and have started to release the first candidates for "Best Music of 2k11". And by that I mean there's going to be some good new stuff coming out in the near future, after a few (relatively) agonizing weeks of pretty much nothingness.

The first promising release of the year, I think, comes from British Sea Power. Maybe you've heard of them? Maybe not. I first got into them in college thanks to a couple of friends who were fans. The songs on Open Season and The Decline of British Sea Power were pretty quirky and fun to my uninitiated ears and I listened to those albums periodically over a year or so after hearing them. A couple years later, I went to visit a friend in D.C. and was lucky enough to catch BSP playing at the Black Cat club one night, and that was pretty sweet. I hadn't listened to them recently enough, and the only song I actually recall them playing is "Apologies To Insect Life", but that was also before they put out Do You Like Rock Music?, so I imagine they played a few songs from that. My answer to that question was a resounding yes, by the way; the album is totally bombastic and sagging with guitar solos, which led some folks to rag on it (the infamous U.2 rating!), but I thought it was perfectly fun and listenable, so fuck p4k. I have honestly yet to listen to Man of Aran, their 2009 release that doubles as a soundtrack to a 1934 documentary film, but it seems interesting enough that I'll go back and watch and listen (maybe simultaneously!) at some point.

In the fall of 2010 they put out the Zeus EP, a not-so-unexpected departure from the aforementioned "straightforward rock" of the-album-with-the-inquisitive-title. Its eight songs span 34 minutes, which is rather long for an EP, and the ideas contained therein are expansive, as well; feedback on the guitars, tinkly piano, reverb on the vocals, languishing drones, squealing synths, and some kinda strange digital/autotune effect on the final track. It's strange and fascinating. It's BSP trying to get back to what they did best way back when: fuck with the standard rock formula. And they're doing this after they "perfected" it enough to get Pitchfork to equate them with the most "modern rock band"-ish of all "modern rock bands", these days.

And now, there's Valhalla Dancehall, officially released today, January 11, 2010. I listened to it (streaming on the AV Club) once through and found it be an interesting hybrid of these two paradigms they've embodied thus far in their career: quirky, classic-rock-inspired yet decidedly new and modern, guitar-heavy but vocally-driven indie-pop songs and over-the-top, can-you-possibly-squeeze-any-more-anthemic-guitar-riffs-and-choruses-in-there rockers. I'm looking forward to buying it (somehow). Will it be my favorite record of 2011? Seems unlikely. Will it be in my Top 10? Maybe, but that's hard to say. Will I enjoy listening to it in the meantime? Of course. So give it a shot. Maybe it'll be your favorite!

Here's a song from the new album:

and for completeness' and interest's sakes, here are some of my fave songs from their older albums (that I've heard), chronologically backwards:

Some old, some new: Belle & Sebastian, Beach Fossils, Sufjan Stevens, Syd Barrett

There are a bunch of new releases coming out tomorrow (Tuesday October 12, 2010) and a lot of them I know nothing about. There, I said it. Here's what I can confidently recommend:

Belle and Sebastian are quite good, but you probably knew that already. I think The Life Pursuit and If You're Feeling Sinister are classics and Push Barman To Open Old Wounds is a rambling collection of great tunes, and even their "lackluster" albums have some hidden gems. Their newest, Write About Love seems to be a return to form, of sorts, a good and consistent hybrid of the more hooky pop songs you might find on The Life Pursuit, like "Funny Little Frog" or "Another Sunny Day", with the more directly emotive songs you find scattered across their catalog, like "I Don't Love Anyone" or "Is It Wicked Not To Care?". I plan on downloading it tomorrow on eMusic, but if you order the vinyl version you can enter a contest that may get Stuart Murdoch to spend a day with you and then write a song about you. Seriously! Also check them out here and below playing on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon with ?uestlove on drums. Pretty cool.

[Update: Stream Write About Love here all week on Spinner's New Releases page!]



Beach Fossils are one of those bands that got some considerable indie blogosphere buzz or whatever way back at the beginning of this year, and I kinda ignored the whole thing, thinking it was just another one of those bands that everyone would like because others liked 'em and ... you know the deal. And in a way, they are that band. But later on I heard some of their songs in full and saw a video or two and ... just really liked it. The angular guitar melodies are so catchy and mathematically engaging, in a way. I ended up buying their record and have played it many times since. Tomorrow, they have a new 7" (or mp3, of course) single, "Face It" b/w "Distance". I've heard "Face It" (download it here) and it does seem like it wouldn't necessarily fit on their album, but it's not a big departure from their sound. You'll probably either love this or be wholly content to hear it once and then never again. Either way is fine with me.



Sufjan Stevens has a new album out, too, called The Age of Adz, but now that I think about it, I'm actually pretty unqualified to pass judgment on it. I liked Illinois and Michigan when I first heard them a few years ago, and Seven Swans was solid, too, but I haven't really gone back to them since, and I haven't even heard BQE or All Delighted People, and I haven't heard anything from Adz. So, there ya go. If you like him, you'll like this one, I presume ... ?

Syd Barrett's solo album The Madcap Laughs. Okay, this one I can comment on. I recently read the 33 1/3 Series book on Piper At The Gates of Dawn, that classic debut album from The Pink Floyd (that's right, they had a leading The back then) and I also saw a DVD recording of The Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett Story. Both were really enlightening about the role that Syd played in Pink Floyd's style and sound, at least in the early days, and I'm sure they barely crack the surface of the true story behind one of rock's most interesting and enigmatic characters. Tomorrow, you can get a newly remastered, reissued CD version of the first solo album he released after parting ways with the boys in Floyd. It goes a long way in showing how important he was to their first couple of albums, in case you were blissfully ignorant of that influence, like I pretty much was until recently. I haven't actually heard any of the bonus tracks, so I can't make any claim as to whether it's worth your while to plunk down some extra dough for the "remastered" and "extra" tracks, so ... I guess this is really just an excuse to talk about Syd Barrett. So what?

Some old, some new: Deerhunter

Like me, you might know Deerhunter already as a band that's evolved from playing noisy guitar rock to psychedelic/electronic shoegaze to dreamy pop songs, and not as an Academy Award-winning film (that's spelled with a "The" and a space, anyway). Or maybe you don't know anything about them and love the movie. Or maybe it's something in between. In any event, you should hear their new album, Halcyon Digest, officially released tomorrow (Tuesday, September 28, 2010). If you get to it today, you can still hear it on NPR's First Listen series, otherwise you'll have to find it somewhere else. I got my vinyl copy in the mail last week and have played it a couple times (would have been more but I was away all weekend). It's really . . . I don't know, almost surprising to hear, coming from them, but then again it's a somewhat natural extension of the sound they were cultivating on the Rainwater Cassette Exchange EP that came out last year: quirky pop-sounding songs with shimmering loops of sound that induce a kind of childlike dream state, but then again not really since they're so upbeat. It's a far cry from the waves of crashing guitars on Crypotgrams and Microcastle/Weird Era, but it's hinted at by the creations on Rainwater.... I rather like it. Check out videos for the two lead singles below and consider buying the album. It's worth it.





If you really like it, check out their previous albums, too. I particularly enjoyed Microcastle, and solo albums from lead man Bradford Cox and guitarist Lockett Pundt are pretty solid, as well.

Deerhunter
MySpace
Blog
Facebook
Wikipedia
Halcyon Digest official website

Some old, some new: Dungen

I like Dungen. They've introduced me to what's goin' on at the forefront of neo-psychedelia and freak-folk and traditional-Swedelandia and such, and they've taught me a few choice phrases in Swedish. For instance, dungen=grove, ta det lugnt=take it easy, and skit i allt=fuck all. Yeah, that's right, if you ask me what the cool hang-out is in Stockholm, I can tell you it's at "the grove", but then when you don't know how to get there I can tell you to just "take it easy", and then when you get all indignant and berate me in front of my peers I can say "fuck all" and walk away. Hellz yah, I told you.

So, anyway, Dungen has a new album out today, Tuesday September 14, 2010. I first discovered their fantabulous self-titled EP on eMusic and kept discovering from there: Ta Det Lugnt (bought on eMusic), Tio Bitar (bought on vinyl at Wicked Discs on Craig St. in Pittsburgh), 4 (bought on eMusic). It's all great. Incredible instrumentation, awesome arrangements, everything euphonious and then some. Check out this super interview with lead man Gustav Ejstes to get a better sense of their style and musical influences, including traditional Swedish folk and his father's violin music.

Their new album, Skit I Allt is released via Mexican Summer in the US and Subliminal Sounds elsewhere. You can stream it for a limited time on Spinner's new releases page. I encourage you to check out their back catalog. I'm digging the new one, and the previous stuff is even better.

Dungen: MySpace, website
"Panda" music video
"Panda" live on Conan O'Brien
"Stadsvandringar" music video