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Straight to Video
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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Search results for: domino
The Eddie Kramer Woodstock Experience
.jpg "Eddie Kramer at Electric Lady Studios in 1970")
What would Jimi be doing if he were alive today? It’s a question I’ll often ask myself and anyone else who I perceive to have a view on the subject. And I don’t just mean musically. I mean, like, what would he literally be doing right this minute? What would he think about the new mother earth, the change of climate, and other concerns of his songs from back in 1967? Would he really just lay back and groove on a rainy day, really not mind if the sun refused to shine? That kind of thing. Does this make me the best person to interview Hendrix’s left-hand studio man, Eddie Kramer, for 20 minutes on the subject of recording three days of the historic Woodstock festival? Maybe not, but even with my interest in a Hendrix eye-view on things and Kramer’s determination to steer me off the astral plane and back to upstate New York 40 years ago, we decided to meet somewhere in the middle and have a chat about Hendrix, the concert, and Hendrix’s headline appearance at it. read more
Dirty Projectors
Dirty Projectors
Bitte Orca
(Domino, 2009)
Dirty Projectors have come to define the forward-thinking movement that is the Brooklyn music scene, and, in a way, they have done much to preserve the scene’s organic integrity while trends in noise and art-rock sweep through. It’s the mantle quite a few bands have worn for a moment—TV on the Radio, Grizzly Bear—but few have run with it as far as David Longstreth’s Dirty Projectors have and hopefully will further on into the future.
Dirty Projectors have taken an opening slot on TVOTR’s tour this spring—a fact that is made almost ironic by the likelihood that they will, with Bitte Orca, usurp even more of TVOTR’s power in the New York and national indie scenes. Of course, this is just speculation, and possibly even an exaggeration on my part, but DP’s newest effort will have even the non-avant-garde speaking in superlatives.
Rancid
Rancid
Let the Dominoes Fall
(Epitaph, 2009)
No longer junkie men telling us what their story is, having proven last time around that they’re Indestructible, what does Tim Armstrong have left to say to us? “The bravest kids I know,” he sings, “are the ones that got a goal.” Six years after you thought Indestructible’s we-stick-together sloganeering was saccharine, here comes a punk rock stay-in-school message.
Call Let the Dominoes Fall many things: Rancid’s “fat and happy record,” their “beat the odds triumph,” their “Young Jeezy-cum-Barack Obama Yes We Can record,” or, most damning of all, “not punk, boring, mature record.” The mohawked vets will slap you upside the head probably. Not only do they know their moment (…And Out Come the Wolves) is more than 10 years behind them, but so is their first mature record—the near-masterpiece Life Won’t Wait, a brutal, Jamaican-style portrayal of the war between the social classes of punks and rude boys.
Junior Boys
Junior Boys
Begone Dull Care
(Domino, 2009)
My colleague Ian Mathers describes his favorite Junior Boys album, Last Exit, as “hateful.” I wasn’t interested enough to look up the lyrics for that well-regarded debut when I heard it, but now I’m rather curious as to what kinds of uncouth sentiments I’ve been grooving to for the past two months. Scanning the titles of 2006’s So This Is Goodbye, “Like a Child” seemed like an obvious starting point, and from there, Jeremy Greenspan’s graceless dismounts sniffle rather than drink themselves to sleep, one after another. Left alone on his birthday, unable to tell if he’s emptier with or without sex, struggling to apprehend the stake in his heart inscribed “so this is goodbye,” he’d slink like the National or evoke like Interpol if he could piece a sentence together in his condition. With his shaky whisper and barely tonal melodies clutching droll ’80s analog synths like a child with water wings, critics coddled him for years. But even his best melody, “In the Morning”, was pained, a pretty and formless descending scale unshaped into much of a hook. If this band is hateful, it can’t even comport itself to make something from it… angst, aggression, a raised eyebrow. All it can produce is salt down its red face. Naturally, I cringed when I saw the title of their third long-player. Haven’t they learned from bad luck? Or had a decent birthday in three years? I prepared to tag this Bemoan Dull Care if I was going to play it at all.
And then a wonderful thing happened; Greenspan woke up one day, as broken lovers are wont, and moved on. “Dull to Pause” seems to chronicle his newfound ability to go about his business: “All the time spent over nothing / Seems like you’re done / You are,” and more literally, “I was pacing around and just recording it down / I had nothing to say / I’m done for another day.” Here he stops pacing. A good six of the eight new songs can make it home by themselves, portioning healthy funk over another five years of emaciated synths. Claps, traps, simulated horns, even a couple swing moves, countermelodies, losing his mind in riff after riff, co-conspirator Matt Didemus has distracted Greenspan long enough to show his songwriting some love. His singing, too! “Dull to Pause” could vie for Travis or Coldplay’s Brit-croon crown, while the irresistible “Hazel” is a confident, full-belted disco pileup.
Franz Ferdinand
Franz Ferdinand
Tonight
(Domino, 2009)
The first time Franz Ferdinand really made an impact on me was well after they’d already hit the airwaves with frequency, after they’d joined what was, at the time, an uprising in radio rock, in that post-punk-revival-meets-dance-rock way that also included, say, Bloc Party and Hot Hot Heat. I was at Coachella, and they rocked it for the dense and sweaty festival crowd, everyone moving together under the blazing sun to Franz Ferdinand’s gigantic sound from their 2004 self-titled record that contained that absurdly catchy song, “Take Me Out.” That was my Franz Ferdinand moment; I dug it in a big way. Then I promptly never listened to them again.
That said, I appreciate a theatrical sound and slick production, and I obviously understand the massive commercial appeal of this kind of music. I just feel like a band needs to know when to move beyond that comfort zone, into a new territory that isn’t based on the global musical trends that initially catapulted them. Sure, they want to stay true to their sound and it was fun while it lasted, no doubt… but is it really enduring on a grander scale, say in terms of, oh I dunno, artistic integrity? Well, that’s exactly where I’m at with Franz Ferdinand’s newest and third record, Tonight. It’s all fine and good—tight, catchy, hook-laden—exactly what you’d expect from a band that helped bring that same sound to the masses half a decade back. It just sounds dated to me, in that it’s a reconfigured take on what I’ve already seen—and forgot about. With a band that has some control over their direction and the angular art-rock chops to potentially take it somewhere a little edgier, I just want more. Or maybe I just expect more.
Now riding out those expectations, I have to wonder if the Glasgow-based rockers are themselves wondering where they’ve missteped, or perhaps if they failed to step at all. All said and done, it’s a strong album (ridiculous hooks kick in immediately with the first song “Ulysses”, the stomping bass beat of “Live Alone” is nothing short of gravitational, and the acoustic closer “Katherine Kiss Me” is an effectively lulling way to close out the record), just not so relevant today as we see musical trends rise, peak, and then dissipate until they’re rehashed into revivalist genres for the next generation. And let’s face it: This genre already saw its day. I want to see new approaches in the ongoing battle over the soul of rock ‘n’ roll. And judging from the cover art, the band could be suggesting they know it too: Trying to resuscitate their band without the shadow of public scrutiny is certainly something every artist should be entitled to. But when a band gets as big as Franz Ferdinand, they can lose from the public the perspective of “artist” and are instead expected to produce something marketable that that same salivating public wants and needs… and will spend money on. So perhaps they should change their name, ditch the suits, and come back really, truly ready for reinvention. Or, at least some substantial growth.
This is Franz Ferdinand; they’re doing what a record-buying public set them up to do: Franz Ferdinand sold 3.6 million copies worldwide, and 2005’s You Could Have It So Much Better sold almost 400,000 copies in the US. And as I sit here listening to Tonight, I find that, despite my reservations, I’m intrigued, wondering how much further down exploration road their recent three-year hiatus could have taken them. It’s a solid album for those who want their beats lacquered and polished, for those who expect Franz Ferdinand to deliver on the same old promise. It’s just that they could have come back refreshed and ready to shatter the mold, and instead, it appears they’ve just come back reconditioned for the exact same story.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
Tags: Franz Ferdinand, Tonight, Domino Records
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Animal Collective
Animal Collective
Merriweather Post Pavilion
(Domino, 2009)
We do it to torture ourselves, I think. Building up our heroes until the pedestals we’ve perched them upon are too high to be structurally sound—especially if we’ve built them in a hurry. Whether or not it’s because of some perverse hope that they’ll fail (hard to admit), we have become a culture of buzzing bees, speculating and conjecturing about which band’s new album will be the Best Thing We Have Ever Heard.
Such was the case with Merriweather Post Pavilion, the newest full-length from Baltimore avante-garde-ers, Animal Collective. Like their equally eerie and much-beloved contemporaries TV on the Radio just months before, Animal Collective masterminds Avey Tare and Panda Bear were due this year for a breakout record. So desperate were fans and critics to see if they would deliver that they resorted to theft, hacking, and enough blog-based jibber-jabber to make Mr. T’s head spin.
Honestly, it never felt very negative. The whole music industry, it seemed, was poised to love this record. But as there is such a thing as killing with kindness, all the speculation was leaving me terrified that it would be impossible to separate the record from the hype.
The first two-and-a-half minutes of my first listen were filled with an understated and mysteriously harmonious musical swelling. Album opener “In the Flowers” is initially a pretty major-to-minor, repeat, chord progression stood poised to descend into one of Animal Collective’s signature building/crashing shock value intros (see “Did You See the Words” or “Peacebone”). As soon as the vocals come in—eerie, slightly altered, and non-human—over the top of the pounding rhythm, the strange melody, and the beautiful chaos around the three-minute mark, it no longer mattered what I had heard about Merriweather Post Pavilion. The album spoke more loudly for itself than any speculative blogger ever could.
Spontaneous and vital, while simultaneously smart and careful, Merriweather Post Pavilion is undoubtedly the best work Animal Collective has done to date. It’s an achievement for a band with such a distinct sound to consistently produce compelling new sounds. The entire album bubbles with warm electronic noises, sparkles with African and Brazilian musical influences, and unilaterally encompasses the elements that define Animal Collective while still sounding completely fresh.
“In the Flowers” follow-up “My Girls” is effervescent and gorgeous, and almost indescribable. It’s delicious in its sweetness and rousing in its bouncy, almost danceable rhythm. “Summertime Clothes” is built on a driving beat made up of a bizarre and instantly likeable rubbery-echoing-suction sound, shimmering synth arpeggios, and glassy, water-logged rhythmic voices that, combined, sound like an oddball chorus of delight.
Merriweather ends with “Brother Sport”, a lively, chanted track with a din of repetitive electronic noises that invoke images of people dancing, arms raised, praising the sun. Its summery Beach Boys elements is Panda Bear’s calling card, making it something that will instantly appeal to new listeners, as well as seal the album in a satisfying way for old fans.
I have to, for a moment, jump into the fray, because the “breakout” element of Merriweather can’t go without being discussed. Just because the album may seem less strange to us—and, most importantly, less strange compared to previous Animal Collective albums—that doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t seem strange to a mainstream audience. In fact, it’s guaranteed that it will. There still aren’t traditional “songs” or anything that could become a radio hit on Merriweather, and there is still very little here you can sing along with. And is mainstream success really what the band wants for itself anyway?
Well, the reviews are glowing, and many critics are touting this album as a potential classic. I’m right there with them, and the reason, it seems, that we’re all having trouble finding Merriweather Post Pavilion any less than perfect, is not because it’s perfect. As an album, of course, it isn’t. It’s weird and wonderful and flawed. The reason is that, with Merriweather, the fellas behind Animal Collective have perfected themselves: Their style, their aesthetic, their message. The album is the perfect expression of their vivacity and their extreme love of existence. It perfectly transmits that feeling of awe and awkwardness we all experience; it’s the perfect example of art imitating life. Finding fault in that would, in some small way, make music as art a hopeless endeavor. And we don’t want that.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
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Pop Greater Than Rock: Cheap Trick vs. Fall Out Boy
Okay, I admit this is going to be a tough one. Trick fans, you will likely balk at the notion that any band past or present could replicate the magic or wonder of a soaring, candy-like Robin Zander chorus, let alone some young upstarts from Wilmette. FOB devoted, I am certain you will choke on your Wasabi Peas when you see some jerkface rock journalist has likened your heroes to that ’70s band with the chubby insurance salesman playing drums. Look, I’m not saying Fall Out Boy are the heir apparent to the “Surrender” crown, nor am I suggesting either one of these fine acts is better than the other. I’m just sayin’ there are some striking similarities between these two major musical outfits, a few too many to ignore.
I mean, that’s the whole point of this Switchback thing, right? Pointing out the similarities between old and new rock bands? I mean, jeez, the way some of you people react to these articles, you’d think I was performing open heart surgery on Buddy Holly’s corpse.
Cheap Trick and Fall Out Boy are both pop/rock bands in which the amount of pop is somewhat greater than the amount of rock. Assuredly, no one’s ever going to mistake either of these acts for flaccid crap like Celine Dion or Michael Bolton, but on the same token, I doubt a single person could hear Heaven Tonight or From Under the Cork Tree and confuse them with Mastodon. These are two groups that said, “Sure, guitars are great, but harmony is better.” They made no bones about it, and you know what? It earned both the CT and the Fall Outs intensely loyal fan bases. If I may steal a phrase from the late Linda Stein, those who love Cheap Trick and Fall Out Boy love Cheap Trick and Fall Out Boy. They praise their musical heroes just short of Zeus for delivering catchy, hook-laden tracks that manage to squeeze in just enough sweet, sizzlin’ slabs of rock to satisfy. Call either of these groups “pussies” within earshot of a loyalist and prepare yourself for a lengthy, angry confrontation and/or dissertation.
Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick
Budokan!
(Sony Legacy, 2009)
There’s nothing quite as comforting to me as a chilly and rainy night in December and a loved one who has the bright idea to curl up with me and a stack of DVDs while the rest of the world braves Christmas shopping amidst winter chill and the economic crisis… “What about this Cheap Trick at Budokan thing?” he asked. It was all the excuse I needed to say, “Hell yeah,” before popping in the disc and hopping on the couch to watch the DVD included in the four-disc box set of Budokan!, now celebrating its 30th anniversary.
But somewhere after the obligatory stage entrance footage and Rick Nielsen’s guitar and Tom Petersson’s bass scratching the chords to the band’s customary opening number, “Hello There”, but before Bun E. Carlos came down hard on the snare and Robin Zander could blurt out in hard rock-ese, “Hello there ladies and gentleman, hello there ladies and gents, are you ready to rock?,” I could no longer contain myself. “You know they’re playing right now,” I squealed. “Right now? Let’s go!” said my man, and off we went to the show. But though my quick-change transformation from nubby-sweatered homebody to aging rock chick occurred in seconds flat, sadly by the time we got to Hollywood, Cheap Trick were ending their set with “Goodnight”, their customary show closer: “That’s the end of the show, now it’s time to go.” As it was, we got to see a couple of encores, including “Dream Police”, then it was back home to the DVD where we left it, at “ELO Kiddies”, and all before 11 o’clock.
For anyone unfamiliar with the legend, there was a time when Cheap Trick ruled the world—or at least Japan—where they were welcomed like the Beatles on their first trip there in 1978. Unprepared for the hysteria that would ensue, according to the DVD extras, the band didn’t enjoy being held hostage by screaming Japanese teenagers, though the trans-Pacific press and their imported Budokan show set the stage for the Trick’s return to the US where, after three studio albums, they finally broke through.
The single record set Cheap Trick at Budokan was released stateside in February 1979. It contained 10 songs—five on side A, five on side B—culled from a 19-song set performed over multiple nights. Very little fixing occurred to the tapes that were reportedly in bad shape, but that made no difference to its reception: The album stayed on the charts for a year, achieved rare “triple platinum” status, and sparked two Top 10 singles, a rearranged version of “I Want You to Want Me” from the band’s album In Color, and a heavy rock cover of Fats Domino’s “Ain’t That a Shame.”
This 30th anniversary edition includes the whole 19-song set from Friday April 28th, filmed for Japanese television, with a restored soundtrack. It also includes Cheap Trick at Budokan, The Complete Concert and the original set in order, on two discs, digitally remastered (originally released in 1998, on the concert’s 20th anniversary)—which is to say that some of your favorite Cheap Trick songs are included up to three times in a super-deluxe four-disc package that also includes a full color booklet, informative liner notes, and a poster. Yes, a poster. For a minute, I wondered what a first wave Cheap Trick fan was supposed to do with a poster, but then I remembered this edition is not being marketed to the likes of me.
The four cartoonish personalities that comprise Cheap Trick and make a mega-noise with just the basic guitar, bass, and drums instrumentation have, for the most part, transcended generational appeal and genre labels in a way that few other bands have: Hard rock, punk, and pop bands have all paid homage to them with covers and words of high praise. Before seeing this DVD, I’d never noticed just how many of Billie Joe Armstrong’s moves are similar to Rick Nielsen’s. Fans run the gamut from the mullet-headed to the tres cool, while every frontman need take note of the icy cool of Robin Zander. Carlos and Petersson are, of course, the less-heralded glue, though it’s Carlos that drives the whole machine and without Petersson, cod versions of Cheap Trick were nothing (mercifully he rejoined after a six-year hiatus in the ’80s).
Though I never refuse an excuse to play some old Cheap Trick records or see them play, admittedly as the years pass, I’ve found other diversions. And yet, when I do bother to revisit the old recordings, give the new ones a try, or go to a show, I’m astonished by the band’s raw power. The way they rock Terry Reid’s “Speak Now (Or Forever Hold Your Peace)” here is a revelation. And though I’ve always loved the sweet stuff like “Downed”, “Oh Caroline”, and the reworked “I Want You to Want Me” (which Zander introduces by enunciating slowly and loudly, as if that way the Japanese speakers could understand), all from my favorite album, In Color, I was happy to be reminded of “Can’t Hold On”, a rare blues turn by the band. I have often asserted to anyone who’ll listen that “Auf Wiedersehen” rocks as solidly as anything released in the punk era, which it was, though I have yet to find anyone’s enthusiasm for the song to match mine.
Nothing on this winter night can tamp down my spirit as the disc plays on, and as it played, I got to real reason and the real feelings I get when I hear Cheap Trick, even after some 30 years of listening: They bring me to the edge of my seat; I bite my nails and press my hands over my mouth and muffle screams so as not to disturb the concert like the Japanese schoolgirls once did. I feel adrenaline being released and it’s thrilling. I’m thrown into a state of teenage ecstasy—fuelled by the sound of the world and its possibilities, before I grew up and turned sour. Like Led Zeppelin who awaken me in a different way, Zander’s voice and Cheap Trick were installed permanently on my human hard drive, and I’m glad to know it’s as simple as playing one of their discs that I can return to the states of innocent and idealist. There is magic in this disc, plus anything that can get me out the door on a cold night should be classified as a drug. Best of all, I’ve experienced no undesirable side effects from rockin’ on to “Clock Strikes Ten.”
Listen: “Auf Wiedersehen” [at youtube.com]
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Wild Beasts
Wild Beasts
Limbo, Panto
(Domino, 2008)
The first thing of note when listening to Wild Beasts’ debut full-length album, Limbo, Panto, is singer Hayden Thorpe’s hell of a falsetto. It’s a voice that drives the album to a peculiar, theatrical reality, where its quirky nature and eclecticism stands teetering amidst scores of other faceless British bands. Initially, their foundational roots sound glammy and derivative of Queen and other eccentric art rocker types, but soon it becomes clear that there are other variables at play here, discernable with each listen and dissection of some of the individual tracks. This band is unique in a sea of static contemporaries.
Wild Beasts hail from Leeds, England and through the damp and foggy climate they bring their sunny and whimsical character and unrestrained, and at times outrageous, approach to songwriting. Though it is undeniably Thorpe’s Tiny Tim-esque falsetto that most blatantly serves to distinguish them, what lies beneath that warbling vocal line is fully realized, polished, and upbeat pop music that encompasses a range of styles and influences.
The undisputed gem of Limbo, Panto is the bouncy third track, “The Devil’s Crayon”, which pulls from all those disparate elements found throughout the record and executes them in way that is accessible and could easily find its way onto radio stations and a spot on collective listening rotations. Perhaps I like this track best because it’s delivered by bass player Tom Flemming’s vocals, which navigate away from the sometimes overbearing shrill falsetto of their chief vocalist. But it is also more tempered compositionally, with dashes of piano thrown in, as opposed to alienating for the sake of being idiosyncratic, as some other tracks threaten to do. “The Devil’s Crayon” is a solid indication of what is yet to be seen from these young guys (their average age is 21) in the coming years once they streamline their approach a bit more.
“His Grinning Skull”, also featuring Flemming’s singing, is another of my favorite tracks, serving to quell the spastic climate of the album as a whole, grounding it again with some much needed contrast. “Please, Sir”, another highlight, is a plea to who is apparently a headmaster or principal (reminding us how young this band is!), as the boys urge him to let them return to school: “And I wish and I hope / With long drag on me smoke / And I wish and I hope / That I’ll stalk the corridors once more / Please sir, let me return / If only for a term.”
“Woebegone Wanderers” is a definitive example of the overblown identity crisis from which some of these individual tracks suffer. It goes from spastic to desperate to moderate to detached to reactionary, a bit too maniacal and therefore overwhelming. However, what I see as a potential weakness could also be seen as a great strength, as it emphasizes how fearless Wild Beasts are in their songwriting. “Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants” (the title comprising the chorus of the song) is an upbeat anthem to youth, to life, to living, and a sparkling danceable ode to, well, getting the most out of this thing we sometimes forget to embrace called life: “Adopting this young spirit of sin / To make the most, before we turn to ghost / Before, old friend, life’s just a means to an end.”
Call them misfits, call them eccentric. Let them confound you, question you, spin you around and upside down, and drive their baffling displays of rock music straight into your ears. But, give Wild Beasts a chance because they’re taking up a residency of their own creation in the British indie rock music canon. And that’s a valiant accomplishment for a young band to secure, one who strays just far enough into left field to keep it interesting.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
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The Big Pink
by: Mark Asch
A Brief History of Love
(4AD, 2009)
This London duo’s debut sounds as large as the band and album names promise it will—even if a better title would have been A Brief History of One-and-Done NME Cover Subjects. The Big Pink has hubris to spare, but a distinctly self-conscious strain of it: Brief History plays like a historically savvy recap of British genres that have recently promised more than they could deliver.
The album starts off with “Crystal Visions”, which opens with faraway, epic guitars, like a glitchier version of the Cult’s “She Sells Sanctuary”, before kicking in with the Spiritualized-style jump rope chant-verse-hook. The fuzz is towering throughout; it’s sort of amusing, maybe even ironic, the way Brief History consistently takes feedback—the most self-effacing of all production tricks, for the way it buries either the musician or the listener, or both—and turns it into an arena-rock trick. Imagine the Boo Radleys on U2’s budget (if you dare).
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by: Mark Asch
published: October 6, 2009 in column: Reviews
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