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Rock Art Rock
The Decemberists
September 19, 2009
Terminal 5, New York, NY
By Amanda Hatfield "The Decemberists played a special one night 'lottery show,' where the songs played were picked at random by a master of ceremonies, played by John Wesley Harding..."
Ra Ra Riot
April 4, 2009
Webster Hall, New York City, NY
By Amanda Hatfield "This show was, at the time, the biggest one Ra Ra Riot had sold out as headliners, and it was clear to me after watching it that the band is destined for even bigger and better things..."
Florence and the Machine
October 28, 2009
Bowery Ballroom, New York City, NY
By Amanda Hatfield "Florence Welsh and her backing band delighted and mesmerized a sold-out crowd at Bowery in her first official NY headlining show..."
Dirty Projectors
July 19, 2009
Williamsburg Waterfront (Brooklyn, NY)
By Amanda Hatfield "I was skeptical about how well Dirty Projectors' gorgeous, complex vocal harmonies would carry over outdoors, standing under hot sunshine..."
See more in the Rock Art Rock gallery.
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Everyday Visuals Ride the Pop/Indie Divide
Christopher Pappas, main songwriter for Boston-based, New Hampshire-bred indie band the Everyday Visuals, is well-aware of just how the indie/mainstream continuum works. In fact, Pappas blogged about this matter in a little entry entitled, “Pop is fucking (aka. Everything to all people? / aka. Coldplay is just as bad as Wavves” posted to his band’s website.
Elsewhere on the band’s pages, Pappas provided a helpful Venn diagram to illustrate exactly where the Visuals merge between pop and indie. Figuring out where their audience is poses a practical dilemma for the Northeastern band, whose recent self-titled and self-produced third album will likely appeal to Fleet Foxes fans for its downbeat, harmony-rich vocal sound while possibly alienating said fans by also veering into poppier, Vampire Weekend (or even Split Enz) territory. This dichotomy clearly weighs heavily on the bearded singer’s mind.
“The indie world,” Pappas explains, “is completely insular and self-satisfying, and the pop world is just as lame and just as self-satisfying. When I was growing up and first listening to music, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, and the Breeders all had this really underground indie-rock aesthetic that critics loved, and yet they were all on MTV, too… and Nirvana was selling out stadiums! Nowadays, there seems to be such a schism between the pop world and the indie world. So the main point I was trying to get at [in the blog] was that often I feel like the Everyday Visuals fall in between the poppy, catchy world and the indie world.”
Living in Harmony: Fleet Foxes vs. CSNY
In 1968, when members of three recently deceased bands—the Byrds, the Hollies, and Buffalo Springfield—improvised a cappella on a newly written song as a party trick, a whole new era of music was born.
The moment Graham Nash and David Crosby joined Stephen Stills on his “You Don’t Have to Cry”, history was made and arguably the best supergroup (my apologies, Traveling Wilburys) in the history of rock laid its foundation. Not to say that Crosby, Stills & Nash were perfect from the outset. Their first label audition, for Apple Records, was less than a success, and the group ended up levying a deal from Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic Records off his Buffalo Springfield fandom. Because it was, after all, a trio of rock stars, the group had to be handled delicately to prevent ego conflicts, and their record deal had to be structured to include an unusual amount of creative freedom to accommodate them.
CSN’s eponymous debut was filled with soaring, Baroque-influenced harmonies, and its songs were built out of layers of classically styled movements, all of which immediately struck a chord with the hippie generation already obsessed with old-fashioned madrigal-styled folk. Crosby, Stills & Nash was a culmination of what so many groups, especially Crosby’s own Byrds, had been working up to for years.
Grizzly Bear
Grizzly Bear
Veckatimest
(Warp, 2009)
Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead created the prophecy of Veckatimest when he called Grizzly Bear his favorite band of 2008. Unsurprisingly, the album leaked in March and skinny-jeaned scallywags happily raised their skull and crossbones as they cyber-sailed to the namesake island. Veckatimest is, in fact, a real island off the coast of Cape Cod. Its isolated mystique, haunting Native American name, and under-the-table reference to Lost bloomed into Grizzly Bear’s art-rock fantasy. On Veckatimest, every measure of barebones syncopation is met with another of wave-crashing orchestration. Grizzly Bear tightened its arrangements, amped up the production values, narrowed its focus, and have finally achieved a sound that is both expansive and intimate. This album doesn’t just have its quirks—it is full-blown Spock-rock that will have audiences offering the split-finger salute rather than the sign of the devil.
Three years ago, name-dropping Grizzly Bear in most music circles would score you major points, because it meant that you took Arcade Fire seriously. The Brooklyn foursome burst onto the scene with overzealous vamping and trippy haiku lyrics that dubbed them “freak folk.” Their lo-fi phenomenon, Yellow House, snuggled into many best-of ’06 album picks, even though the album’s tinny, reverb-heavy sound didn’t always work. Pop-oriented dips like “Knife” proved the Grizzlies knew how to take a harmony or five from Brian Wilson. Then there were tracks like “Central and Remote” that swelled and swelled until the music became a dense fog. If only the Grizzlies made sense of these conceptual orchestrations, they would really be onto something.
Angela Zimmerman’s Top 10
1. Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes
For me, it was never even a question: I fell in love deeply and all at once. Although first enamored with their live show, upon hearing their full-length record I realized this was a band that only seems to channel the best of their ancestral influences. Fleet Foxes is a gem of a folk-rock album, akin to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young in, say, 1970. With exquisite vocal harmonies leading their earthy and crystalline sound, within a few short months, the Fleet Foxes have already set a precedent for ’70s rock throwback bands, dozens of whom are following in their wake, initiating what seems to me to be a full-on movement.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
2. Deerhunter, Microcastle
The anticipation was high for Deerhunter’s sophomore follow-up, but Deerhunter, as we should have known, took any vulnerability they may have felt as a result of the hype machine and drove it into the heart of Microcastle, only serving to bring them to their best and most accessible record yet—never alienating listeners as one may think, but still challenging us, as it should be. Its spacey atmospherics and warm, fuzzy sounds invite the perfect marriage of introverted reflection and straight-up hypnotic ambiance. These guys have a way of maintaining a melody so fine and pretty but washing it in droney textures, evocative vocal threads, and thick guitars.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
3. TV on the Radio, Dear Science
TV on the Radio has evolved with every studio album they’ve released. Dear Science is calculated and visionary but also a clear representation of what they do best: Encapsulating a slick sound and moody ambiance that’s steered by the reckless temperament and ultimate detachment only found in rock ‘n’ roll. This record is less brooding and more refined, looking towards the future in a way that’s only fitting for a group that maintains an expansive sound while upholding that human accessibility essential for 21st century urbanites.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
4. Blitzen Trapper, Furr
Without straying from the roots-rock that gives Blitzen Trapper their backbone, Furr permeates their own foundation of freewheeling melodies and Dylanesque phrasing while exploring deep within and also to the outer reaches of those parameters. Compelling is its knack for staying unique and never superfluous, a most difficult feat for a band that is so derivative of music that was forged decades ago—a facet that sets Blitzen Trapper apart from their musical contemporaries.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
5. Plants and Animals, Parc Avenue
Parc Avenue was immediately compelling to me. Each song well-structured and ambitious in scope, the album’s production perfectly seals the songs together in a circus display of pure ear candy, from blaring horns to anthemic choruses to earnest handclaps. One that never tires, this is a superior debut album, heady with promise for a band of Montreal’s new musical generation.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
6. Delta Spirit, Ode to Sunshine
Evoking dusty thoughts of Southern California’s trailblazing country rock, the thrill of Delta Spirit is that these are young dudes who bring to a nostalgic genre their own urgent, transcendent stamp. This is good ol’ rock ‘n’ roll, people, true to itself and its influences while straying from what might otherwise seem gratuitous with its homage to the landscape, both musical and otherwise, of today.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
7. Mount Eerie With Julie Doiron and Fred Squire, Lost Wisdom
The stripped-down sound of Mount Eerie with Julie Doiron borders on bleak—it’s that sparse. But submerged within its austere finish is a record of unflinching honesty that’s nothing if not an absolute take on art and the serendipitous way it can come together. What initially may sound cold in the starkness of the way voice-meets-voice, only softened instrumentally by spare guitar, is actually warm and brimming with promise and a personal kind of reckoning.
Watch: Mount Eerie With Julie Doiron and Fred Squire (Live at Mass Art, 9/27/2008) [at youtube.com]
8. Human Highway, Moody Motorcycle
This is the album I reach for when my tired ears are in want of thoughtful, but much needed, melody-chocked songs. Every track is a perfect capsule to steer me right into my ear’s pleasure center, reminding me that, in times of such musical excess and pervasive bloat, there still exists albums that are compelling simply by being so frickin’ enjoyable to listen to.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
9. Conor Oberst, Conor Oberst
You can’t argue with Bright Eyes, so it goes without saying that you sure can’t argue with Conor Oberst. His debut solo record contains all the things that have made Bright Eyes so beloved and classic but stripped of a collaborative vibe, leaving us with nothing but Oberst’s personal statement, urgent and evocative, as he has shown us to be over the years. Wise beyond his days, he speaks and I listen, and that’s enough to keep me pushing play on this one.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
10. Port O’Brien, All We Could Do Was Sing
Port O’Brien is one of the Bay’s rising acts, a band that is on the brink of never having to compromise their music again for, well, the grind of livin’. With roots and origins in Alaska’s untamed shore and rugged beauty, they bring to that bucolic edge an urban savvy as a result of forging their musical way in the progressive pace of the Bay Area. It’s Port O’Brien’s second full-length, and if not for the actual songs contained within, I love this record for the band that it encapsulates and, above all, the promise that they’re just going to get better.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
Rock Art Rock: Issue 2.22
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
October 2-5, 1969, Fillmore West
Artwork by Greg Irons
Here’s some rock ‘n’ roll lore for you. Just two months after their historic appearance at Woodstock, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were scheduled to play their first-ever gigs at Bill Graham’s Fillmore West and Winterland. But after the tragic death of David Crosby’s longtime girlfriend, Christine Hinton, in an automobile accident in Marin, CSNY was forced to postpone the show. Janis Joplin and Santana stepped in to replace them, along with the original billing of Blues Image and John Sebastian. The poster, however, had already gone to print. Though shrouded in what was a devastating moment in CSNY’s long career together, this poster is a colorful example of Greg Irons’ signature symmetrical, cartoony style. Irons would also die a tragic, early death when, right after receiving a blessed tattoo from a Buddhist monk in Bangkok, he was struck and killed by a bus while crossing the street.
Built to Spill (with interview), Treasure Island Music Fest, and Menomena
Built to Spill
September 9th at Slim’s
Built to Spill took to the stage at Slim’s for two epic, back-to-back shows, playing fluid, live renditions of Perfect From Now On in its entirety before packed, adoring audiences. A few days later, I spoke to singer/guitarist Doug Martsch on the phone from Los Angeles, and we discussed the killer food in San Francisco, the monotony of the road, and the difficulty of managing nightly guest lists. – Angela Zimmerman
Crawdaddy!: How’s the tour been going? Your show in San Francisco Tuesday was fantastic.
Camper Van Beethoven, Fleet Foxes, Mos Def…
Camper Van Beethoven
June 28th at Fillmore Auditorium
Twenty-five years after its inception, Camper Van Beethoven is as quirky and irreverent as ever—and they sound just as sharp (if not sharper). To celebrate their silver anniversary, and the release of their greatest hits record, Popular Songs of Great Enduring Strength and Beauty, CVB rocked the Fillmore on June 28th with a set of their best stuff, culled largely from their 1983 debut Telephone Free Landslide Victory. Beforehand, frontman David Lowery sat down with Crawdaddy! to talk about humor, Henry Rollins, the cruel truth about “indie” rock, and the real meaning behind “Take the Skinheads Bowling.” – Andres Jauregui
Crawdaddy!: A lot of Camper Van Beethoven’s songs have an element of humor in them. What’s the role of humor in your songwriting?
Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes
(Sub Pop, 2008)
There is no feeling in the world that equates to falling in love with a new band. It’s about commiseration through the craft of songwriting, about consuming the output of an individual, or group of individuals, that are completely different beings from yourself, living in another country, another age, another life, but despite the dissimilarities, you are fully, incomprehensibly, moved by their art. It reminds you why you live for music in the first place. These love affairs occur, oh I dunno, I’d say less than 10 times a year. How often do you really find a new favorite band? Sure, I find much to appreciate with the majority of music I listen to these days. But doesn’t it feel so consequential when you’re asked what you’ve been into and you can recite the name and flavor of your new favorite band with effusive praise? That’s a sense of fulfillment we are all continuously seeking as music lovers.
Obviously (as I am prefacing a record review with that sentiment), the Fleet Foxes are such a band for me. A soaring collection of songs, the Fleet Foxes’ full-length, self-titled debut is the sonic equivalent of walking through miles of shaded, wooded trails on the backside of a mountain, and that elated feeling that happens when you emerge from the brush to find the sun on your face. Towering and adventurous, it’s without a doubt one of the richest records to emerge so far this year, full and warm, the stuff that wraps its arms around you while elevating you on solid, foundational legs. It’s euphoric but also mystically dark, harkening storybook settings and celestial images cast in themes of love, nature, family, relationships, and life. It’s not all giddy bliss, though. Darker themes are prevalent too, like in “Tiger Mountain Peasant Sun”: “Through the forest / Down to your grave / Where the birds wait / And the tall grasses wave / They do not know you anymore” and “He Doesn’t Know Why”: “Image and a light as the morning nears / You don’t say a single word of your last two years / Well you will be, you’ll reach the frontier / I didn’t understand, oh.”
Your Handy Guide to the Month in Music
Holy crap, it’s June, isn’t it? For those of us out here on the East Coast, this means we finally get to enjoy warm weather and sunshine and BBQs and possibly even the beach, if you’re the type of person who doesn’t mind getting sand all up in your bidness (between your toes, I mean, obvs). For those of you out there in California, I don’t think it means anything other than you get to continue enjoying all those things the same way you enjoy them in every other month because you live in some fucked up kind of paradise where everything’s perfect all the time. But for ALL OF US, it means that that music industry is about to go on sabbatical for the summer, leaving us with nothing new to read about or listen to for months on end. For now, enjoy the May edition of the Cheat Sheet. By next month, I might be reduced to writing about hot dogs and my unending quest for the perfect pair of sunglasses.
This Month’s Most Notable News Stories
Nine Inch Nails Give It All Away
Does it ever seem like you just keep reading the same old news stories over and over and over again? Believe me, I feel your pain. If it’s not some stupid festival lineup, it’s undoubtedly news of a massive, former major-label band releasing a record on the internet for free. And usually, said massive former major-label band is Nine Inch Nails. (You remember them, perhaps, as the horrendously overwrought faux-industrial act that all the not-very-smart borderline Goth kids liked in high school, effectively ruining them for you forever, even though Pretty Hate Machine and the Broken EP were actually awesome.) Anyway, they gave away a bunch of crap a few months ago, and they’re doing it again now, with a record called Slip. I have not heard it, and definitely never will, ’cause who cares? The story, of course, continues to be that bands are finding new ways to get around the old model, so while I won’t necessarily recommend downloading it, I will tell you to keep an eye on the trend and wait patiently for the day when, in order for it to work, it’s not necessary for you to have written a song called “Closer” or “Creep.”
Live Show Review: Monsters of Folk at Stubb’s, Austin
by: Brenda Paro
November 13th at Stubb’s BBQ, Austin
I’ll spare you the comparisons to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, or the Traveling Wilburys. I’m sure if you’ve heard of Monsters of Folk by now, you understand that this band, like the aforementioned (sorry, I guess I couldn’t avoid it), is made up of four already-successful, talented musicians, coming together to form, in popular vernacular, a “supergroup.”
It’s easy to see how this kind of thing could be a bad idea. Just because a few musicians are good at what they do, and maybe even share similar genres, doesn’t mean they’ll gel together into a cohesive whole. But when it comes to Monsters of Folk, as with CSNY and the Wilburys (sorry again), one thing is clear: This collaboration has some chemistry. I hate to rely on a cliché that’s been used in pretty much every MOF review thus far, but it’s the most concise way to say it: The coming-together of these musicians creates a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts.
read more
by: Brenda Paro
published: November 17, 2009 in column: It Shows
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