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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: sire
Norah Jones: The Fall
Norah Jones
The Fall
(Blue Note, 2009)
Critics can be cruel. And for the past seven years or so, the success of Norah Jones has been whipping some of my nastier colleagues into a frenzy. I’ve seen more than one review refer to her as “S’Norah Jones,” which may be a clever quip, but doesn’t really say anything about her music or vocal style. She’s knocked for being “jazz lite” and laidback, but her warm, intimate vocal style is preferable to the over-singing and over-emoting of the American Idol winners and their clones who have dominated mainstream pop of late. Except for a brief period in the early to mid-’70s, the mass American audience hasn’t necessarily appreciated subtlety in music, so Jones’ success seems like a hopeful sign to me.
This past summer, word began to leak that Jones was working on a “rock” record. While there’s plenty of electric guitar on The Fall, don’t expect Jones to be joining AC/DC on tour anytime soon. The record is a bit, but only a bit, more uptempo than Not Too Late, but it does show off Jones’ considerable songwriting chops. She has a few co-writes here, including two with old collaborator Jesse Harris and one with alt-country ne’er-do-well Ryan Adams, but the strongest tunes are the ones Jones wrote all by herself. Like her past albums, there’s more than a bit of country in her compositions, but the biggest surprises are her excursions into classic ’50s-style R&B.
Jens Lekman: “If You Ever Need a Stranger…”
Jens Lekman believes in more than the power of love. He believes in the power of love songs. On his plaintive ballad, “If You Ever Need a Stranger (To Sing at Your Wedding)”, he eagerly professes to knowing “every song, you name it, by Bacharach and David / Every stupid love song that’s ever touched your heart” and trusts in the shimmering promise that permeates pop music eternity; in other words, the ever-looming narrative of boy meeting girl to be wed forever in Brill Building marital bliss.
Sure, such notions are beyond quaint, naïve, and rigidly heteronormative. The ’60s weren’t all happy-go-lucky, “Going to the Chapel”, wedding bell-laden sha-la-las. Anyone who watches Mad Men knows this. But, that’s no matter to Jens. He probably knows the falsity of his ideals. He does call such love songs stupid after all. The notion of finding one true love, one lone person to satisfy all needs—emotional, intellectual, and physical—through all life’s crazy transitions from now to eternity is ever the unrealistic one. And, as heard later on, he doesn’t deny their danger in making one feel entirely isolated and painfully alone (we’ll get to that in a bit).
Alex Chilton: 1975-1981
In early 1979, Alex Chilton formed the Panther Burns with Tav Falco. Chilton was nearly a decade removed from his stint as lead singer in the Top 40 band the Box Tops and almost five years from his last recordings with Big Star, the pop band whose work had sparked a legion of dedicated followers. Over those five years, Chilton had begun his definitive move away from everything he’d done before. He made two solo records that had grown deliberately more simple and primal, crossing rockabilly with outrage, and he’d then moved himself behind the scenes to produce the first singles of the band the Cramps, rockabilly revolutionaries of an even more primitive sort. With his next project, the Panther Burns, Chilton found his least refined band to date and again pushed himself seemingly out of the spotlight, this time in the role of the guitar sideman. Yet he appeared to still have a great hand in the band’s direction. The Panther Burns had started almost as an art project, but a year later they had evolved into a rock ‘n’ roll dance band. They were like no other dance band around.
Jim Duckworth, a jazz guitarist who would soon join the band on drums, saw them for the first time in December 1980. “I’m walking down the street, I’m not even at the club yet,” Duckworth says, “and all I can hear—they’re on stage playing, and it’s in between numbers—but all I could hear was this shrieking, screaming feedback. Not your Jeff Beck-style feedback… more the guitar’s too close to an overpowered amp, shrieking feedback. It was that Metal Machine Music [Lou Reed’s 1975 experiment-in-noise record] on crack sort of thing… They had a synthesizer player. He had no conception of what they were doing. He played between tunes, during the tunes; it was all the same to him. They were doing this back-to-basics roots-rock thing and it was hilarious. It was the funniest fuckin’ show you ever saw. It was loose and it was raw and it really worked. When those guys were on, it was a beautiful thing.” read more
Hyperstory: Hyperstory
Hyperstory
Hyperstory
(Pureland, 2009)
If you Google the name of C. Scott Blevins—the songwriter, guitarist, and producer who records as Hyperstory, you won’t find very much at all. Most sites merely paraphrase, or print verbatim, the four paragraphs of the press release that accompanies his self-titled debut. What is known is that Blevins lives in Los Angeles and has a far-reaching musical vision that’s hard to pin down. Almost 30 musicians, including a full horn section, female backing vocalists, acoustic and electric bassists, drummers, keyboard players, and a pedal steel guitar whiz, contribute to the soundscapes on Hyperstory, but there’s not a single cluttered note.
The album opens with a prelude of blue synthesizer notes and the sound of a crowd mixed down and processed to provide a ghostly ambience before moving into “A Happening”, a metaphysical soul song with a slightly Eastern European feel. Guest vocalist Julian Cassia’s whispered vocal and a laid-back funk backbeat produce a dislocated feel that complements the confusion of the lyric. Halfway through, a chorus of children’s voices come in singing random “la la la”s, adding to the peculiar ambience. “Something Good” opens with a drum beat and trebly guitar that wouldn’t be out of place on a surf tune, but morphs into a Philly soul style thing with Cassia’s high tenor suggesting a mix of the Stylistics and early ’80s British synth-driven R&B without sounding overly derivative. The lyric balances the desire for satisfaction with the ominous knowledge of ultimate loss and limitation.
“Mandate” drops more weirdness into the mix; a ranting street preacher—again, mixed down and processed—is complemented by a synthesizer’s hiss and the ambient sound of a late night street corner. “Will It Ever Change” is an achingly beautiful torch song with a delicate, chiming guitar pulse and another disconsolate vocal from Cassia. Wailing, wordless, gospel-drenched female vocals weave in and around an indigo horn chart that slowly grows in volume and intensity as the tune comes to a climax. “Ascension” is the trippiest track, an instrumental that conflates Memphis soul, German prog-rock, and Blaxploitation wah-wah guitars. “A Reckoning” moves back into existential angst with Cassia crooning about the impossibility of ever knowing anything for certain. It rides a somnambulant Motown-ish beat and resolves with another big new wave-y chorus that’s catchy as hell and provides a big, if perhaps unsatisfying, release—emotionally that is. Musically, it’s the album’s biggest release, as it builds and builds to a dizzying conclusion. “End Story” tops the record off with a blue electric piano, a bit of devil-may-care whistling, and jazzy horn orchestrations with a touch of Bacharach.
Hyperstory is cinematic in style, with expansive arrangements that suggest the soundtrack for a moody, urban musical. The overall sound is smooth and seductive, and while it implies quiet storm soul, chill room electronica, and trip-hop, it doesn’t fit easily into any of those genres. The songwriting is old-fashioned, producing strongly constructed tunes with solid, catchy choruses and instrumental hooks that make every tune sound like a hit. The instrumental interludes are ambient portraits that evoke bustling nighttime streets and mysterious back alleys. Blevins seamlessly blends real instruments with loops and samples. It’s hard to distinguish between the real and sampled sounds, and the result always sounds organic. The dreamy, soulful vocals of Cassia, who has a subtle delivery that slowly wins you over with its understated emotion, hold it all together.
Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]
Live Show Review: múm at the Independent, San Francisco, CA
múm
November 5th at the Independent, San Francisco
Once múm took the stage at the Independent, it didn’t take long before the effects of their sonic prowess could be felt. By the time they fully opened up, spread their wings, and established their gentle grasp, gravity seemed to dissipate and a warm current rolled over all of us as we bore witness to the wonders of sheer relaxation.
Though the Icelandic outfit has endured a number of lineup changes and some shifts to their sound since their formation in ’97, they proved that they remain fully capable of creating mood-enhancing music that both captivates and quells. To get there, múm—pronounced similarly to what a cow might say while gathering its thoughts (moom)—utilized a unique array of instruments and vocal combinations that were rarely the same for two consecutive songs. Melodicas—mini-keyboards blown into by the player that are rarely seen in an average set-up—were present for the entirety of the show, used by various members. Stringed instruments of just about every shape and size imaginable also dominated the field, and the two major elements formed the main base around which the other pieces flowed.
Duran Duran Bassist Says Twitter Dilutes Musicians’ Creative Powers Over Fans
Duran Duran bassist John Taylor railed against Twitter and YouTube in an article for the BBC recently that’s actually an extract from a speech for the 40th anniversary of the first message sent over the internet.
There’s some oblivious banter about how we’re in a creative recession (”… the speed and growth of new technology, which has been so heralded and so much fuss has been made of, has actually served to disguise how little real growth is taking place at the artistic level”) and how the more musicians Twitter their every thought, the more it dilutes their creative power (not to mention the power over their audience). He relates this all to a 1972 televised performance from Roxy Music that left him wanting more. But there was no internet, no video tape to capture the moment, so he had to go off and seek out and buy the record out of basic necessity. I’m going to guess it was uphill to and from the record store as well?
And then he goes on to wonder what if he had had the performance at his fingertips to watch as many times as he desired? Would he have cared at all to go out and buy the album? Basically, Taylor says that all the access in the world would’ve neutered his obsession with the band and he’d have ceased being a fan at all.
I mean, number one, that’s not really a valid point since he’s merely assuming that’s what would’ve happened.
Only at Crawdaddy! This Week: Stream Sean Lennon’s New Album for Free
Earlier this week, we ran this fine review of Sean Lennon’s new album, the score to the vampire movie Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead. Primarily instrumental, the album was composed mostly on Lennon’s own bedroom computer, and features Kool Keith and Miho Hatori of the NYC group Cibo Matto on the track “Desire.” The kind people over at Chimera (who released the soundtrack) lent us a full stream of the album to share with our readers, so waste no time and take a listen. It’ll be a North American Crawdaddy! exclusive for a week, so dig in and be one of the first of your friends to hear it. And don’t forget to share the news about where to find free access to this inventive and alluring vampire flick soundtrack.
Take your free listen through this trippy vampire score here.
Sean Lennon: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead OST
Sean Lennon
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead OST
(Chimera, 2009)
Perhaps more than any other peripheral characters from the world of Shakespeare, Hamlet courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have the dubious honor of starring in the most Shakespeare parodies. W.S. Gilbert (the librettist half of Gilbert and Sullivan) took a shot at them with the late-19th century play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: A Tragic Episode, in Three Tabloids, and in 1966, Tom Stoppard debuted his absurdist take on the characters with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Now, with all America enraptured by vampires, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead demands a soundtrack that is both macabre and playful to underscore their exploits.
Sean Lennon delivers with songs that are eerie and childlike, befitting wakes as well as naptime. This distinction is clear from the beginning of the record, when Lennon layers sheets of devilish piano tritones before resolving into major chords and finally picking up steam with tuba oomph and pizzicato strings. The title theme evokes the scores that Danny Elfman has contributed to Tim Burton films; fans of The Nightmare Before Christmas will be especially pleased.
Lennon doesn’t settle for any single style, however. “Elsinore Revisited” is a creepy music-box number. “Bobby’s Bedroom” is a sweet 6/8 ballad, alternating between happy arpeggios and a beautifully brooding B section. “‘S Blood” and “The Interview” are sustained soundscapes that evoke Brian Eno’s ambient sphere.
“Elsinore Reprise” and “Finale” have some soaring rock moments. The latter concludes with pulsing brass and bass, and a blast of cacophony is truly reminiscent of the mid-period Beatles tracks “Only a Northern Song” and “It’s All Too Much.” (I’d make the same comparison regardless of the artist’s last name.)
The record was composed on Lennon’s bedroom computer, and while this indicates that there’s a large amount of MIDI synth in use, the overall sound is surprisingly organic. “Fortenbras” comes close to a too-synthetic sound, but the rhythm is pinned down by a watery scratch on guitar strings that balances everything out. Only “Charlotte’s Theme”, with its militant video game bombast, slips too far into the MIDI hole.
The record is primarily instrumental, save for a few “ahhs”; but there’s nothing wrong with a little free association rap from the man that invented and destroyed the sub-genre: Kool Keith. Keith swings by on “Desire”, and, as he is a masterful actor in his own right, he reprises his intergalactic pimp persona: “We protrude the ozone layer / I’m a ozone player, club night / I’m a broad chaser with a silver blazer.”
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead, the movie, has been circulating around film festivals and garnering positive reviews for its dark comedy, but as of yet, it doesn’t seem to have a full-fledged distribution deal. So you’ll have to get the album and use your imagination, watch the actors and vampires chew and suck the life out of each other on the insides of your eyelids. The soundtrack is direction enough.
Listen: Various Tracks [at chimeramusic.com]
Trick or Treat with Alice Cooper
New Single and Old Stories from the Shock Rock King
Hard to believe that Alice Cooper’s new single, “Keepin’ Halloween Alive”, packs more punch than any 10 new rock songs combined, especially when you consider the fact that the Shock Rock King has, as the song says, “kept Halloween alive since 1965.” But there you have it.
Of course it helps that here Alice is backed by axemen Piggy D. (of Rob Zombie’s band) and Dave Pino (Powerman 5000), two of the few new(er) jacks who can stand toe-to-toe with Detroit’s original glam-slammer. Still, it is Alice alone who leads this thrashfest. And why wouldn’t he? It’s been his kinda holiday all along.
“At home, my family all gathers around an old, spooky tree decorated with skulls and bones in the living room, and we exchange gifts,” Cooper says. “It’s our holiday. We even all have matching black-and-orange Halloween sweaters! I wanted a theme song for people like me, and for us, Halloween never ends.” read more
The Day Van Dyke Parks Went Calypso
by: Denise Sullivan
“When I saw the Esso Trinidad Steel band, I saw myself in a Trojan Horse,” he says. “We were going to expose the oil industry. That’s what my agenda was. I felt it was absolutely essential.” From 1970 to 1975, Parks waged awareness of environmental and race matters through the music and culture of the West Indies, though in the end, “You don’t know whether to laugh or cry. That’s what makes Van Gogh go,” he says, “That’s what great art does.” Though Parks is referring directly to Esso Trinidad’s happy/sad steel drum sounds, he could just as easily be talking about his own experience during what we’ll dub the Calypso Years. read more
by: Denise Sullivan
published: November 19, 2009 in column: Feature Story
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