Harlan Muir

Harlan Muir has his new album up online for streaming. It is very enjoyable and rather nerdy (which is always a good thing). Also, our main man Knife did the drums. Check it out here.

The Tallest Man on Earth

I recently had a friend turn me onto The Tallest Man on Earth. Which I must say, is one of the few singer/song writers I've really enjoyed. I think it mainly has to do with the fact his voice has a striking resemblance to a Mr. Bob Dylan. So much so, he did a Dylan Cover for his Daytrotter Session. Enjoy.

It's True: Whoop-di-doo!

Re-posted from It's True's Blog:

Whoop-Di-When?? - Sunday, March 14th at 8pm (sharp!)
Whoop-Di-Where?? - Barley St Tavern (2735 North 62nd Street, Omaha)

It's True!, along with The Reader, would like to invite you to a one-time event called "It's True!'s Big 'Ol Whoop-Di-Doo". We want to get together and celebrate with our friends before we head to Austin for SXSW. We'd like to show you guys what we've been up to by playing you our unreleased album in its entirety...a "listening party", if you will.

Also, for the first time, John P. Campbell will be showing some work-in-progress footage of an upcoming It's True! documentary he's been working on for the past 8 months. You'll see footage featuring live performances from the road, post performance performances from the road, interviews, and moving pictures of the band recording their new album.

The evening will conclude with another mediocre live performance (you can leave early if you like).

This is a LOT of It's True! for one night, but we'd like to do one more thing. By purchasing a ticket for "It's True!'s Big 'Ol Whoop-Di-Doo", you will also be receiving an advance copy of the album to be delivered up to ten days before the release date, April 27th, ( pending completion of duplication ). There are still a lot of things that need to be completed (such as...er, naming the album), so we're not sure exactly when we'll have the actual cds in our hands. Basically, we'll get you one when we get one...some of you on the same day, more likely than not.

Only 65 tickets/slots are going to be sold for "It's True!'s Big 'Ol Whoop-Di-Doo" at a whopping $15 a piece.

Important: PayPal is the easiest way for us to keep track of all this, but if you don't want to mess with PayPal/credit cards, or the interweb, you can also approach us in-person to buy a slot on the entry list and reserve your pre-order copy of the record.

Everyone who buys a ticket will get their name added to a list that will be verified at the door. If you buy two or more tickets, you will need to inform us of your guests names/addresses/etc...so that we are able to mail/hand-deliver them a cd. The rest of the public will be notified Tuesday morning.

Come party with us!!

So that's it. You can buy a ticket from their blog. Go support this great local act and see some cool new footage from JPC. It's sure to be a great night!

Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record

Broken Social Scene has announced the title to their new album, Forgiveness Rock Record. Download a free mp3 from the new album.

Contra

I've been listening to the new Vampire Weekend quite a bit recently. This is a fantastic album full of energy and most definitely fun. I had not listened to anything by Vampire Weekend prior to putting this album on, and I must say I feel like I've been missing something. For those of you who don't have it, Vampire Weekend is kind enough to stream their new album off their webpage.

Songs of the Civil Rights Movement

NPR Music has a great play list up consisting of songs from the Civil Rights Movement. This is all in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which is January 20th for those that don't know.

I thought this was a great line from the article;

"Jazz speaks for life," King said. "The blues tell the story of life's difficulties — and, if you think for a moment, you realize that they take the hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph. This is triumphant music."

You can listen and read it here.

British Invasion

I am making today British Invasion Day! Here is my list of albums to listen too;

The Beatles - Let it Be...Naked
The Rolling Stones - Beggar's Banquet
The Faces - Best of the Faces
The Kinks - The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society
The Who - Who By Numbers
The Rolling Stones - Emotional Rescue
The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour
The Who - Who's Next
The Kinks - Lola VS The Powerman and the Money Go Round
The Beatles - Revolver
The Who - Live at Leeds (Deluxe Edition)

This 'aught' to be the Decade to Remember

So, I've been trying to think of some great list to close out the decade. Its a tough call with seeing all the things that happened over the past ten years. When we entered this decade, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was still fresh in our minds, the PS2 was the latest in gaming and Portal CD Players still dominated the Market. Since 2000 we've seen the advent of the Digital Era; if you told me ten years ago I'd have over 400 albums and countless video games all owned via digital means. That Imax would no longer be reserved for documentaries at the Zoo. Apple Computers would again be the definition of sleek and high tech; TV would be replaced by the Internet. Its been an interesting decade for entertainment, that is for certain. So as I compile my list of Movies, TV, Video Games, and Music, what are some of your most memorable moments in the last decade?

God Help the Girl

God Help the Girl is a solo project from Belle and Sebastian front man Stuart Murdoch. I found this album to be fantastic, drawing on 60's Girl Groups as inspiration, Murdoch out did himself.

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is the fourth album those Parisians Phoenix. An infectous pop rock that gets you tapping your toes to the beat every time. This was easily the best live show of 2009 for me.

Eats Darkness

Eats Darkness is the third studio child from Andrew Whiteman's Apostle of Hustle. Like most of his work, it is guitar centric and a little on the far outside. I thoroughly enjoy he's near psychedelic feel and abstract musical style. As for Andrew Whiteman's take on the album "a serial poem about some struggles people go through. Battles, from the macro to the micro. Songs about tactics and attitudes needed in 'life during wartime'. Each track is like tapas at the banquet of conflict. A small contribution to the articulation of a fucked and beautiful world."

Merriweather Post Pavilion

Merriweather Post Pavilion is my first experience with Animal Collective. From the first time listening to it I found the sweeping electronic vistas to paint quite the audible picture. I really find that this album works best when listened to on a whole, bringing you up and down on an adventure that most other albums do not. It really begins with the album art, a bizzare optical illusion that really does an excellent job or personifying the music contained within. Definitely worth a listen, and something I will have in my rotation for years to come.

Top Picks of 2009

So we are rapidly approaching the end of 2009 and I figured it would be prudent if I posted a list of some of the top albums of the year. I plan on going through each of these albums and giving them another quality listen and will soon have my Top 10 up.

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

Apostle of Hustle - Eats Darkness

Bob Dylan - Together Through Life

The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

The Flaming Lips - Embryonic

God Help the Girl - God Help the Girl

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

M. Ward - Hold Time

Mayer Hawthorne - A Strange Arrangement

Metric - Fantasies

The Most Serene Republic - ...And the Ever Expanding Universe

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure At Heart

Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Ray Davies - The Kinks Choral Collection

Röyksopp - Junior

The Thermals - Now We Can See

What a list! I plan on writing a blurb on each of these in the coming days and will have my Top 10 by the end of the month. What are your top albums for 2009?

Spotify on the Horizon!!

The wicked cloud music app Spotify is reported by the LA Times to be hitting us shores in early 2010! I am very excited for the arrival of these program and look forward to having a cheap and effective way to broaden my musical horizons!!

Tone Matrix

Be warned, this could consume your day.

http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix

Made Up Dreams

This was a hell of a week for concerts, and I only went to 2 of them. Phoenix, as Clark (and others) have mentioned, was easily one of the best shows of the year. In my book right up there with Girl Talk and The Hold Steady. Wednesday was another highly anticipated concert (for me at least), Built to Spill.

Back in 2007 when Slowdown opened I noticed that the first "big" show was a little band called Built to Spill, who at the time, I had heard of but never listened to. Turns out I'd had their 1999 album Keep it Like a Secret on my computer but had never given it a proper listen. I fired it up and was blown away by it. Infinitely catchy songs that hint at the possibilities of extended guitar freak outs. This quickly became a favorite album of mine, and still is to this day. This alone was enough for me to purchase a ticket to the show. As I dove headfirst into their back-catalog I discovered that Secret was somewhat of an anomaly; everything else I heard was in fact extended guitar jams which was initially off-putting due to my lack of appreciation for "jam bands" (i.e. I don't smoke weed). The 1997 album Perfect from Now On is the perfect mixture of jams and pop hooks, and also became one of my favorites by them. The most recent CD at that time was an '06 disc called You in Reverse which I liked a few songs off of but seemed jammy in parts (I came around on this one too and quite enjoy it now). Needless to say I went to the show, it rocked, hard, and I left a happy man having recently discovered a band that I probably should have been listening to for years.

Fast forward to 2009 and they have another album, There is No Enemy, coming out on October 6th which is one of my most anticipated of the year so I was obviously delighted to find out the guys from BTS would once again be making a stop at Slowdown on their fall tour. This in part makes up for missing Pitchfork this summer as these chaps were one of the bands I most wanted to see. Andy and I arrived at Slowdown around 9:30 to see the last song of the Swiss openers Disco Doom, from what I heard they sounded more or less like a band you would expect to open for BTS: loud, lots of guitar, not a lot of singing.

Right about 10 the guys from BTS got on stage and started tooling around with their instruments, I wasn't paying full on attention and I honestly thought they were roadies tuning everything up. It wasn't until the tuning turned into a little song (improvised perhaps?) that I realized this was in fact the band I had paid money to see. Having seen them twice now I think it is safe to say they are one of the most modest bands I have ever seen, or maybe they're just shy. Frontman Doug Martsch said approximately 30 words to the audience the entire night and with the exception of 2 full on sentences consisted entirely of "thanks" and variations there of. But I expected this, this was not a surprise. What was surprising was the set list, and not in a great way.

Now I realize that they have a new album coming out in 2 weeks (emphasis on the not out yet and not available in advance at the show) and they were obviously going to play tracks from said album but I question the first half of the show being new songs. Coming from a fairly well versed fan I can recall only 1 song in the first half of the show that I recognized, from the sporadic (very sporadic) cheers I heard on a few of the other songs I concluded that they must have also peppered in a few deep cuts from the few albums they have that I'm not familiar with. Bottom line is all these new songs and unknown songs did nothing to get the crowd into the show. Now that's not to say they were ungrateful, very loud cheers and applause after each and every song, just no one moving or rocking out during them. I also don't want to say they are bad songs, cause I'm sure after a few listens I will dig the hell out of them, they just weren't good concert fodder.

They really shined once they got through those and onto the songs that people have actually heard, and the crowd reacted appropriately. The second half included some gems such as Carry the Zero, Else, and You Were Right from Secret and 1 or 2 from Perfect that I unfortunately can not remember. The crowd was really juiced after they finished Carry the Zero, the last song of the set and they came back for a 3 song encore that ended with and extended Goin' Against Your Mind off of Reverse. A great end to a somewhat mediocre beginning.

I must add my two cents about my theory as to why the odd set list among other things. A few albums ago BTS signed to Warner Bros. and it is my belief that the label essentially forced them to tour in support of their new album. This could explain the large group of new songs clustered at the beginning (to get them out of the way) and also the lackluster merch booth. Last time I recall a wide spread of all their CDs some vinyl and several different t-shirts, this time all we got was one t-shirt. No old stuff, no other designs, no new album. I don't know why but this just seems lazy to me, and perhaps something a band who was being forced by their label to tour might do. It is my opinion that the good lads of BTS would have chosen to start their tour a few days after the new album drops to give people a chance to digest it and prepare for the rock that was about to be served to them. I also have to say once again that I have absolutely no basis for any of these claims, pure conjecture on my part.

All in all it was a good show but didn't live up to the show from '07 (and the 15 minute encore of Randy Describes Eternity, whooo boy that was a doozy). Glad I went, glad I saw them, glad I bought a t-shirt. Just wish it would have been a few days after October 6th.


If I remember I'll try to pull up some videos/mp3s when I get home, can't do it at work.

Phoenix

Last night I caught Phoenix at the Slowdown. Hailing all the way from Paris, France, this was their first time here in the great city of Omaha. They had a great band out of Nashville open for them called The Features.

The Features were an excellent rock ensemble that came out with a loud fury of music that got the crowd out of their seats. The Features just released their latest LP Some Kind of Salvation on 429 Records, an imprint from Bug Records started by Kings of Leon. The highlight of their set was the newest single Lions.



Phoenix took the stage shortly after The Features had finished up. They had maybe a dozen LED light displays behind them, coupled with the house lights made for quite the epic set up. They started their show off strong with Lizstomania and proceeded to continue on for a solid hour and a half. Another highlight was Love Like a Sunset, in which there is a good four minute 'jam' at the beginning that goes into a complete song. They were extremely tight and well rehearsed, but that didn't mean it sounded just like their studio work. They took liberties and changed songs slightly for a live performance, something I always appreciate. They ended their double encore with an elongated version of 1901, the other single off their latest album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.

Science is Real

I've always been a huge fan of They Might Be Giants, and I will admit that in recent years I have not stayed the course and followed any of their new music. I recently came across this video for the song Science is Real off of Here Comes Science. Leave it to TMBG to combine music and science in such a catchy way.

Giant Steps

I've been obsessed lately with John Coltrane's Giant Steps. Giant Steps is the first song off the album of the same name. Known for it's blistering speed and impressive level of improvisation its no surprise that it's considered a landmark recording within Jazz music. Not only was Coltrane known to come into a studio with unrehearsed songs, he was also a pioneer with Music Theory. Giant Steps uses the theory that Coltrane had developed for Bop Jazz. It pushed boundaries in Bop Jazz, and continues to influence Jazz Theory to this day. I just think it is a beautiful song.

Fall Music

So, I've whipped up this calender for the fall schedule for shows coming through our area. What I've got so far is 1% Productions calender, I've taken out some of the shows I am not familiar with. This is the shows I plan on going to, or would like to go to.