april was the coolest month

June 4, 2007 at 12:26 am · Filed under music

i had a birthday and got to see one of my favorite bands.

so much has been written about the decemberists and so much of it has been laudatory. rightly so, in my opinion. so, at the risk of sounding like a broken mp3, i’ll add a bit to the heap of praise.

the decemberists have put on two of the best shows i’ve seen in the past five years. they are one of a handful of newer bands out there that understand the fundamentals of old-school showmanship and have the musical chops to take the whole thing over the top. it’s not purely rock ‘n roll showmanship either. there’s a huge vein of theatricality running through their live show with crowd participation and props and musical suites and old instruments you’d never see on a rock stage. bottom line is that a night with these guys is a hell of a lot of fun. and i’m looking forward to another chance to see them in a few days at bonnaroo.

the current tour supporting “the crane wife” (a great album; the latest in a series of winners) rolled through san francisco on april 26th. it takes a lot to get me out to the warfield these days; even more to be on the floor there. but the sold out show was delightfully undersold and you could actually breathe and move about in general admission.

rather than feature something here from “the crane wife,” i decided to post one of the evening’s highlights for me: a particularly joyous version of “song for myla goldberg” from the album “her majesty the decemberists.” apparently colin meloy was a media escort for myla during the “bee season” book tour, and from that we get this wonderful tune. some great shows from the tour are available over at the archive, complete and available for download or streaming.

 

 the decemberists: song for myla goldberg [4:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (109)

Comments

meat the puppets

June 1, 2007 at 12:35 am · Filed under music

every now and then something rends the time-space continuum to such a degree that you have to slap yourself silly just to make sure you haven’t suddenly fallen into an alternative universe or mistakenly downed a quart of robitussin.

such was the case when i saw a listing back in april for a show by the meat puppets at the independent. what’s the big deal, you ask? well, after doing a little research, i discovered that this would be the meat puppets with cris kirkwood. the same cris kirkwood that had last been seen rotting in jail after bottoming out on smack, losing his wife to an overdose, and being shot after assaulting a cop in a parking lot. sure, the pups were always crazy. but they weren’t always stupid.

 

 meat puppets: up on the sun [9:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (118)

Comments

hang me up to cry

May 24, 2007 at 5:59 pm · Filed under music

i’m so pissed off at the pathetic weak-willed democrats we have in congress that i need to blow off a little steam here by posting some wonderful moments from recent shows i’ve attended. if we can’t get change from our elected leaders, let’s at least get it from our musicians.

i’ve got quite a backlog of recordings to unleash before i head off to bonnaroo mid-june, so the next several posts will be music-related. for now, i’ll leave the articulate common-sense ranting about bush and iraq to keith olbermann (whose special comment last night was one for the ages).

anyway, let’s go back in time a bit to march of this year. i was fortunate enough to spend a few days in austin, texas during the SXSW conference. i was there as a ‘friend of blurb’ but was able to soak in a fair amount of music at night after the interactive activities of the day. if you don’t know about blurb, you should. but i digress.

one of the highlights of 2006 for me was the discovery of the cold war kids. critics have now discovered them too, but the band’s sound probably won’t be landing them on the top of the charts any time soon. it’s an interesting blend of fractured soul, indie rock, and living room hootenanny folk—with literate, emotional lyrics to boot. and to these jaded ears, it sounds like nothing else out there. i highly recommend buying their debut full-length release ‘robbers and cowards’ since their early EPs are now out of print.

here’s a little rarity: a cover of sam cooke’s ‘a change is gonna come’ as peformed on march 16, 2007 at la zona rosa.

 

 cold war kids: a change is gonna come [4:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (101)

Comments

hyperlinkous? not so much

April 18, 2007 at 3:52 pm · Filed under music

on february 8th of this year, the reclusive mark linkous came to town with his band, sparklehorse, and delivered what might be described as a sonic dose of lithium. linkous’ battles with depression and substance abuse are legendary amongst the indie-literati; as a result, he’s only released four full-length sparklehorse albums in the past 15 years.

the performance was solid, the song selection representative of the entire catalog. but something about the whole affair felt like a support group meeting dressed up as a rock show. this wasn’t the band’s fault, unless you hold linkous responsible for appealing to an overly earnest group of folks who seem to want their damaged hero to succeed so badly they’ve lost the ability to discern the merely okay from the truly great. the vibe wasn’t ambulance-chasing-esque like it can be at a daniel johnston show, by any stretch. all i can is that the perfect blend of melancholy and bliss that sparklehorse can achieve on record didn’t materialize as often as it might have given the songs played. and the audience was complicit, perhaps, in  not coaxing it out of the band for fear of rattling the shattered genius. or maybe that ’s just how the bourbon remembers it.

jesse sykes and the sweet hereafter put on yet another fantastic performance, full of slow, aching melodies punctuated by phil wandschach’s mesmerizing guitar lines. i’ve written about these guys before, but i’ll say it again: buy the records and see them live any chance you get. this is music for people who like to think and feel at the same time.

the fillmore staff were not allowing audience taping (maybe an edict from sparklehorse’s label?), so unfortunately, all that exist are a couple of tracks that materialized out of the ephemera. here’s the final encore of the night, knives of summertime.

 

 sparklehorse: knives of summertime [4:36m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (71)

Comments

an empire is an immense egotism

February 1, 2007 at 3:21 pm · Filed under music

so said ralph waldo emerson. but he couldn’t have been talking about the cat empire, because these guys are about as selfless as they come. their music is, stylistically speaking, wide-ranging and all-encompassing. and they invite the crowd to share in the fun from the opening sonic salvo.

2006 was a great year for live music in san francisco, but the cat empire has already set the bar pretty high for 2007. (admittedly, it’s still way too early to call favorites, especially considering some of the upcoming shows on my calendar: sparklehorse, jesse sykes, the mountain goats, tv on the radio, apples in stereo, and the gourds.)

but back to the cats. i had stumbled (almost literally) upon these guys last year at bonnaroo. when i saw the show listing earlier this month, i decided to see if my first impression would hold up under further scrutiny. it did. in fact, they were even better than i hazily remembered.

the cat empire is a 6-piece band from australia with no guitars. yep, no guitars. there’s an incredible rhythm section, two frontmen—one sings and plays percussion, the other sings and plays trumpet—an androgynous keyboard player, and a turntablist/percussionist. the songs are all over the place, everything from dub to cuban to sing-along-chorus pop. the trumpet bursts are the most consistent element, providing everything from percussive stabs to primary melody lines… it’s like herb albert and the marijuana brash.

anyway, buy the new CD “two shoes” (which is actually a re-release—but their first US release—of a 2005 australian album) if you like the clip below. fun stuff, and we need to make sure these guys make enough money to come back to the states on a regular basis.

take a listen to their song “lullaby” from last night’s show.

 

 the cat empire: lullaby [7:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (71)

Comments