2.1.11
I ordered a bunch of stuff last week after I poked around at the February releases, and a few things have already come in: Iron and Wine's Kiss Each Other Clean, Echo & the Bunnymen's 1981 release Heaven Up Here (more explanation about that later), and Deerhoof's Deerhoof vs. Evil (I wonder if they know that Art Brut already took on Satan). I also decided to pick up the Shout Out Louds' Work in MP3 format using Amazon's monthly $5 deal.

I was torn about the Iron and Wine——I'm a big fan of the first few releases, and although I was initially taken with their last release, the first to use a full band throughout, The Shepherd's Dog, it ultimately didn't make much of an impression on me, and Sam Beam's further move away from his roots with explorations in electronica on Kiss Each Other Clean didn't interest me much. But I got sucked in listening to samples, and I'm hoping it will renew my interest in his work.

2.2.11
One record that I initially had in my Amazon cart but later canceled was Bright Eyes' The People's Key. After poking around the Saddle Creek web site for more information about the new album from the Rural Alberta Advantage, I decided to order the Bright Eyes CD (along with the Rural Alberta Advantage's Departing) directly from the label.

There were two reasons for this: first, the CD would be shipped out a week in advance of the official release date, and second, in addition to shipping me the CD early, I got a download code that allowed me to get a digital version of the album a full two weeks before the release (and I will get the same benefits with the Rural Alberta Advantage release).

I've only seen one other record company, Yep Roc, employ this strategy, but I love being able to get an immediate download and eventually get a physical hard copy of a release, and I'd order directly from record companies a lot more often if they all did this, even if I had to pay a dollar or two more than the Amazon price.

As long as we're paying for Amazon Prime, getting my music through Amazon is actually pretty convenient——preorders get to me the day they are released (and sometimes the day before), so there's no shipping lag time——but being able to get a digital copy a couple of weeks early and still know that I'll end up with a physical CD for my permanent collection is a hard combo to beat.

2.3.11
The new Go Team (yes, I know it's techincally the Go! Team, but I've decided to dispense with unnecessary punctuation in band names) arrived yesterday, and I'm not sure how I feel about it so far. I really like their first two releases, but despite the growth the showed on their sophomore effort, I'm not sure how much room their unique style has for continued exploration. On the first couple of listens of this one, it feels like the only new thing they're trying is more bombast, which doesn't serve them well.

It took a few listens for the second one to really grow on me, so there's still a chance I'll end up liking this one, but they might turn into one of those bands that you really only need to own one album's worth of material, because everything else in their catalog is just more of the same.

2.4.11
The download for The People's Key had some hiccups——the servers seemed to be frozen for most of the day——but eventually I was able to download the album, and I've listened to it a few times now.

I remember reading at one point that Conor Oberst intended this to be the final Bright Eyes release, and if he's still holding to that, it's a shame. This is the best work he's done since the last time he released a Bright Eyes album way back in 2007 (Cassadaga), and it's a better album than that one. It has a lot of typical Bright Eyes hallmarks, especially the recorded piece at the beginning of the record that sets the tone and establishes the theme of the album.

Since Cassadaga, Oberst has indulged in the earnest folkiness of that record and released several albums of folk-leaning material, including a solo album, a CD with the Mystic Valley Band, and a release with indie folk supergroup Monsters of Folk, and I haven't heard anything on any of them that made me want to add them to my collection. But I instantly liked this record, even though I was expecting it to be just like Cassadaga but moreso.

There aren't a lot of individual songs that I can point to as standouts, but I really enjoy listening to this as a complete album (sort of like Corin Tucker's 1,000 Years——there aren't a ton of tracks for that one that have ended up on my shuffle playlists, but I like listening to it straight through). There's still life left in Oberst, but if he disavows projects like Bright Eyes in favor of his folkier material, I'm not sure I'll ever buy another one of his releases. I'd love for him to not only continue with the musicians he works with on Bright Eyes, but return to an even more ambitious project outside his comfort zone, the aggressive indie guitars of Los Desaparecidos.

2.7.11
Of the other releases that arrived last week, only Iron and Wine's Kiss Each Other Clean (a title I really hate, by the way) is really making a positive impression. There's some good stuff on the new Deerhoof, but there's also a lot of stuff that sounds like self-indulgent filler, and the Shout Out Louds' Work is neither as good as their previous releases or as bad as I had originally feared. But nothing on it is really taking hold of me.

2.8.11
The new Cut Copy, Zonoscope, arrived a day early from Amazon yesterday, and I think this might already be my favorite album released so far this year. Their previous release, In Ghost Colours, was probably my favorite dance/electronic record since I first became aware of New Order back in the 80s, and it's probably no coincidence that New Order is an obvious and heavy influence on Cut Copy (in fact, there's a passage at the end of Zonoscope's "Pharaohs & Pyramids" that could have been transplanted directly from a New Order track).

In Ghost Colours took a little while to grow on me as a whole record, although it eventually became one of my favorite albums of 2008, but I've liked Zonoscope ever since I heard the first sample clip, and hearing the full songs for the past day have only increased my enthusiasm for it. True, there's a 15 minute track to close out the record that's going to be hard for somone with an attention span as short as mine to sit through, and the beginning of "Blink and You'll Miss a Revolution" can't help but remind you of Bananarama's "Cruel Summer" (which is not necessarily a good thing to my ears). But otherwise, the album is stronger, more focused, and has more hooks than it's very good predecessor.

2.9.11
I mentioned in a recent post that I bought Echo & the Bunnymen's second album, Heaven Up Here, on CD from Amazon, and I thought that deserved a little more explanation. Apparently the band, who have been though some lineup changes over the years, but who are still making new music with their original singer and guitarist, have decided to go on a nostalgia tour, playing dates where the set will consist of their first two albums, Crocodiles and Heaven Up Here, played in order. I owned Heaven Up Here at one point on cassette, but for some reason, it's the only album of theirs that never got replaced on CD, and I figured that this was as good an excuse as any to get this music back into my collection.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this kind of show, but I really enjoyed the Pixies' Doolittle show, and from what I've seen from bands of a similar vintage like the Pogues, the bands don't lose any of their chops and the songs don't diminish in meaning or importance when played a decade or two after their original release. And since I was too young to have seen these songs played when the Bunnymen originally toured behind these records, I'm excited to see them recreate that sound onstage. Ocean Rain is actually my favorite of the early Bunnymen albums, and I'm hoping that if this tour is a success that maybe they'll repeat the trick in a year or two with Porcupine and Ocean Rain.

2.10.11
Echo & the Bunnymen aren't the only alternative/college rock band whose best days were in the 80s to tour with the play-a-complete-album concept. The Church, who had a pretty significant hit with "Under the Milky Way" in the late 80s, are also touring the US playing three complete albums, starting with their most recent, Untitled #23, then moving to Priest=Aura from the early 90s, and closing with Starfish, their most popular album (the record which featured "Under the Milky Way").

They're playing about an hour away on Sunday night, and I've decided to go with a friend from Richmond. I was more excited about the show when I thought Priest=Aura was Gold Afternoon Fix, the album that was released immediately after Starfish——that was a pretty solid record, and the last one that I consider to have that classic Church sound until 1998's Hologram of Baal (which not coincidentally featured the return of founding guitarist Peter Koppes, who left the band after Priest=Aura). Priest=Aura was where the band started to wander off into somnulent soundscapes and extended tracks that made me lose interest for several years, although there are still some solid tracks on it.

I was hoping Untitled #23 (the 23 in the title references the fact that this is their 23rd release, similar to the meaning of Wire's Object 47 a couple of years ago) would be a return to form, especially since they're skipping a couple of decades worth of material between Untitled #23 and Priest=Aura, but listening to the samples, it's sounds more like the spacey stuff they started to introduce on Priest=Aura that diminished my interest in the band. When my friend and I were trying to figure out if there was going to be an opening band or not, he made the astute observation that Untitled #23 is the opening act; we have to sit through that to get to the good stuff.

My personal favorite Church album is Heyday, the record released immediately prior to Starfish, and if I had to pick three of their records I'd like to hear played in reverse chronological order, it would probably be Hologram of Baal, Gold Afternoon Fix, and Heyday. But these three should be interesting, and I guess there's always the chance that seeing Untitled #23 performed live will give me a different perspective on it and convince me to buy it.

2.11.11
Not sure how much longer this will be available, but the Strokes are letting you download the first single from their next album, "Under Cover of Darkness", for free for a couple of days in exchange for your email address. Here's the link.

2.14.11
Blerg. Arcade Fire wins the Album of the Year Grammy for The Suburbs. I mean, I guess that's better than Lady Antebellum or Katy Perry or someone like that winning, but not by much. I'm still willing to give this band another chance, but I don't think I'm ever going to like this record.

On a positive note, however, Dangermouse and the White Stripes alsow won. But seriously, if you're not going to find a way to give Janelle Monáe a Grammy when she's nominated in two categories, that's still an overall loss. I get Cee Lo's "Fuck You" winning in the performance category, but losing to Usher in her other category? Sad.

2.15.11
Another surprise record from Radiohead. They announced yesterday that they will release a new album this Saturday, and instead of the pay-what-you-want model they used for the excellent In Rainbows, this one (called The King of Limbs) has set prices and comes in two flavors with two variations each.

The first is a digital download only, available in 320kbps MP3 or lossless, CD quality WAV files for $9 and $14 respectively. Preorder now and you'll be able to download these on Saturday. The second, and far more expensive, way to order the album is as a deluxe package that includes two clear vinly records, a CD, and hundreds of pieces of artwork, along with either the MP3 or WAV download price at $48 and $53 respectively. This deluxe packages won't ship until May, but people who purchase them will be able to download whichever format they purchased on Saturday just like the digital-only buyers.

Even though the pay-what-you-want model ended up being tremendously successful for the band, I'm betting they'll net whole lot more cash with this one. The MP3 and CD quality downloads are priced slightly below what it would cost to buy an MP3 album from iTunes or to buy a physical CD from a store, but there are no manufacturing or packaging costs, very small distribution costs compared to shipping CDs around the world, and most importantly, no middleman cut for a record company or online distribution service like Amazon or iTunes. I would bet that out of the basic $9 MP3 download, the band is going to net somewhere in the region of $7 of pure profit, as opposed to $3-$4 or less that they might get from a traditional record deal.

And the prices are the deluxe packages for diehards are nice too. For In Rainbows, these packages were prohibitively expensive, close to $100 if I remember correctly, and even though I would have loved to have owned one of those, I ended up just getting the digital download. This time I was more than happy to pay $48 for the MP3 deluxe package (I didn't see the sense in paying for the WAV package when I'll be able to extract the same WAV files from the physical CD when it arrives if I want to).

Radiohead are going to make boatloads of money on this, and thanks to the instant distribution, I wouldn't be surprised if this release ends up topping the charts for this week even thouhg it will be released on a Saturday (as opposed to the customary Tuesday for music relases in the US). This model still really only works for bands that have loyal followings, but I don't understand why (other than outstanding contractual obligations) more bands with large, established fanbases that are internet savvy, like Pearl Jam, Wilco, Modest Mouse, Sonic Youth, and Arcade Fire don't follow this exact same model.

Hell, I bet Radiohead could found the first major new record label of the 21st century if they would just take their technology and make it available to the tons of mid-level acts who make up the majority of indie/alternative rock sales these days. Maybe they just don't want the headaches that come with that, but if they don't do it, someone else eventually will, and everyone will look back and wonder why someone didn't do it sooner.

2.16.11
I'm in love with Polly Jean Harvey again.

2.17.11
In keeping with the tradition of Zaireeka, the Flaming Lips album that required you to play four different CDs on four different CD players simultaneously, the band recently released a single called "Two Blobs Fucking" that, for proper playback, requires twelve smartphones to play twelve different YouTube clips simultaneously. But, due to various real world issues (getting 12 friends with smartphones together in the same place at the same time) and technical challenges (getting everyone to have the same playback rate on YouTube over a cell or even a Wi-Fi connection), it's going to be well-nigh impossible for most people to ever hear this song.

So the folks at Salon somehow took all the pieces and merged them together into a single YouTube clip:

There's also a nice article to go with it with more background on the band and the song. I like the concept here, but not the actual song; if you're a fan of their more hallucinatory acid rock, then you might like this. But if you're a Soft Bulletin or Yoshimi fan, it's probably not for you.

2.18.11
Some new music arrived in various formats earlier this week. From Amazon, I got the new Drive-By Truckers album, Go-Go Boots, and the new PJ Harvey, Let England Shake (which, as you may have guessed from my post a couple of days ago, I'm really liking). I also got a code from a digital download of the Rural Alberta Advantage's second album, Departing, on Tuesday, and then received the physical CD (along with the physical CD of Bright Eyes' The People's Key) yesterday in the mail.

I've already played Departing six or seven times, and it picks up right where Hometowns left off, which is exactly what I was hoping for. Let England Shake is also excellent, and a nice rebound from White Chalk, which I never really got into. I have a feeling Go-Go Boots is going to be like many recent Drive-By Truckers offerings: at least four songs too long with too many midtempo numbers. But the production on it sounds good, and there are some potential growers, so maybe it will end up in my playlist for a while once I edit out the filler.

2.21.11
The Church show on Sunday night was very good and very weird at the same time. I'm going to write extensively about the venue later, but for now, let's proceed with a review of the actual performance, keeping in mind that I was less than five feet from the stage, the closest I've been to an artist since college, when I used to get to the Cat's Cradle early and stand at the front of the stage all the way through the opening band so I could be RIGHT THERE when the headliner came onstage.

As I mentioned in my earlier entry about this show, they played three complete albums with a short break in between each: Untitled #23, their most recent release; Priest=Aura from 1992; and their best-known work, 1988's Starfish. And this was definitely the right order: everyone's going to stick around to hear Starfish. They could have played an hour and a half of droning feedback to kick things off, and everyone would have sat through it just to hear that album.

I don't own Untitled #23 (although I have listened to the song samples on iTunes a few times), and Priest=Aura was where I really started to lose interest in the Church, so I was really there for Starfish which, even though it's not my favorite of their releases, is probably my second favorite and contains great songs from top to bottom. One of the guys we were sitting next to, however, was a huge Church fan who had seen the band in this particular venue before, and he raved about Untitled #23, calling it their best work. He also thought pretty highly of Priest=Aura, which is something I've noticed when reading online reviews about the two albums: you either hate them both or think they are the two best albums in the band's catalog.

The performance of Untitled #23 definitely piqued my interest in it more than listening to the song samples on iTunes had, even though there were still some obvious clunkers that I'm sure won't be any better as a recording than they were live. I'm probably still going to buy the album, though, (but it sure would be nice if it happened to show up on the Amazon $5 MP3 album deal next month).

The music generally didn't sound too much like the late 80s-early 90s Church that was my favorite period from the band's catalogue, but I don't know what band still sounds the same 20 years down the line, especially when at least two of the principals are prolific songwriters who have tons of solo albums and side projects under their belts. And there were still obvious Church signatures; if you had played the music for me without telling me who it was, I probably wouldn't have guessed the Church, but there would have been moments when I thought they were borrowing from the Church.

And again, the crowd was super into the performance, which certainly added to how the songs were heard by neophytes like me and my friend. Plus, the setup of the venue was something else (I'll spend more time talking about that later), and when you're sitting five feet away from musicians of this caliber, it's hard not to come away impressed.

2.22.11
The band took a 15 minute break after the 10 song Untitled #23 performance, then came back with new outfits and started in on Priest=Aura. When this album was released, the band had more or less been on the road for years, and it was clear they were starting to fray a bit, so with no promotion forthcoming from their American record label, they did almost no touring behind the record; In all likelihood, this tour is the first time that some of these songs were performed in front of an audience.

One of the cool things about the Church is that they have two amazing lead guitarists in Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper who will trade off lead versus rhythm guitar on a song by song basis, or occasionally even within the same song. During the Untitled #23 performance, however, Steve Kilbey, the lead singer and bassist, also played a lot of guitar, and one of the lead guitarists would take his spot on bass (they would also trade off on this duty).

We didn't know if this would continue as they dipped into older material, but when the first instrument that Kilbey picked up for the Priest=Aura set was a six string fender, I thought the whole night would be instrument swaps from song-to-song, but somewhat surprisingly, Kilbey kept that fender for the entire Priest=Aura run of songs and played bass on that, presumably using an effect of some sort to downshift the notes (when he played bass for the Untitled #23 set, he used a traditional four string bass).

In preparation for this show, I had gone back and listened to Priest=Aura several times, and although I really liked the first few songs, it really got slow towards the middle, and with a couple of long, theatrical songs near the end, it got almost unbearable. But played live, these songs really came to life. Guitar is obviously a big component of the Church's sound, but on the records, it's more about the atmosphere, and you tend not to notice just how much intricate guitar playing goes into crafting that unique feel.

But live, sitting just feet from a lead guitarist, it's hard to miss it, and the added punch from the sound of the live guitars combined with the faster pace of the live performance made the songs infinitely better. (I'm a bit worried about this same effect with Untitled #23 if I end up buying that one; even though I liked a lot of the songs live, I'm afraid they could lose a bit of their luster in the more sterile studio versions.)

The opening track, "Aura", which was already one of my favorites from the album, was especially amazing live. Marty Willson-Piper took the lead on that song, and he played the fuck out of it. That was one of the best live performances I've ever seen; it was like he had a six minute solo that just happened to fit on top of the song, but it never felt superfluous or showy even though he was playing like his life depended on it the entire time. It was amazing.

The overall show didn't change my perception of the songs on the album too much, although to a song, they were better in the live setting than they were on disc. I don't know if it was the production on the studio album, which tends to even things out a bit too much, or the slightly slower pace which really bogs down some of the midtempo numbers, but if I could cut two or three of the most indulgent songs and have the album versions equal the versions I saw live, Priest=Aura would rank right up there with my other favorite records from the Church's discography.

2.23.11
Even though there wsa a heavy contingent of Church devotees at this show who were highly likely to argue that Untitled #23 was the best record the band had ever made, the truth is that everyone was there to see Starfish, which is not only their best selling record in the US that contains the only genuine hit single they've ever had, but is also a rock-solid effort; there's not a bad song on the album.

The first song, "Destination", has always been one of my favorites, and it was one of my friend's as well, but it was one of the few songs that wasn't better in the live setting. It was still good, but the way it's composed on the CD is perfect for a studio recording, and it's much harder to recreate some of the effects live. Then it was on to the big hit, "Under the Milky Way", for which Marty Willson-Piper brought out a 12 string acoustic that looked like it had been to hell and back; it was literally held together with duct tape and it clearly had a lot of sentimental value for the guitarist.

The band moved through the rest of the album pretty quickly, with bolder, more rock-oriented versions of the songs (and these songs are some of the closest the band has come to traditional rock anyway). Luckily, the last two songs on this record, "A New Season" and "Hotel Womb", are two of my favorites, so the show ended on a really high note for me. There was no encore; Kilbey made that abundantly clear before they played the final song, and that's kind of fair given that the band had been onstage for close to three hours at that point.

All in all it was a great show, and I'd now consider going to see the Church live again even if they weren't guaranteed to play the older stuff that I'm more familiar with. They were a fantastic live band, and it's clear they haven't lost their skill or passion for performing. After one particularly intense song, someone from the crowd yelled out "You guys are better than you think you are!" And Steve Kilbey, without missing a beat, retorted, "Let me tell you something——we're not better than we think we are." And it was clear that he wasn't being humble——they all know exactly how good they are as individual performers and as a band, and if you walk away from one of their shows without knowing it, too, then you weren't paying attention.

As for the venue——well, let me tell you about the venue...

2.24.11
The place where we went to see the Church is called the Birchmere down in Alexandria, VA. I had never heard of it before, but after trying to do some research on it, I was guessing it was an old theater that had been converted into a rock venue. But then poking around their web site, I started to find some really weird rules:

The Birchmere is general admission, with all seating done on a first come, first served basis. To keep the process orderly, we use Line Numbers, which are picked up at the box office upon arrival.

The Music Hall is all seated with tables. At 5pm, when the Box Office opens, we begin handing out Line Numbers to customers as they come to the Box Office. At 6pm when the Music Hall doors open, we begin seating by Line Number (i.e. the first person in at 5pm will be the first person in the Music Hall at 6pm).

This sounded really complicated, so my friend and I decided to get there early, around 4:30, just to be sure that we could get a good seat (although we didn't really understand the purpose of waiting in one line just to get a ticket that determined your order for another line an hour later).

There was also an unusual emphasis on food, and although a lot of clubs have started serving bar food before the show, this felt a little different. But details were scarce, so we figured we'd just find out when we got there.

My friend got there first to hold our spot in line, and we were probably about 20 people back. When they opened the doors at 5 p.m., everyone had to pick up their tickets from the Will Call window, and when they gave you your tickets, they gave you a deli counter-style numbered tab that was your order for the real line a 6 p.m. And sure enough, an hour later, they started calling the numbers one by one and let the ticketholders go in and grab their seats for the show in order.

This was the first glance we got at the performance area, and it was not at all what I expected: a bunch of tables that sat anywhere from 4 to 10 people arranged very precisely around a large hall. There were no seats left directly in front of the stage by the time we got in, but we did find a table where the two seats closest to the stage were occupied, but the seats right next to them were not. And that's where we met our first tablemates, John and Keith, who had both been to the venue many times before (Keith also happened to be a huge Church fan).

Shortly after that, a waitress appeared with menus and we figured out why there was all this emphasis on food: this was actualy some kind of supper club for aging indie hipsters.

2.25.11
So a supper club for aging indie hipsters sounds terrible, right? Once I got in there and saw the cheap tablecloths and chairs and the waitresses bringing people beer and chicken tenders (full disclosure: that's what pretty much everyone at my table had for dinner, including me and my friend), I thought this show was going to be a disaster, and all I could feel was pity for the Church that their career had reduced them to playing in a place like this.

But I tried to embrace the experience for what it was, and it turned out to be pretty cool in the end. Even though virtually everyone eats there (the doors open at 5 and the show starts at 7:30, so you don't really have any other options unless you want a really early or really late dinner), there's an hour and a half between when you find your table and when the band comes on, which is plenty of time for everyone to finish their meal so they can focus on the show. And waitresses don't take orders while the band is on stage, although they do come around between sets to close out orders and bring new glasses of beer.

I don't know what it would have been like if I was seated farther away from the action, but sitting five feet from the stage, I couldn't have asked for a better experience. It's still weird to think about, but this was definitely not the venue you played as one of the last stops on your end-of-career deathmarch. The crowd was way into the show, and even though people were enjoying their food and drink, it was clear that they were there primarily to hear the music. I'd definitely consider going to the Birchmere again, and I'm very tempted by an upcoming Robyn Hitchcock show there (although it's the night after I see the Pogues at the 9:30, and I don't know if I can handle two weeknights in a row of driving down to DC for a show and not getting back home until well after midnight).

It's a weird experience, but an experience worth having. And yeah, a supper club for aging indie hipsters is about the right description. But that's not a bad group of people to spend some time with, especially when the "supper" part is the least important component of the evening.