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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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This Just In: Old People Hate New Music
“I used to be with it, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it,’ and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary to me. It’ll happen to you…”
- Abe Simpson, “Homerpalooza”
Truer words have never been spoken by a yellow, saucer-eyed, FOX-owned cartoon character. I think of the above quote every time I see one of those “Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Dead” articles in the mainstream press. You know the kind I’m talking about—wherein some legendary geezer takes up too many inches harrumphing about the lack of quality tunes floating around out there in the ether. One of these very articles popped up last week, matter a-fact, on CNN.com, under the panic-stricken headline: “What Will Save Rock ‘n’ Roll?” Apparently rock ‘n’ roll fell down a well and the Green Lantern is out of town.
In this seemingly unnecessary story, E Street Band guitarist “Little” Steven Van Zandt plays the Homer Simpson role, literally citing the sucktitude of today’s rock ‘n’ roll as the reason the record industry is sinking faster than the Lusitania (“Who are we kidding here? Nobody’s buying records? Because they suck!”). Modern rock’s suckiness, the apparently computer-illiterate Van Zandt claims, can be traced to the fact that this generation’s musicians are eschewing the time-honored tradition of playing cover songs in bars (so’s they can focus on original material, the bastards!) and ignoring the importance of ripping off the popular rockers who came before them. Seriously. Quoteth Steve:
The Terminator’s Back… In Rock Form
Hey, can someone explain to me just what the hell the deal is with all these Arnold Schwarzenegger tribute bands running around on the scene today? Last time I checked, there were exactly two (2) rock groups ripping shit up whose platforms revolve solely around Da Gubbenator and his cinematic legacy. I don’t want to alarm anyone, but this is two more Arnold Schwarzenegger tribute bands than were in existence 10 years ago. Is this a trend we should be seriously concerned about? Probably not, but I’m awaiting comment from President Obama just the same.
The first offender is this five-piece band from California called ArnoCorps, who all dress like Dutch from Predator and play goofy power metal songs based on the numerous “Austrian folk tales” that Hollywood “bastardized” for Arnie’s popular action movies. Cute concept, although I refuse to believe any culture has folklore resembling the plot to Raw Deal. ArnoCorps has one album under their belt, 2005’s humbly titled The Greatest Band of All Time. The singer’s accent is kind of weak, but the group’s videos are amusing, and I can’t argue with how cool their guitarist looks in that combat helmet. I can’t imagine how bemused/annoyed/embarrassed their mothers/wives/girlfriends are. Truth be told, ArnoCorps is only one or two pieces of foam rubber away from being the new GWAR.
Nous Non Plus
Nous Non Plus
Ménagerie
(Aeronaut, 2009)
Ça va bien? Parlez-vous Français? Non? Je suis désolé, mais ce n’est pas important parce que le group Nous Non Plus est American, quoiqu’ils chantent en un mélange bizarre de la faux française et rock ‘n’ roll argot. And that’s about the extent of my Français, so let’s slip into Anglais pour le restant of le review, bon?
Nous Non Plus hails from Brooklyn, and was formerly known as Les Sans Culottes, which loosely translates as They Are Without Pants. An atonal singer and songwriter once fronted Les Sans Culottes and was a big part of their campy appeal. When the band tried to kick him out of the group, he took them to court to make sure they couldn’t continue performing as Les Sans Culottes. He won his case and the band was reborn as Nous Non Plus, variously translated by band members as “us no more,” “neither do we,” and “who cares?” The seven members of Nous Non Plus are chanteuse Céline Dijon, the only real Frenchie in the band (although she’s actually Swiss-German), bassman/lead singer Jean-Luc Retard, fiddler/vocalist Bonnie Day, guitar ace Cal d’Hommage, Professeur Harry Covert on drums, synth player “Mars” Chevrolet, et François Hardonne tickling the keyboards and fondly fondling his trumpet. As you may expect from their names, the band isn’t exactly serious, although they do throw down some serious faux funque et faux new wave club beats.
If you’re familiar with Bonnie and Clyde, the 1968 album by Brigitte Bardot and her then boyfriend Serge Gainsbourg, you can easily understand how a bunch of indie rockers from Brooklyn could fall under the spell of French pop. Search for the video of the title track on YouTube if you want an idea of what Bardot and Gainsbourg were up to. Gainsbourg’s ironic bark and Bardot’s limpid purr produce the same kind of dark frisson as the Lee Hazlewood/Nancy Sinatra duets of the same era. Gainsbourg put an American rock spin on the chanson, while retaining its dark, doomed romantic aura. But Nous Non Plus is proudly faux-French, so chanson’s disheartening je ne sais quoi (sorry about that) doesn’t make much of an impact on their music. They may sing in French (I can’t speak it, so who knows) as well as an amusing French/English blend, but the attitude is straight out of the ’80s, with a generous soupcon of punk/pop energy to keep things moving along.
“Mais Maintenenant, Il Faut Danser” has a clever French/English lyric. “The world is shit / Our love is it,” Dijon and Retard declaim over a stomping beat that brings to mind the thumping Eastern European Gypsy ska of Gogol Bordello or Devotchka. Hardonne’s trumpet and Chevrolet’s keys goose the tune along while the band’s exuberant “la la las” provide the expected glee. “Toi et Moi” is a sultry showcase for Dijon, a mysterious, cynical love song about a one-night stand stained by a forlorn piano, dark bassline, and despondent chorus. “Les Damnés” is a new wavey song about doomed lovers that sounds a bit like Debbie Harry backed by Ray Manzarek. Dijon’s vocal is both vicious and seductive. “Claque Claque” is a bouncy tune that blends Broadway musical swing and new wave dance funk; “Loli” is a Plastic Bertrand-meets-Clash bit of hard-edged rockabilly sung by Retard and driven by a relentless guitar line; and “La Momie” is a rocker about a gal in love with a mummy, sporting a seductive vocal from Dijon and spooky, sideshow keyboards by Chevrolet. “Le Dandy” has a jazzy, late-night feel accented by the shimmering vibes of Joe Berardi, Professeur Covert’s subtle brushwork on the snare, and Dijon’s breathless vocal. “Bollinger” closes the set with a faux Latin groove perfect for a dim lounge clouded by cigarette smoke.
The delirious Euro-pop coda is as bubbly as a bathtub full of champagne. There’s nothing startlingly new in their feel good retro vibe, but Ménagerie’s 13 tracks are overflowing with bright, goofy energy and enough carefree good humor to keep you rockin’ for the rest of ’09.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
Tags: Nous Non Plus, Les Sans Culottes, Menagerie
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BeauSoleil
BeauSoleil
Alligator Purse
(Yep Roc, 2009)
BeauSoleil is a study in contradictions. They’re a hard rockin’ band, but they only play acoustic instruments. They’re a Cajun band, but they drop blues, jazz, R&B, New Orleans second line strut, folk, Tex-Mex, Texas swing, Zydeco, and world music into their sound. They started playing in an effort to preserve the traditional sounds of Cajun fiddle music, but along the way created a wave of interest in Cajun music that spawned a new generation of bands that have not only kept the old music alive, but made it into a constantly evolving genre that’s attracting listeners from all over the globe. They’re one of the only traditional Louisiana groups to ever win a Grammy, but while their album L’Amour Ou La Folie took home a gold statue for Best Traditional Folk Album in 1998, their approach is anything but traditional, even though it never strays too far from the music’s roots.
Michael Doucet, the band’s fiddler, singer, and mastermind, put together Alligator Purse (the band’s 29th album) the way he’d put together a set for a dance, balancing up-tempo numbers with romantic waltzes and obscure covers from the pens of Cajun music’s forefathers. The album was cut live in four days with minimal overdubs, and features stellar turns from the group’s friends and relations including Garth Hudson, John Sebastian, and Natalie Merchant.
BeauSoleil’s rhythms will be familiar to anyone who ever listened to the music of New Orleans, a slightly syncopated beat that seems ready-made for dancing and good times. “Théogène Créole” is based on “La Chanson de Théogène Dubois”, a tune Doucet discovered in the archives of Alan Lomax. The original was an a cappella lament, which the band transforms into a waltz that sounds like a blend of New Orleans stop steps and Cuban rumba, with fine instrumental interludes from Michael Doucet’s fiddle, David Doucet’s chiming acoustic guitar, and Jimmy Breaux’s accordion. They transform the blues chestnut “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” into “Rouler et Tourner”, a frisky Cajun two-step with French lyrics driven by a snare drum rhythm from drummer Tommy Alesi that barrels down the tracks like an out of control freight train.
“Little Darlin’” takes swamp rock to the Appalachian Mountains with a hint of bluegrass in Michael Doucet’s weeping fiddle with the wailing harmonies of Merchant adding to the song’s forlorn drama. The slow drag R&B of “Marie” features the jazzy sax of Andy Stein from Commander Cody’s band playing off of Doucet’s bluesy fiddling. Hudson brings his heavy Hammond B3 chops to “I Spent All My Money Loving You”, another R&B-flavored tune, a swamp rock classic with new French lyrics by Michael Doucet. “Les Oignons” is another oldie, played as a boozy Dixieland dance number, with a wailing horn section laying down some nasty funk. JJ Cale’s “The Problem” gets a relaxed reading that features Billy Ware’s rub board rhythms, Bill Keith’s understated banjo picking, and a lyrical guitar solo by David Doucet. Michael Doucet sings it in Cale’s sleepy, laid back style, giving the tune an insouciant air.
Needless to say, there’s plenty of music here that’ll get a party moving. “Reel Cajun” opens things up with a galloping back beat and some incendiary fiddling from Michael Doucet, “Bosco Stomp” starts slow then kicks up its heels with Doucet’s fiddling and Alesi’s inventive timekeeping, while “Valse a Thomas Ardoin” closes the album with a somnambulant two-step.
Listen: “Zydeco Gris Gris” [at youtube.com]
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Ozark Punk Rock: A Vital Middle-American Backwater’s ’90s Scene
The mountainous region running mostly along the Missouri/Arkansas border called the Ozarks is known for its natural beauty and poverty, a place where the old moonshiners have been replaced by meth cooks. It’s one of the last places you’d expect an innovative, diverse punk scene full of die-hard fans, but that’s exactly what the Ozarks had in the 1990s.
Based mainly in the urban centers of Springfield and Joplin with satellite outposts in places like Lebanon, the scene was filled with hardcore purists, provocateurs, barely competent performance artists, and plenty of angry skinheads of both the racist and nonracist variety. It was isolated enough to develop at its own pace and, as a result, was unlike any other musical movements in the country.
“We were kind of cut off from the other punk scenes, so we had to develop our own styles and sounds,” says Gabe Harper, who played in bands like General Zod, and ran Springfield punk clubs like Harper’s Bizarre. “It’s hard to compare it to any other punk scenes out there. Because there was no big city close to us, we had to kind of make our own scene. Places like New York, or even St. Louis or Kansas City, they can get spoiled. But in Springfield there were absolutely nothing, and so it was a really great example of the DIY aesthetic.”
Outside Lands and Rock Make Street Festival
Outside Lands Music Festival
Friday, August 22rd through Sunday, August 24th in Golden Gate Park
For much of my life, music festivals have been, quite literally, my favorite thing in the entire world, and I mean any and all, from the teeny local fests to massive undertakings like Coachella and Bonnaroo. But it was with skeptical eyes that I embarked upon a weekend of Outside Lands. As I sit here Monday morning, desperately in need of more coffee and trying to collect my thoughts and decipher the few hastily scribbled notes I jotted down over the past three days, I can say, for sure, that I had a good time. Other than that, I’m still trying to make some sense of everything that went down. Was it successful overall? Six stages? Nearly 300 dollar tickets? Ugly chain link fences and 150,000 total people wreaking havoc on Golden Gate Park? No parking and that pervasive August fog surprising many ill-prepared people? Did production company Another Planet Entertainment, who is fast becoming the bigwig promoter of the Bay Area, just want to stake their ultimate claim as the biggest concert-throwers in Northern California? I think if the scale of this monstrosity was reigned in (four stages and affordable tickets would be a good place to start), it could indeed become a very manageable and special thing. As is, the festival’s redeeming qualities and caliber of the bands are enough so that I, above all, am very happy to have attended the inaugural year. Just more than a little tired today.
Friday was the big night. The Radiohead night. The night that was for many people the only one they set out to see, as it was the lone Bay appearance this year by who is probably the biggest and most relevant band in the world right now. But there were also other really great acts playing, too. Beck, Black Keys, Manu Chau, Cold War Kids, Howlin’ Rain, Felice Brothers, and on and on. After watching a great set by Manu Chao, I chose to leave and head to Beck, one of a handful of artists I had an interest in here that I hadn’t seen before. But by the time I got a beer, hit the bathroom line, and made my way over there, there was a migration of tens of thousands of people towards the massive main stage. So I got over there, couldn’t really hear and certainly couldn’t see Beck, fought for about 10 minutes to extract something from his set, and then headed back to Radiohead. I couldn’t even remotely get back to my earlier spot so I watched from pretty far back, and they sounded really, really awesome as a blanket of fog permeated the polo fields and the moody lighting and incredible video show bathed a sea of rapt listeners in cool blues and reds. The sound cut out—completely—twice, for oh, I’d say, at least 30 seconds or so. A confused and somewhat uproarious crowd was none too pleased about it, and the band was allegedly peeved enough that they fled the park before their last notes were barely laid to rest. Upon the end of their set, upwards of 60,000 people tried to exit the park at once, but since hundreds of music fans had earlier torn down the fences to break into the grounds (how does that make you feel, those who paid $100 for their ticket?), it made departing a little less bottlenecked than it would have if everyone was expected to stream 
out of the few small openings provided.
Tapes ‘N Tapes
Tapes ‘N Tapes
Walk It Off
(XL Recordings, 2008)
Tapes ‘N Tapes is a band that bears a heavy burden. Often touted as a good place to begin for a crash course in indie rock (“plays like a CliffsNotes of indie rock,” note the All Music Guide gurus), Tapes ‘N Tapes’ 2006 debut The Loon had critics drawing comparisons to the Pixies, Pavement, and other luminaries that are spoken of in hushed and reverent tones. Perhaps, critics suggested, this was the band that would not only embody the sound of those that paved the way but also transcend or transform the indie rock genre—blazing a new and innovative trail.
It wasn’t a crazy thought. The Loon, after all, was a terrific record and did a fine job of encapsulating the mood and style of indie rock in the aughts. The record respected its influences but hinted at the possibility that this might be the band to take the next step in the genre’s evolution.
Explosions in the Sky, Jens Lekman, Ray Davies, Daevid Allen, and more
Explosions in the Sky
March 20 at Great American Music Hall
Explosions in the Sky sold out three consecutive nights at Great American shortly after tickets went on sale. I was happy to attend and scope them out for myself—I’ve never seen ‘em live. They immediately transported me back to my college years, when someone very near and dear to my heart turned me onto them, along with contemporaries like Sigur Rós and Mogwai, a time when experimental post-rock made my world go ‘round.
Anyway, thankfully the show wasn’t oversold out; always appreciated when you aren’t packed into a hot venue like sweaty canned… whatever. Ew. When I finally found a vantage point to see the stage, I was transfixed, along with the rest of the audience. This was a show that had its fans not even whispering among them, except for a few folks on the fringes engaging in some quiet chatter. But for the most part, the audience was rapt, spilling into the vibe of the florid rush of sound unfolding before us. Two of the members play guitar and would at times sit on the stage, or crouch, while the bassist/guitarist anchored the stirring arrangements with really intense down strokes. The band is very much in tune with one another, and the drummer is sick (for the record, that’s the first time I’ve used the word “sick” to describe anything, but it just seems to fit). I was intently watching him, hung up on the way he drove these arrangements into the netherworld and back into our heads. As a whole, the songs would start slowly and rise together in these wordless compositions until they exploded onstage in a really intense wall of sound. Very cool, but, BUT they didn’t do any encore, nada, nothing at all.
SXSW Wrap Up, Atlas Sound, Beach House, Honeycut, and more
Jocelyn Hoppa: “I Totally Learned Stuff”
Stepping into the world of SXSW is to escape from your own mundane reality spent under fluorescent lights wishing away hours of your life and into a week-long binge on music, food, alcohol, and people. Who are all these people? Where did they all come from? A walk down 6th Street at any given moment is to subject one’s self to some weird rocker circus, full of heathens wearing sunglasses. The chatter of the masses somehow buzzing above the music that emanates from every orifice of this part of town, it becomes one’s confusion, one’s heartbeat; simultaneously at one with the filth and fury and yet somehow completely alone in the mess of it all. Health is collectively tossed out for a debauched regimen, the only answer to keeping up the pace of having to pick yourself up off the floor of someone’s hotel room with flyers stuck to your face to do it all over again day after day, amongst the drunken, faceless show goers. There are times throughout every SXSW I’ve attended where I felt like I was going to throw up for no other reason than it’s all just a lot to take in.
It all started as an industry specific event, but has obviously evolved into something much bigger. But that’s the music industry… always getting bigger with more and more bands and subsequently more people on the make. Some may question SXSW’s legitimacy at this point since it’s overdone and oversaturated, but there’s nowhere else to go and carry about this many folks involved with making the music industry’s greasy wheel spin. So, it’s still important to shuffle through the madness and figure out where your part may very well be in all of it: As a fan, a rocker, a writer, a suit. One thing I took away from this week: Though the music industry is experiencing many terrible economic downturns, a lot of money was being spent in Austin.
Tinted Windows Keep It Simple
by: Paul Myers
Speaking over the phone shortly after the band’s live debut at Austin’s SXSW, however, Schlesinger is frankly baffled by the thought of any enmity toward the talented Mr. Hanson.
“I guess people that haven’t heard him for a long time are gonna be surprised,” says Schlesinger, “but most people I talk to automatically assume he’s awesome. I don’t think anybody ever really questioned that he was talented. Even when he was younger, it was kind of obvious to everyone that he was an incredibly gifted singer and a great musician. Conceptually, maybe for some people, it may seem strange to have somebody from the Pumpkins and somebody from Hanson playing together because, in the mid-’90s, that just seemed like two different universes. In reality, it’s not. Now, it’s just a bunch of guys that have some overlapping tastes in music that wanted to do something together.”
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by: Paul Myers
published: June 25, 2009 in column: Introducing
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