Jam of the day, coffee shop albums, and fresh experiences: Neutral Milk Hotel / "Ghost"

I walked into the Tazza d'Oro satellite location in the Gates-Hilman Center today to grab some coffee and cure those post-late lunch fatigue blues. Yeah, man. I ended up sitting in a nice comforable chair, sipping delicious black coffee with a splash of whole milk (most places just have skim or half & half, so that was nice) while reading the 33 1/3 series book on Nick Drake's Pink Moon (written by Amanda Petrusich, one of those Pitchfork writers who I will read whenever I see the byline, no matter the album). More importantly, for this post, I caught the last half of the Neutral Milk Hotel tune "Oh, Comely" on the house speakers while I walked in. At the time, I thought, "Wow, that's an intense song to be wafting over the ears of these dutifully working nerds." (I can say that cuz I'm one of them.)

After I ordered my coffee and sat down and the song rolled around to its perfect finish, I expected some random playlist to kick in and throw something at us, but instead it transitioned exactly into "Ghost", as In The Aeroplane Over The Sea does. I realized they were playing this album straight through. Awesome. I'm all for exposing great music to potentially unknowledgeable ears. Unfortunately, I'm sure a lot of folks were just ignoring it or tuning into their own earbuds, but it's nice to think about someone who has never ever heard this album and will be drawn to it and maybe ask the barista what they're playing and go back to their dorm and look it up and be welcomed into an entirely new world of music. That makes me crack a smile. I love this album so much I almost wish I could forget everything I know about it and experience it completely anew. Since I can't do that, I just hope there are people out there doing exactly that every day.



Bonus! Here's a video of NMH (and friends, judging by the multitude onstage) jamming this tune live at the Electric Lounge in Austin, TX on April 4th, 1998. We live in an incredible age. We can watch this video of something that happened 14 years ago, something that will never happen again. Yeah, the playing's a little off and the video is grainy and the audio is kinda warbly. Who the fuck cares? This is great.



Are there any other great, classic albums that somehow just work when played at a coffee shop, straight through? We usually think of coffee shop culture as iTunes playlists, or radio, or whatever randomness the barista(s) feel(s) like playing. This album fits the bill, I think. Any favorites you want to share?

Oh yeah, they played through this album, then on to some Olivia Tremor Control tracks, then started of Montreal's Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? and then I had to leave. Kudos to whoever's Elephant 6 playlist was chosen for that day.

Kiva Han Countdown: 31 days

I've been sitting here at that nice table in the front for well over an hour. People have come and gone. A friend of mine was sitting in the other room and saw me here, so he came over and we chatted for a long time about anything and everything: the new Apple iBooks app and the iTunes university iPad app (that's a lot of s), the fact that almost all carousels in the United States rotate counter-clockwise (a.k.a. widdershins) except for one at Great Adventure in New Jersey, the fact that my former high school is one of only three locations in the United States where one can play Fives, the fact that some names are awesome (Pablo Bravo, Gunther Grass) and some are weird (William Williams), the ding ding dong song, and the following story I'm about to tell which is what I was thinking about on my walk over here from campus.

One time last summer, I was sitting in Kiva Han after teaching class. My headphones were plugged into my laptop and I was munching on a delicious Hangover Cure, KH's concoction of eggs, salsa, cheese, and hash browns in a burrito, smothered in hot sauce. It is scrumptious, and I've even tried making some homemade versions in my kitchen, with varying degrees of success. (Try it yourself!) A family of mother/father/daughter walked in and sat down with some cups of coffee and an order of food of some kind, I forget what. They looked very much, to me, like a high-schooler looking at colleges with her parents. (BTW when I told this story, my friend heard "daughter looking ecologists" instead of "daughter looking at colleges" and expressed confusion. Weird.) They kept looking over at me, and I assumed it was because I struck a sight with my long hair and beard scarfing down a breakfast burrito, but it was frequent enough that I eventually slipped off my headphones when I caught the mother looking at me. She smiled and said, "Sorry to bother you, but we're wondering what it is you're eating." I said "Oh, it's called a 'hangover cure'" and kinda chuckled along with them, then stated matter-of-factly, "…and it works!" They gave me a polit smile and laugh at that, and I slipped my headphones back on and that was that. I'm not sure what they thought of me after that, and I had intended it to be funny at the time, but in retrospect, I realize it might have sounded rather gruff or dismissive. So, sorry, random parents and daughter looking ecologists. I was just trying to be funny. I hope you got that.

What this got me thinking about, though, is a more general idea of what Kiva Han represents about Pittsburgh. Imagine you're a visitor to this city, perhaps looking for a school to attend for four years. You drive into the student section of Oakland, heading down Forbes Ave. through the U. Pitt area. What do you see? The looming Cathedral of Learning, of course, but what do you see on the street? Students bustling back and forth. Buses driving by. And some shops and restaurants. Panera. Dunkin Donuts. Caribou Coffee. The O. Primanti's. A brand name shoe store. A gas station. And so on. How many of those are local shops, Pittsburgh institutions, long-standing family businesses? Not many. Then you keep driving, navigate the one-way intersection properly (I once saw a lady drive into the middle of it the wrong way and try to back up instead of just turning, strangely), and head down Craig St. There's Quiznos. Subway. Starbucks. It deeply saddens me to think that across Pitt and CMU's stretch, the coffee shop selection is entirely populated by "big name" shops. Starbucks, Dunkin, Caribou, maybe a Crazy Mocha. That is not a fair representation of this city. One of the things I've grown to love about Pittsburgh is that a Beehive or a Quiet Storm or a Voluto or a Jitters can exist and succeed and thrive amongst some heavy-hitters, so to speak, that it represents something about the people who live here, that people are proud of what they do and what others do and want to support them in their ventures, that we won't just succumb and have cookie-cutter shopping plazas everywhere and pepper the city grid with equally-spaced out clones of the same big name store/shop/restaurant so that someone can satisfy that Starbucks/Subway/KFC/McD's fix no matter where they find themselves during the day. That's one of the things I find myself hating about other cities; not to say that this phenomenon is widespread everywhere else, but when I see that kind of trend, I get upset. Where is it all headed? Hegemony of choices, force-feeding the public the same crap everywhere and all the time. I'm getting a little too ranty now, but I hope you see my point: Pittsburgh is different. Pittsburgh is special to me. I don't want to see that happen here, not even a little bit, because it will be too hard to stop once it starts. Do we really want visitors to this high-traffic university area to see only brand name coffee shops and think that this is a microcosm of the city, that they'd find this everywhere else? I don't. I hate to think that visitors leave thinking that this city is just like every other city because it's not. Kudos to CMU for employing only local coffee shops in their academic buildings (Tazza D'Oro in Gates, La Prima in Wean, maybe others) but that only goes so far. I really hope something special moves in here in Kiva Han's absence, that some other local business can thrive and keep going with the understandably high rent for this major area of foot and auto traffic. Come on Pittsburgh. We can do this.

Alright, time for more coffee.

Jam of the day, upcoming concert: "Mirror, Mirror"

Artist: Dr. Dog
Song: "Mirror, Mirror"
Album: Shame, Shame
Released: April 6, 2010
Label: ANTI-

Upcoming show: Dr. Dog and Sondre Lerche
CMU's University Center
Saturday, November 20, 2010

I don't know how they do it, but CMU gets an amazing assortment of bands to play on campus, and it saddens me how few of the students seem to care. Case in point: I asked one of the classes I T.A. whether anyone would be going to see The Books that weekend, and no one even knew what I was talking about. I suppose it doesn't matter, in the end, since I get to see some great bands for free and close to home. Swellegant!

Dr. Dog is one of those bands that a friend or two of mine really liked but I didn't bother to listen to because their name was off-putting. Seriously, their name makes them sound like a silly hip-hop spoof group on The Muppets. But eventually, my friend Deepak shared an album or two and I listened and was hooked. I've been particularly attached to their latest album, and downloaded it when it came out in April after listening to it on NPR for a week leading up to the release. There's something immediately inviting about their songs, with playful melodies and instrumentation (pianos and flutes play major roles, frequently) and catchy vocals and lyrics. I really can't say enough good things about them; their songs can be simultaneously uplifting in sound and profound in lyrics, and that's tough to accomplish, I say. This particular song, "Mirror, Mirror", is a snappy upbeat number with vaguely melancholy lyrics:

Things ain't what they used to be
I gotta devil after me
Tell the mirror on the wall
Mirror, mirror on the wall
There's no reflection here at all


I'm greatly looking forward to what they sound like live. I'm sure it will be a fantastic show.



Dr. Dog
MySpace
Facebook
Twitter
Website
Merch

Sondre Lerche
Website
MySpace
Wikipedia
Twitter

Jam of the day: "Halleluwah" (and puzzles!)

Artist: Can
Song: "Halleluwah"
Album: Tago Mago
Released: 1971
Label: United Artists

This post is partly an excuse to mention some non-musical stuff I've been doing today and also to give props to my friend Sean for introducing me to this band. I've been on campus all day solving puzzles as part of Microsoft's College Puzzle Challenge. It's an all day event with 27 puzzles of various difficulties and styles leading up to one metapuzzle. Standings are based on the time required to submit the answer to the metapuzzle, which we did not too long ago, leading to a 33rd place finish out of 420 national teams, and a 3rd place finish out of 45 teams at CMU. Woo hoo!

So yeah, since 1:00 pm we've been in the grad student study room on our laptops with our brains and fingers racing. It was quiet in the room for a while, which I'm kinda not really used to (if I'm walking, I have my iPod; if I'm in the office, I have my laptop playing; if I'm at home, I have my record player) but I let that go for a while to get the puzzling juices flowing. But later on, I felt a post-coffee crash coming on and needed something to pick me up until the appointed dinner time rolled around. "Let's see..." I thought to myself, "I need something upbeat but not too distracting, something driving but not overpowering, something ... Aha! Can!" This song, in particular, was perfect. It's 18+ minutes of awesome percussion and groovy guitar, kinda long and droning but still upbeat and exciting and it never gets boring. Seriously, if you have some task to accomplish and need something in your ears to keep you going, this is your fucking song. My friend Sean tells me he used to play this song on loop when he was "working in the lab", whatever that means. The video below has the whole song, but the last four minutes are some other random thing, so cut it off around the 18:21 mark.



The whole record is fantastic, really. If you know it already, kudos, and if you don't, it's probably been influencing some of your favorite artists without you even knowing. Check out all of their records. I've heard a few of them and look forward to experiencing more. "Vitamin C" from Ege Bamyasi (video below) is another one of my fave songs, partly for the way he says "vitamin" that makes it sound like a new word, vitamency.

Concert review: The Books, Lohio

The Books, Lohio
Thursday August 26, 2010 at CMU UC Rangos
with Leigh, Paul, Lisa, Deepak

I really can't decide whether to call this a concert or show review. Local opener Lohio put on a solid set of music which certainly falls into the realm of "concert", but The Books blew my mind in a way that makes "show" or "spectacle" seem far more appropriate. The way that audio and visual phenomena intermingle and feed off each other in their performance makes so much sense at the time but seems so unpredictable and surprising in retrospect. Who knew that fast-bowed cello set to scattered videos of 90s golf instruction videos could seem so right?

I had picked up a few tickets ahead of time at the UC Info Desk since I figured this show would be crowded, but I was still amazed at how many people showed up. When I arrived, the line to get in was all the way around into the dining area of the UC upstairs; eventually, every seat in the hall was taken and it was SRO in the back of the room. My friend Deepak worked the door for a while and said they were very close to having to turn people away. (Despite all this, the following Tuesday I asked one of the math classes I teach whether anybody had gone to the show, and nobody even knew what I was talking about!?) It was an interesting environment for Lohio to play in, with a large boxy room and hundreds of people seated in chairs, separated from the large and practically empty stage, plus some "professional lighting" (as the singer pointed out, noting it may have been their first time in such fancy conditions). I wouldn't have guessed that to be the optimal set up for their sound, but it actually worked rather well, in the end. They played a seven or eight song set, the majority of them loud, guitar-laden rockers with a couple of softer, quieter, acoustic-style numbers. I expected a chatty, studenty crowd but they were rather courteous and receptive, applauding heartily and responding to banter. I remembered seeing a different drummer the previous time or two I'd seen them, and I definitely don't recall the drummer doubling as trumpeteer during two songs, as he did here; that was pretty cool. I remain continually awed by the non-singing guitarist's technical skills; he impressed me with his versatility at their acoustic set @ Howler's a while back, and here he showed a slightly more unrestrained stage demeanor, throwing in some leg kicks and head bobbing during the solos. Also, the larger, emptier room lent itself far better to the pretty vocal duets between the lead guitarist and female bassist than previous venues have. Some of the best moments of their set occurred when a guitar/drum rock interlude would melt into a single guitar strum and their two voices singing softly over the fading din. I liked that. Towards the end of their set, the singer took the opportunity of a captive student-laden audience to vouch for some local bands that deserve recognition (including Meeting of Important People, Donora, etc.), encouraging everyone to get out and appreciate the music in their town. I thought this was a nice touch, especially since a big portion of the crowd may have been new to town (it being the start of the semester and all) and even those who have been around could use a reminder every now and then that there's plenty of good music out there if you're willing to look for it. Final anecdote: the singer said they would play "two or three more songs" and then pointed out that he'd always thought it would be funny if a disappreciative concertgoer would reply to such a remark with "one more song!"

The Books took a little time to set up their array of equipment, including a huge video screen behind the stage and three chairs, one for each member, plus their keyboard, cello, table with laptop, and collection of a few guitars. I enjoyed listening to their recent album on NPR when they were streaming it a few weeks ago, and I had no idea how they were going to convert those "songs" into a live performance. To be honest, I wasn't even sure what instruments/equipment they used to make the songs in the studio. As it turns out, they weren't really sure what they were doing either, since this was one of the first few times they had performed these newer songs live. They introduced a third member (whose name I've forgotten, alas) who played either keyboard or guitar or both on every song, in addition to Nick Zammuto on guitar and laptop samples and vocals, and Paul de Jong on cello. Each song they played (a whopping 17, if I remember correctly) featured a corresponding video played on the screen behind them, with a carefully pieced-together montage of sampled/found videos that managed to fit the rhythm and mood of the music perfectly. For instance, the song "I Didn't Know That" was introduced by Nick claiming that they put this song together and then realized it was really about golf, since the movements and fashion of golfers are so strange, apparently. The video featured lots of oldish golf videos (I recognized Peter Jacobsen, at least, who's known for being a humorous, irrevent guy in general) with freeze-frames of people in odd positions, then played on loop at various speeds to match the fast-talking "lyrics" of the song. It was really funny, and I wish I could find that video online. The song they opened with was "Group Autogenics I", which is also the opening track on the most recent album and a perfect intro to any album/show, really. The vocals are sampled from various motivational cassettes/videos, and the corresponding video features some talking-head style footage of Nick's friends lip-synching to the voice while swirling through space. The absolute funniest/weirdest video may be the one for "A Cold Freezin' Night", embedded below:



The sampled vocals are from old Talkboys that were obviously given to some child, for his birthday or whatever, who then went crazy in his bedroom and recorded the whole thing. Well, not exactly, but it gives you an idea of just how weird kids can be when they feel unrestrained by parental supervision. They also played a handful of songs from older albums, including the pretty and uplifting "Take Time", the visually wordy "Smells Like Content", and the introspective and naturalistic "An Owl With Knees". They also do interesting things to create their songs, like on "Free Translator" where they took a "popular folk song" (that they can't name due to copyrights) and fed the lyrics through a free online translator into a series of random languages then back into English. They closed the show with "Classy Penguin", pointing out that it features home video of Paul, and Nick and his brother Mikey. The audience was really into this show the whole way through, and for good reason; it was hilarious, it was impressive, it was inspiring, it was fun. It was everything a concert could be, and more: it was truly a show.

Lohio
MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr.

The Books
Website, MySpace, Wikipedia
Recent feature story on NPR's All Things Considered

Concert review: The Black Keys

The Black Keys
Friday April 16, 2010 at CMU Wiegand Gym (Spring Carnival concert)
with Deepak, Lisa, Asa, Charlotte, Chris L.



I don't think the term “American rock 'n roll” really has a definitive meaning but, in some ways, the sound of The Black Keys filters into my ears when I say that phrase out loud. So do many other sounds and images, but they're definitely in the mix. They're not everyone's favorite band or style, but I've always had an affinity for the kind of bluesy garage rock that they seem to endlessly crank out; it's perfect to listen to on a road trip, when I'm doing the dishes, when I'm grading quizzes, when I'm jogging, etc. I even rather enjoyed their hip-hop collaboration album, Blakroc. The two-man sound is not as full as most other rock outfits, but they can jam plenty of catchy hooks and riffs and thumping beats into their songs, so who even cares. Their latest album Brothers even sounds a bit richer than their past efforts, with a few more genre-bending songs and studio effects.

This show was fun, loud and boisterous, which was just what I expected. The guitar/drum duo translates well in the live setting, and the acoustics of the gym were actually not that bad. The room was mostly packed, or at least felt that way since we kept edging closer to the stage, and the crowd seemed to be really enjoying the show. The singer had some fun dancing-with-his-guitar moves as he belted his signature crooning howl into the microphone, and the drummer was all business pounding the rhythm behind the guitar licks. All in all, a fun and upbeat show. Glad I got a chance to see them in person.


Show photos from Hugh's blog (the photo above is his, as well)
Show setlist
Show review from the CMU student paper

"Your Touch" and "No Trust", live recordings from this show!

"Have Love Will Travel" live in a tiny club

Concert Review: Dan Deacon, Ed Schrader

Dan Deacon, Ed Schrader
Saturday April 3 2010 at CMU (Baker lawn)
with Lisa, Deepak

This was a fun show, and drew quite a crowd of CMU students on a Saturday night. It was held outside on the campus quad between Baker and Doherty Halls. Deepak and Lisa and I were in the office all evening working on probability homework; that reminds me of an interesting problem that came up on that homework that is simple enough to pose to anybody but somewhat tricky to solve. Consider the following game: a single die will be rolled (up to) N times. After each roll, we can choose to either accept the current roll and get paid $x where x is the face value of the current roll, or else reject it and roll the die again. Once rejecting a roll, we cannot return and get paid that amount. When the Nth roll is reached, we must accept its value. What is the optimal stopping strategy? That is, how do we decide whether to accept the current roll (based on current value, rolls remaining, what we've seen, wind direction, whether Jupiter aligns with Mars, etc.) such that we maximize the average expected payoff? Keep in mind this is a function of N, so the answer may be different for N=1,2,3,4,...

Okay, that was tangential. Hah. Anyway, we wandered outside around 9ish to catch the opening act, Ed Schrader. I'm usually curious about any act, opening or headlining, that is just a single first name-last name combo. It signifies some kind of lead singer with a backup band, or some one-man-band style music. This time, Ed played a drum and sang. And that was about it, from what I could see/hear. It was crazily captivating; his voice was deep and droning and the drumbeat pulled that feeling along like a lovesick tugboat with someplace to be. (Good luck figuring out what that means.) Here are some videos and links related to Ed Schrader. More music links below. I enjoyed his music. Unfortunately, some douchebag behind us did not and kept yelling stupid shit. So somewhere towards the end of the set I turned around and told him to shut up. Except I yelled it fairly loudly, quite possibly in his face. Oh well. Some people are just so fucking rude.

Dan Deacon played next and “rocked” the “house”. I saw him once before last summer as part of the No DeacHunter tour at Mr. Small's and was fairly impressed, although he seemed like the odd man out of the 3 bands. I love Deerhunter and No Age is great, but his style just didn't quite mesh with mine; it was too dancey and electronic for my usual taste. For some reason, this show at CMU changed my view. Maybe it was that, due to the superior sonicality of the venue (i.e. the great outdoors), I could understand his banter and lyrics. And his banter was pretty great. He started the set by dictating a so-called shared experience for the whole audience, wherein we all knelt on one knee and said some stuff in unison. Sorry but I'm fuzzy on details. From there, we collectively proceeded to jump and bop and hop and slop and chop and drop and mop and flop around to his funktastic electronical futuristicopoppytoppy beats. Not to mention his crazy light displays. I've never really listened to his album stuff (a handful of tracks on Lala the day of the show, basically) but the live stuff is fantabulasticous. I really enjoyed the show as a music show, not necessarily as a musical oeuvre. Sobeit. My only regret is wearing Birkenstocks, since my toes were fairly frequently trampled by fellow concertgoers. Also, the Facebook event for this show, run by CMU's Activities Board, sent the following message later that night:
“It brings us great sorrow to announce that one of the attendee's of Dan's recent show stole Mr. Deacon's prized green-glowing-strobing skull. We offered to buy him a new one, but he noted that the skull has been around the world with him. He was visibly saddened by this loss. If you or anyone you know has any information on how to reclaim Dan's skull please let us know. We won't try to get you in trouble, we just want to make Dan happy.
Before the skull went missing he announced that this was the first night in a while in which he had not wept. Please do everything in your power to help him out.”
And yes, Dan did announce that he had not wept that night, for the first night in a long time. Some people are so fucking rude. Two hours later, a message was sent to announce the skull had been returned, thankfully. In the future, let's all try to be nice to each other, mmkay?

Ed Schrader:
”I Can't Stop Eating Sugar” live in Chicago
Live with No Age's Randy Randall (yes, his real name)
Live with Jana Hunter of Lower Dens
A totally different Ed Schrader

Dan Deacon:
”Crystal Cat” music video
Interviewed/featured on ABC's indie music series Amplified
Live at Pitchfork Music Fest 2k7

Concert Review: Anamanaguchi, Sabrepulse

Anamanaguchi, Saberpulse
Tuesday March 28, 2010 at CMU
with Deepak, Will, Lisa

I only caught the last quarter of this show since we had an IM soccer game earlier in the evening. I met Deepak at the show during Saberpulse's set, and Will and Lisa showed up later to see Anamanaguchi. I had heard of Anamanaguchi through Deepak, and had listened to some of their songs at his place and was intrigued by the combination of Nintendo sounds and rock music. The song and a half that I saw from Sabrepulse was definitely more Nintendo than rock, though. The act was actually one British guy controlling an amalgam of electrical equipment and dancing around and fist pumping. He seemed to have a Game Boy in his hands and was pressing buttons, but I really don't know what effect that had on the sound. There was a crowd of people by the front of the stage dancing around, but it was nothing like what he was doing onstage. He bopped back and forth between pieces of equipment and jumped around and shot his fist into the air. Clearly, he was having fun. I didn't dislike the music, but it wasn't exactly my cup of tea, either. Strangely, there was a large screen behind the stage that was displaying a movie; Deepak told me it was “The Room”, a notoriously bad, cult drama film.

Anamanaguchi played next and they were more enjoyable, to me. They are basically a standard rock band that plays 8-bit produced sounds from equipment on the side of the stage that serve as the main melodies, while the guitars/bass/drums fill in the soundscape. Also, they played some psychedelic/digital animated images instead of a crappy B-movie with no sound. Their set was loud and energetic, full of crunchy guitars and fast drumming and high-pitched melody lines. In fact, the drummer played so fast that he ripped off his t-shirt after the first two songs. There were long lulls between songs as they set up the digital stuff, which was too bad, but their banter was pretty funny and they had programmed the computerized voice intro to say silly things. I think I'll listen to their songs again, every once in a while.

Turns out this was the last night of a month-long US tour for these 4 acts that played with hacked Game Boys, known as the “8-Bit Alliance Tour”. After Anamanguchi's set, they all came out onstage and said an awkward goodbye and thankyou to the crowd, wherein Sabrepulse was draped with three guitars and had a drumstick placed in his mouth by the other bands. It was odd but endearing.

Sabrepulse:
on MySpace
Live at Blip Festival
”Blackdragon”

Anamanaguchi:
“Helix Nebula”
”Jetpack Blues Sunset Hues”
Live in San Francisco