I was denied (suffice to say) a ticket to see Yo La Tengo perform at a time when I probably could have benefited from seeing them. It was post-I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, but not too-far-post. I suppose I would have enjoyed the melodies, but I’m not sure I would have dug the noise, so berated in the liner notes to Painful (was it a joke?), that’s split ears every time I’ve seen Yo La Tengo live. In a packed room at Maxwell’s, it can be brutal. But I’m not going to deny that enduring and eventually enjoying Ira’s epic six-string abuse whetted my palate for the noise rock that I now indulge with near total impunity.

I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One employs noise to great effect, and thankfully, it’s not always a high decibel shriek that does the job. There’s smoldering feedback, crooked-note stabs, persistently held toy organ chords that pervade entire songs. Chronologically, they definitely weren’t the first rock band to do it, but for me, Yo La Tengo, and this album in particular, opened me to the realization that noise can be quite musical.

But before I get too geeky in my exposition of that noise, it’s worth noting that the use of noise isn’t by far the only critically relevant aspect of this album. The songs have atmosphere: Brooding, late night density or fleeting, overexposed vibrancy; folk heart, avant-garde mind. Sometimes they are blissfully short. Sometimes, they are long and winding. Sometimes, it’s the absence of any foreign sound that makes a statement.

Of the latter, my favorites are the instrumental opener “Return to Hot Chicken” and the breathy “Shadows.” I’m almost as much sucker for the lone muted horn as I am for Georgia’s voice, and “Return…” needs no words to express its feelings of familiarity, warmth, and welcome. The album’s more percussive numbers rev rhythmic glee in degrees. A steadily rocking beat and a big fat bass line anchor the vocal harmonies on “Moby Octopad”; Despite its shy lyrics and bold organ, “Autumn Sweater” is almost all rhythm, when push comes to shove. Yet, as singular as I want to make them, as much as I want to put them each in their own category, I’d be a fool to suggest that each of these songs has but one element driving them. Even if the beat all but knits “Autumn Sweater”, its lyrics culminate in emotional piquancy: “It’s a waste of time if I can’t smile easily / Like in the beginning.”

But whenever noise hijacks a songs, it drives that song home. “Sugarcube” has a sweet grit that’s awash in a syrupy distortion served in a cup of sustained organ drone. “Little Honda” has compressed crush that engulfs the song as it swells, while “Deeper Into Movies” provides the ringing, buzzing counterpart that experiment. “Spec Bebop” hurtles through space and time on the whim of a pulsating synth. In retrospect, the garbled haze of “We’re An American Band” has the feel of a self-fulfilled prophecy. Even the straight, folksy pop of “Stockholm Syndrome” is tempered by a blaring, noisy solo. The suburban cricket noises that make “Green Arrow” so enchanting offer a quiet foil to the more aggressive noises.

Whether it’s the well placed tremble of a tremolo, an organ line gone ballistic, or a veil of hissing fuzz, I Can Hear The Heat Beating As One is alive with dynamic sounds. Some test the limits of what a pop song will tolerate. Others settle in and entwine themselves around a song’s core. Together, they form an experience of sonic depth and creative adventure that’s artful enough to impress the hip set, yet never too cool for school.

New Classics: Yo La Tengo, I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One is a post from Crawdaddy! - The Magazine of Rock.

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“Ghost Pants do their hardest not to exist on any level other than a virtual one.” That’s what Last.fm has to say about the Glasgow musician, and I’m starting to believe it, as even the mighty Google generates little info on the elusive artist. What I do know is this:
1.) The name Ghost Pants is both awesome and hilarious… can’t help but feel envy and a serious chuckle every time I read it.
2.) The dude enjoys wearing upside-down flower pots on his head.
3.) Most importantly, he also makes some pretty spectacular slow burning, atmospheric jams that are all available for free. Sweet, right?

For the most part, Ghost Pants relies heavily on his instrumentation and production, which I guess you’d expect from a guy whose only quote on his Myspace page is “reverb as a crutch.” Crutch? I’d have to say no… There’s some really good stuff here (and he certainly shouldn’t be scared to use his voice a little more).

“Light” jumps out with fuzzy drums and beach-y guitars. The vocals are pushed to the back, echoed and soft, but pleasantly seductive in the way they complete the mood and atmosphere. “Fortress”, which you can hear after the jump, calms the instrumentation a bit and lulls you into a comfortable and contemplative state with its guitar effects and layering coupled with the distant vocal play. Analogue Hearts (one of the two free Ghost Pants EPs available) is really a complete and cohesive sonic experiment, well worth your time.

“Light” – Ghost Pants by crawdaddy

“Fortress” – Ghost Pants by crawdaddy

To download both of Ghost Pants’ EPs, head to his Bandcamp page. And if you like it, pass it along.

Bandcamp Band of the Week: Ghost Pants is a post from Crawdaddy! - The Magazine of Rock.

Fan of concert photography? Perhaps you’ve noticed those four little boxes on the right, mid part of our homepage. Those are just a small sampling of our Rock Art Rock gallery, where we feature some amazing rock concert photos by amateur and professional photographers from all over the world.

We’ve got some new additions for you to check out, and if you’re an aspiring rock photo-journalist, you can find out how to submit your work to the gallery by clicking on that link above. Our latest contribution comes from the talented Ben Jay. Have fun perusing.

Check Out the Latest Additions to Rock Art Rock is a post from Crawdaddy! - The Magazine of Rock.

Blitzen Trapper
June 16, 2010
Webster Hall, New York

Having shot mostly indie concerts during the past few months, photographing experimental-folk rockers (imagine Wilco, but with heavier guitar) Blitzen Trapper was quite a treat, mostly because I was able to get a few great guitar solo shots, which are usually few and far between. Singer/guitarist Eric Earley played the part of the dignified, but energetic frontman — running around during solos, without going too crazy. This photo, in my opinion, best captures Earley’s energy and focus, while the black and white captures the concert’s raw feel.

Check out more from Ben Jay at his photography site.

Blitzen Trapper by Ben Jay is a post from Crawdaddy! - The Magazine of Rock.

The New Pornographers
June 19, 2010
Terminal 5, New York

Canadian indie-powerpop supergroup the New Pornographers are one of the most fun bands of the past decade, while featuring some of the most talented songwriters and instrumentalists around. Singer Neko Case, also known for her prolific alt-folk solo career, is one of the band’s most essential organs, adding remarkable depth and emotion to their music. Here, I snapped Case during one of the few serene moments of the band’s characteristically energetic live show, capturing her alone in the spotlights. She stands out brilliantly on her own while still working wonders with the rest of the New Pornographers.

Check out more from Ben Jay at his photography site.

The New Pornographers by Ben Jay is a post from Crawdaddy! - The Magazine of Rock.

Portugal. The Man
March 19, 2010
Highline Ballroom, New York

If you want to be completely blown away at an indie show in an intimate setting, see Portugal. The Man. These indie-rockers play with skill that rivals the best ’70s prog-bands with the raw emotion you’d expect from a bunch of kids from rural Alaska, all against one of the most intense, unusual, and stunning light displays you’ll ever see at a concert. Having released five excellent albums already, Portugal. The Man recently inked a major-label deal with Atlantic, so be sure to keep an eye out for these rising stars.

Check out more from Ben Jay at his photography site.

Portugal. The Man by Ben Jay is a post from Crawdaddy! - The Magazine of Rock.

Silversun Pickups
October 23, 2009
Main Street Armory, Rochester, NY

Alt-rockers Silversun Pickups put on an excellent live show that blends perfectly with their noisy, yet ambient sound, highly reminiscent of influential acts like the Smashing Pumpkins and My Bloody Valentine. Here, bassist Nikki Monninger is visibly immersed in the show’s dreamy lighting while also helping to project the band’s similarly dreamy, yet dark sound.

Check out more from Ben Jay at his photography site.

Silversun Pickups by Ben Jay is a post from Crawdaddy! - The Magazine of Rock.

Ian Anderson
October 11, 2009
MGM Grand at Foxwoods, Ledyard, CT

While he may not be as dynamic as he was with Jethro Tull in the ’70s, Ian Anderson can still put on a fantastic show. During this all-acoustic concert, Anderson breathed new life into several rearranged Tull classics, while also showing off some fantastic new material (and unlike many of his contemporaries, he had the decency to act his own age). Having been a die-hard Tull fan since the age of 11, I could hardly imagine shooting a better first concert.

Check out more from Ben Jay at his photography site.

Ian Anderson by Ben Jay is a post from Crawdaddy! - The Magazine of Rock.

“Back in the ‘60s, this place was called the Jade Disco, then the Twilight Zone and a bunch of other names, but it’s always been a rock club, so to us this is hallowed ground, the heart of the rock scene in Winnipeg.”

Their tour kicked off at the Pyramid Cabaret on May 31st before they headed to, as Bachman put it, “a small place in Toronto, then the Relentless Garage, a 500-seaster in London” before hitting the Sweden Rock Festival “to perform in front of 35,000 people.”

Bachman said that he’d had an open invitation to play the Sweden Rock Festival for years, provided he could get Turner to sign on. “Fred said he didn’t want to go on the road as a nostalgia act. He told me he’d only go out if we wrote some new stuff that could stand up to the older tunes. It took a while, but that’s finally happened. We’ll be releasing our new album, called Bachman Turner, in September.

“The pieces started to fall into place a few years ago. I was working on a solo project and decided to invite a few people to guest on the album. I lined up Neil Young, Paul Rodgers, and Jeff Healey, who passed away after doing the tracks, and Fred. I sent [Fred] a song called ‘Rock n’ Roll is the Only Way Out’ and he sent it back to me with a couple of the new tunes he’d been writing. When I heard what his refrigerator-sized voice did to the song, I told him I’d scrap the solo album if he wanted to get together and make a record. And we did.

“Fred has one of the most amazing voices in rock. He’s one of the greats to emerge from the Winnipeg scene, right up there with Neil Young. Unless they’ve been listening to classic rock radio, people haven’t heard him in a long time. When we began to work on the record, we were feeling like little kids who had just started a band who were thinking, ‘Maybe if we’re good enough, we’ll get some good airplay.’ We were thrilled at the whole process.”

Bachman and Turner have put up “Rock n’ Roll is the Only Way Out” on their website, and it sounds like it could have been an outtake from an early Bachman Turner Overdrive record. It has a hint of funk in its rhythm, and the dual lead vocals of Bachman and Turner are as gruff and gritty as they were decades ago. Both singers still have the range and attitude of youngsters. Bachman produced the album using vintage equipment and recorded some of the tracks on analog tape.

“Somehow I was smart enough to save all the old gear I’d collected in the ‘50s and ‘60s, guitars and little tiny 12 and 15 watt amps. They’re not that big, but if you put one of them in a bathroom and hang a mic over it and put a mic right next to it, you get a sound that’s like a distortion pedal, but there’s no pedal. That’s the sound you hear on all those early Stones and Led Zep albums.

“I also had all the stuff I used with BTO in the ‘70s. I have two original LA-2A compressors from the ‘50s made by the Teletronix Company of Sunnyvale, California. I have an Urei 1176 Compressor/limiter, an API Trident Lunchbox, a Focusrite sidecar with an eight-strip input, and two important pieces that didn’t exist back then—EMT 250 reverb echo chambers. They look like R2D2. It’s a metal plate as big as a door and as thin as a matzoh. You attach your sound output to one end of the plate and put a mic on the other end. It has a hollow reverberation that you can’t match. I was able to get them in LA a few years back for a good price, but they’re really sensitive. If a bird was twittering outside the studio or a plane was flying overhead, you’d here it in the reverb. They only made 250, but now they’ve come out with a digital version. It looks like a black steam radiator that you’d see in an old hotel. When I plugged in and heard what it could do, I got one and redid all the guitars and vocals on the album. When you hear the sound of the guitar played through it, you hear a cloud of warm temperate overtones after each chord is struck. It’s the sound you heard on all those hits of the ‘60s and ‘70s. That sound was the gravy on our mashed potatoes.”

Bachman produced all the BTO albums the band made in the ‘70s, and he returned to the producer’s chair for the new Bachman & Turner disc. He made the record using a combination of old and new technology to capture the band’s trademark sound. “[The new record] will sound familiar to the old fans. It’s a big, loud collection of blues-rock riffs you can sing to and dance to. We managed to capture that authentic mid-‘70s feel, and being in the studio is more fun for me these days. When I was making albums in the ‘70s, I didn’t know what I was doing. Back then, if you wanted to do an edit on a tune, you’d have to take out a razor blade and cut out little pieces of [recording] tape and then tape ‘em together. Then you’d run it through the studio deck and hope that it would hold together. That’s why [Bachman-Turner Overdrive] was never attracted to overdubbing. We played live in the studio, and if we didn’t like what we heard, we did another take. When we put a record together, we used the best takes we had and left them as is, even if the time was off or there was a small mistake, because they sounded like a real performance.

“So this one was made using Pro Tools and while it’s all digital in the end, we did record using analog equipment and recording tape. We mixed it so that the people who get the vinyl record will hear the all the warmth of real instruments. People will get 12 tunes, just like on the old albums, but we are making some concessions to the new technology. We’re putting it out on vinyl with a CD enclosed in the package along with a download number so you can put it on your computer or iPod. You can also get it as a single CD if you want to play it in your car and as a double record vinyl set if you’re like I am and still have a turntable.

“I love playing records on turntables, but I do have a portable CD player, and I still play cassettes. I have a Toyota truck that has a good cassette player in it, and the sound is amazing. Sometimes I just sit in the truck and blast out a Beatles or BTO or Creedence Clearwater cassette. They should still put cassette players in cars. The sound is so much bigger and warmer compared to playing an MP3 through a little iPod. You have to use a lot of air when you sing or dance or make music, and on our album you’ll hear the instruments breathing. I do believe that in the shrinking of music down to digital they’re narrowing the spectrum of sound. Digital makes everything sound stiff and rigid and hard. When I made this record, I made sure we didn’t strip the breath and the soul out of it. I’m going to ask the label to release it on cassette.”

Bachman and Turner: Still Taking Care of Business is a post from Crawdaddy! - The Magazine of Rock.

Bad Religion Put “The Devil In Stitches” is a post from Crawdaddy! - The Magazine of Rock.