FREE ENERGY @ Orpheum !!

Boston's Orpheum Theatre, a mass expanse of cramped seats held together by big name acts and their most recent paint job, is hardly the easiest place to pull concert-goers out of their chairs, but Free Energy hardly let them sit down, pulling out all the stops in their opening slot. Having headlined medium sized venues and cropping up in a slew of festivals, Free Energy was more than qualified in jumping on tour with a seasoned, big-name veteran. Thus, Weezer's Memories tour seems to be the perfect slot. Here I had wondered how Free Energy would fair, thinking it implausible that any band could capture the attention of the room's ripening 90’s alternative rockers, newly collegiate hipsters, and the parents with kids not yet conceived by Pinkerton's, well, conception. However, with Free Energy's energetic stage presence and an upbeat pop-rock aesthetic, even the most jaded of the original Pinkerton conosurs found themselves bopping along one song deep.  
    This being their second night confronting Weezer ultra-fans, Free Energy saddled in again and proved their ability to entertain. Drawing from their latest album, Stuck on Nothing, songs like "Bad Stuff," "Bang Pop" and "Hope Child," they received a standing applause from a deservedly pumped up crowd.

8tracks

With all the jazzy talk about internet radio and its evolmutaion, Mariella showed me 8tracks.com. I think its neat and entertainingly time consuming. WECB is internet radio!


This is a mix I made about an hour ago. This may only be of interest to insomniacs. Ah well.

-m

from left to right: Molly Y, Mariella, Ben Danger, Margaret, Mariel, Lorena and Mike in front. 

The Generationals - Trust EP

The only phrase I can come up with to describe The Generationals Trust EP is “high energy boredom”. Throughout it’s entirety both the male and female vocals sound ja-ja-ja-jaded which in many cases I would consider a deal breaker; However in contrast to the mildly dynamic fast paced instrumentals it works. The music itself is a blend of analog and synth… something I have a definite weak spot for. Not to mention how welcomed hearing some Hi-Fi produced surf guitar was for a change (on track 4 “Trust”). Overall I’d describe it as a mixture of The Unicorns, Vampire Weekend, Eux Autres, and Why?.

One thing is for sure, this entire EP is damn catchy, I recommend it to anyone who really needs something easy and new to listen to.

Charles Schlarb - Psychic Temple

Psychic Temple is mood music for people who don’t want to be told how to feel. Schlarb chips his brand of whispy, ambient rock off the all-too-easy-to-replicate post-rock block. The key to his saving distinction is prominent percussion; the drums writhe on the cold floor while the guitars melt into memory foam for what seems like eight hours (but is actually about ten minutes) of confused limbo. The 4-song, 33-minute album can be your best friend during finals; the cloudy keys and slippery guitars are calming enough to lull you away from Bubble Spinner, but the drums jar you awake and back to your half-done study guide whenever you start to drift off. The songs are extravagantly long and experience very little structural variation, but the dynamics and artful discrepancies make this album worth dragging into your library for a few listens in December (and again in May).

Warpaint live @ Great Scott 11/30

Seeing Warpaint live at the Great Scott made such a lasting impression on me that I’ve been listening to their songs on a repeat mode ever since that night. The band, composed of four girls, has such a overpowering presence and massive sound that you can’t help but be impressed. Their overall sound is dark and even sinister yet balanced with beautiful dreamy vocals. Their distorted guitars sound like synthesizers and their hi-fi vocals with extreme delay create an ambiance of uncanny dreams. The girls go from low-almost whispered vocals to climaxes in which they scream their lungs out. The vocals are drenched in reverb and delay, which becomes a vital aspect to the surrealism of their songs. In “Stars”, Emily Kokal leads the vocals with a soft delay that fades out into the music, guitarist Theresa Wayman accompanies this with subtle background vocals that give a completely ominous sound to the song.

“Elephants” opens with an electrifying guitar strumming that gets integrated with the vocal chant: “I'll break your heart, to keep you far from where, all dangers start”. The song then gets much more intense as the drums come in and the guitars start jamming dissonant chords. Their climaxing instrumental jams reminded me of Radiohead’s explosions. Each song would initiate with a dissonant melody and then transition into crazy alternative riffs that would literally burst out out of nowhere.

The most expected song was “Beetles”, which was greeted with claps and cheering. In this song, Wayman sings a fast-paced harsh vocal introduction that make you want to dance and go crazy. This then transitions into a slow surreal vocal section with an ambient feel.

As they play, each member is in her own zone, with eyes shut and moving their body to the music. Bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg is literally in another world while she plays, rocking her body in a slow motion and shaking her head to the beat. The girls have such an amazing presence. It seems like they don’t even care how they look (even though they are insanely hot). With their baggy clothes, messy hair, and their bodies dancing all over the place, they just play and enjoy their music.

Top Ten of 2010? Go!

I asked each member of WECB's music staff to make a list of their top ten musical releases of 2010. We have 25 days left of the year, so these are pending. I wanted to post them anyway to kick start the fun of composing and refining a super list of 2010's best new music. And let me tell you, on the list of the best ways to have fun, making them is number 1. 

Oh! and top 2010 pics of the staff are pending as well. 

Mariella 

1.Black Angels: Phosphene Dream

2.Awesome Color: Massa Hypnos

3.Fitz & the Tantrums: Pickin' Up the Pieces

4. Arcade Fire: Suburbs

5.Tyvek: Nothing Fits

6.The Black Keys: Brothers

7.Carolina Chocolate Drops: Genuine Negro Jig

8.Masters of Reality: Pine/Cross Dover

9.Eastern Conference Champions: Akustiks

10.Growlers: Hot Tropics

Ben Danger 

1. Carolina Chocolate Drops / Genuine Negro Jig 

2. "        " 

3. "        "

4. "        " 

5. "        "

6. "        "

7. "        " 

8. "        " 

9. "        "

10. "      "

Mike F

1) Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone*

2) The Tallest Man On Earth - The While Hunt*

3) MGMT - Congratulations

4) Band of Horses - Infinite Arms

5) Colour Revolt - The Cradle

6) Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse - Dark Night of the Soul*

7) Punch Brothers - Antifogmatic

8) S. Carey - All We Grow*

9) Charles Bradley - No Time For Dreaming*

10) Horse Feathers - Thistled Spring*

Mariel W

1.  Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today

2.  Menomena - Mines

3.  Gorillaz - Plastic Beach

4. Future Islands - In Evening Air

5. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest

6. DOM - Sun Bronzed Greeks Gods EP 

7. Los Campesinos! - Romance Is Boring

8. Wild Nothing - Gemini

9. Wavves - King Of The Beach

10. Tame Impala - Innerspeaker

Lorena A 

1. Tallest Man on Earth – The Wild Hunt

2. No Age – Everything in Between

3. The Avett Brothers – Live album 3

4. Yann Tiersen - Dust Lane

5. Freelance Whales – Weathervanes

6. Electric President – the violent blue

7. Sleepover – The Sun

8. Eux Autres- Broken Bow
9. ?

10.?

Molly Y                                        

1. Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles 2

2 Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record

3 Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse - Dark Night of the Soul

4 Charles Bradley- No Time for Dreaming

5 No Age - Everything in Between

6 Carolina Chocolate Drops - Genuine Negro Jig

7 Liars- Sisterworld

8 Wavves- King of the Beach

9 S. Carey - All We Grow

10 Sleigh Bells - Treats

Margaret 

1. The Black Angels- Phosphene Dream 

2. Shilpa Ray + Her Happy Hookers- Venus Shaves (7")

3. Quasi- American Gong 

4. Charles Bradley- No Time For Dreaming 

5. Liars- Sisterworld 

6. Archie Bronson Outfit- Coconut

7. The Besnard Lakes- Are the Roaring Night 

8. Arcade Fire- The Suburbs (yea yea...)

9. The Avett Brothers- Live Album 3 

10. Viva- Rock and Roll Lover 

We'll be working on our individual lists as well as a collective one all month, so keep reading! 

(Recommendations? Disagree? What's better? Whiskey? Mmm... whiskey. Let us know what you think!)

-m

    

ROCK AND ROLL VIVA!

On Sunday November 21st I found myself smoking a cigarette outside of The Midway Café in Jamaica Plains. It was a cold night, I was with my buddy and bosslady Margaret. We had come out this way to interview a musician, Viva, who had sent our music staff her album Rock and Roll Lover. The album was fun and I was excited to see what my first interview with a real live musician was going to be like.

Taken from internet. Will post our pic with viva soon!

We finished our cigarettes and walked into the bar. There we were greeted by a classic New England-type bartender. I promptly headed to the bathroom leaving Margaret with the ridiculously awkward task of trying to explain that we were with a band that hadn’t even arrived yet so that we could interview them. By the time I returned to the bar, Surly Dave (he was surly and he told us that was his name) was grilling Margaret about who we were here with and what we were supposed to be doing. After maybe five minutes of awkwardly tense discussion, it came out that WECB is an Emerson-affiliated program. The change in Surly Dave’s demeanor was instantaneous. He treated us like old friends and his wind-weathered New England face cracked in two with an enormous smile. All in all, he was a great dude and his jokes are worth a million bucks.

We were told that Viva hadn’t arrived yet so a quick analysis of the situation proved that another cigarette should be had. While we were outside, a blonde woman stepped out of a van parked in front of us. Quick deduction on Margaret’s part and a tentative “aaaaare you Viva?” yielded wonderful results and suddenly we were all pals.

Viva herself is a really outgoing lady. It was obvious right off the bat that she was just as excited to be interviewed as we were to interview her. Not wanting to get in her way, Margaret and I headed back inside to wait out the show set up. Soon enough, the show was about to get started.

On the album, Viva is accompanied by a seven-piece band of brass, bass, and drums. However, tonight was to be a special “duo performance” of Viva and her bassist Mary “Freakin” Feaster. They started their set with a rousing performance of “Someone Else,” dedicated to Surly Dave, who had also helped set up the equipment. The energy from the two people onstage was great. For a band with no room to move around in, playing to an audience of maybe four, they were rocking the place. The song sounded great in its stripped down form and Viva’s vocals went miles beyond how she sounds recorded.

People began heading into the bar mainly during the first three songs. Included in those three were “What’s Your Sign, Baby?” a quirky ditty about getting to know someone new, and “Universal Radio,” which Viva dedicated to us. I gotta say, that was a first for me and it felt pretty good. By the time the song had finished, the bar was reasonably full and everyone was digging the band.

The good times continued with a great Bowie cover of “Moonage Daydream,” however their lack of a drummer was starting to prove difficult (Viva later informed us that the drummer had a prior gig that he couldn’t get out of, and props to her for doing the show without him.).  Not wanting to lose all the energy she had built up, Viva called out to this kid Joe in the audience. Now Joe looks like a pretty average guy. Couldn’t have been older than 18. But he gave a bored smiled and hopped onto the drum set like he had been playing his whole life. Viva asked if he could do a disco beat and almost before he had said yes, she had started into “Go-Go Boots.” Here, the drums stole the show. How could they not, after seeing this random kid just get onstage. Obviously he was a drummer from one of the other bands playing that night but still, he didn’t know Viva, he was just playing by feeling. It was fucking cool. The song was great, the vibes were great, the crowd was lovin’ it. Now it was Viva’s show again.

The last song of the night was the title track of her album. Once again, Joe sat in on drums and played fantastically. The song was more difficult to play, with calculated stops in the drumming, and Joe pulled it off like a champ. He had purple-haired girls dancing their asses off. Viva was jumping around in the like three inches of space she had, and Mary Feaster was the archetypal bassist, eyes closed into slits, head grooving so hard it might fall off.

And like that, it was over. Everyone applauded Joe for his badassery, Viva jumped offstage, and Margaret and I decided it was cigarette o’clock while we waited for things to wind down. (our Q&A with Viva will be posted soon!) -Ben Danger 

nihiti - other people's memories

In my cynical and overly critical opinion, we had a shitty week in terms of new music. None of the albums sent to us this week got my vote, so I'm not going to dedicate a lot of time explaining why these bands suck when one quick listen will suffice. This band was actually the best of the week by far, and perhaps the biting tone of the following review is somewhat undeserved. But hey, if I want to be a good music critic I have to be an asshole, right? I'm just taking out my frustration on the only band worth commenting on...last week was a great week for us, and this Thanksgiving week just fell short of anything at all remarkable. Oh well. Here goes:

nihiti is so cool that they don’t even use capital letters. if you know how to come up with one marginally intriguing chord progression and play it unwaveringly for three minutes to an off-time gaggle of misguided, fake bongo-based percussion and add swirly-girly effects, you know how to impress hipsters, so fuck grammar, right? wrong. i go to the most shamelessly hip college in the universe, and i’m nowhere near impressed. some of the chord progressions, basslines, and percussion rhythms are somewhat interesting, but nothing pulls me in because the songs lack substance. there is nothing for me to sink my teeth into; there’s no juice. this album is distinctive from other electronic albums in that the tones are mostly natural and the instrumentation includes real tools, but that’s just about the only positive aspect of other people's memories. there is absolutely no attention to songwriting. that’s my biggest bugaboo. if you’re going to shit all over Steve Grammar’s grave with your name and album title, make sure your music doesn't suck;

To: Music Staff..

Couldn't resist...

The Parting Gifts - Strychnine Dandelion

The Parting Gifts is definitely the kind of band you would have to see live to feel the full effect of their music. I say this without having seen them myself, because it is the obvious feeling you get after hearing their album “Strychnine Dandelion”. Their aggressive vocals and fast-distorted guitars have so much contained energy you can’t help but feel the desire to mosh in a crowd full of crazy people. With an obvious influence from The Doors, their music has a sense of rawness. The male vocals are subtle and agressive at the same time with an intensity similar to Jim Morrison. Other songs like “Don’t Stop” embody the feeling of teenage angst of 70s Punk. The vocals are brutal and intense with anti-establishment lyrics. “Don’t Hurt me now” sounds just like Iggy Pop and could easily be part of the Trainspotting soundtrack.

If you are about to go to a crazy punk concert, pre-game on The Parting Gifts and you will not be disappointed.

Charles Bradley - No Time For Dreaming

Charles Bradley strives and strains his avuncular little vocal fibers for the extra mile to the extra mile. Where he could reiterate his mid-range register in the opening bars of “The World (Is Going Up In Flames),” he leaps from the mere stratosphere to the moon as he sings “Nobody want to take the blame / Don’t tell me how to live my life / When you never felt the pain.” His Menahan Street Band answers his pile-driving calls with congregation-quaking responses and orbits around his expressive vocals with a rousing brass section and multihued bass. And if that’s not endearing enough, he’s an old man from Brooklyn who trudged through a seemingly hopeless childhood and had to wait 40 years to get his break in the music industry. Oh, and he doesn’t make shitty, pompous indie music like all his neighbors.

Like the aforementioned pompous indie bands channel a putrid concoction of Grizzly Bear and Animal Collective (who, as it happens, are not even from Brooklyn), Bradley channels none other than the Godfather of Soul, James Brown. But there is more merit to his blatant Brown impersonation than there is to copycatting for profit; Bradley is a soul revivalist. He’s not only old-school, but shamelessly old-school. And not just that, but, at 62, he’s authentic. His spoken-word opening verse in “The Telephone Song” hugs so surely to his mighty bird-of-prey caw that Bradley makes Flight of the Conchords look like a couple of grade-A jamoke assholes for their parodical “Business Time.” The track opens to the sound of a telephone dial turning (yes, turning) as Bradley mellifluously whispers, “Remember that time when we was just layin’ down together, side-by-side, and your love just hit me so strong…I love you baby, just come home, it can’t be this way no mo’.”

Bradley has mastered the James Brown shtick right down to the physics-scoffing perm, but he makes his mark as a songwriter within those parameters with his autobiographical numbers like “Why Is It So Hard?” and “Heartaches and Pain.” The lyrics in the former are about as cryptic as a Paul Pierce tweet (“It’s been a pleasure to bring my talents to South Beach”…anybody?) as Bradley sings “I was born in Gainsville, Florida / I traveled far and wide / Then I moved to Brooklyn, New York / I had hard times, but sometimes I hold on.” Similarly, the latter plods along like a lazy July afternoon as Bradley croaks, “A friend grabbed my shoulder / And he said these words to me / Life is full of sorrow / So I have to tell you this / Your brother is gone” out in front of the band’s ironically cheery demeanor.

But the superb Menagan Street Band is sure to lift at least a little of the spotlight from the flamboyant Bradley. The brazen horn section launches “Golden Rule” into the sun the same was Allen Toussant’s brass menagerie lifted much of The Band’s later material from the depths of obscurity. “Lovin’ You Baby” is a champion of electric soul guitar, a twinkling ode to Bradley’s special woman and America’s precious six-stringed sacred harp simultaneously. “I Believe In Your Love” extrapolates that motif as the guitar and bass pace around each other until they’re both dizzy enough to fall out and let the horns and chorus vocals take the floor.

No Time For Dreaming hurls even us 90s kids into a state of nostalgia for the 70s, but that’s not to say it sounds lifted from a time capsule. The production is clean and tastefully spare but never overproduced or intentionally lo-fi. The young band’s new-age take on soul makes Bradley’s Brown flashback all the more genuine, and his effortless vocal acrobatics show the agility of a man one-third his age. It might be wrong to call Bradley a soul revivalist; as far as he’s concerned, it never went anywhere. This is no neo-soul…this is the real thing.

Tyvek- Nothing Fits

Jam packed with frenzied vocals, fuzzed up guitar, and sharp drums, Tyvek’s newest album, Nothing Fits, leaves no room for boredom. The Detroit band sounds like they came straight out of the late punk/early grunge scene. The record’s lo-fi recording style even gives it that good ol’ DIY feeling.

Some things you will NOT find on this album...
Keyboards
Island-like bells
A gentle guy/girl vocals duo

If you’re sick and tired of the previously listed things taking over new music, Tyvek is the band for you. Give a listen to “Blocks,” “Potato,” and “Pricks in a Car,” off of Nothing Fits.





Fun Fact: Tyvek is a synthetic material that is incredibly tear resistant, but easily cut with scissors or a knife. If you’ve ever been to a music festival you’ve probably been branded with a Tyvek wristband.

Eux Autres - Broken Bow

Recently the California surf sound seems to be back with female vocalists. The brother/sister band, Eux Autres seems to fit perfectly in this new music crave. They have an undeniable resemblance to Best Coast, with a female voice that seems sung through a handheld megaphone. Yet the vocals in Eux Autres have the perfect amount reverb and distortion.

Their newest album, Broken Bow is filled with beach-like sunshine songs; with fast guitars and sweet piano melodies that float on top of the effortless drumbeats. The songs have a basic song structure yet they have a quirkiness that sets them apart. “Jamais” is a song in French that features the singer Heather Larimer’s lo-fi voice with a perfect tone and harmonization. “Under Rays” is a song The Beatles would of written if they lived in California. And “Rosehill”, which features a male voice provides a great compliment between vocals.If I were on a road trip to the West Coast, this would definitely be the soundtrack of my ride.

Viva - Rock & Roll Lover

Viva’s website tells me that I could think of the titular singer/guitarist “as a female Jeff Buckley.” I’m not gonna do that. I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I popped Viva’s album Rock & Roll Lover into my computer but it sure as shit wasn’t Jeff god damn Buckley. I couldn’t decide if Rock & Roll Lover was a cool album title or not, if the cover looked good or not, if I liked the track names or not. However, once the first song started, I was sold.

Bursting at the seams with energy, the first song (incidentally, it’s the title song) consists of a groovy guitar lines, some pounding drums, and a really sweet horn section. All of these are good things. Topping the layer cake of great instrumentation is a voice that falls somewhere around the B-52s.

Further into the album, you’ll stumble across the eclectic beat poetry meets Warren Zevon meets quirky white girl gem that is “What’s Your Sign, Baby?” The song is fun but I’ll be damned if you ask me what the hell this girl is talking about. Also pay attention to the awesome sax solo towards the end of the track.

Deeper and deeper we go as “$15 Dollar Buzz” bleeds ska influences. The song is so genuine that it’s hard not to like. The song “Go-Go Boots” is a few years to late for the sexual revolution but it arrived just on time to be a hit with its retro sounds and funky keyboard/synth riffing. Did I mention the funky bassline?

In the final analysis, this album is tons of fun. The musicians sound like they’re all having great times. Once in a while, I found myself wishing that Viva would let go on her vocals a bit more, she has a tendency to sound a little withdrawn, but when she lets loose you really know it. Keep an eye on these guys, they might go places.

Cee-lo Green - The Lady Killer

Cee-lo Green has got a hell of a lot to live up to. His flawless single, “Fuck You” made it onto basically every party playlist since it was dropped over the summer, and everyone is on the edge of their seats to hear The Lady Killer, his newest release. Let me tell you how excited I was to see this album title on the list for this week’s review. Furthermore, I get to be the proud bearer of good news in letting you know that this album is everything it should be.

The Lady Killer opens in true grandiose fashion with one of the sweetest intros I have heard in a long time. Sultry piano? Check. Dramatic horns? Check. Badass lines about ladykillin’? Mother fucking check! This doozy of an intro draws us straight into the synth-driven, dance-beat-boppin “Bright Lights, Bigger City,” a song that drips with 80s influences. Cee-lo’s voice is in perfect form as he croons sweet lines like, “Friday is cool, but there’s something about Saturday night.” Sweeping synth strings and a reverbalicious bridge drive the final 80s nail in this dancehall coffin.

Following "Bright Lights" comes everyone’s favorite tune, “Fuck You.” There isn’t much to say about this song that hasn’t already been said so I’ll leave it at that. The song rules. The rest of the album flows smooth-as-silk. The soulful beatcentric “Bodies” may not be the strongest song on the album but damn is that chorus infectious. It’ll stay in your head for a while. From there, we are taken on a trip through time and genre from the gospel meets pop vibe of “Satisfied” all the way to a 50’s high school dance anthem aptly titled “Old Fashioned.

In all, this album is astoundingly cohesive. It’s timeless. With something for everyone and a huge buzz, this album is going to tear up the charts. There’s nothing not to like. Although songs like “Wildflower,” which drags on a little, break up the smooth pace, they don’t stray far off the path and it’s still easy to find a groove. Cee-lo’s gonna kill a lot of ladies with this album.

Swedish House Mafia - Until One

     Although this album does follow a lot of the traditional electronic/house forms that I wish I heard in more albums we get in to WECB (most notably the smooth –almost inaudible- transitions between tracks), the fact of the matter is that the tracks chosen to remix/edit/mash-up are simply just outdated enough to be entirely irrelevant.
      I found this extremely strange if for no other reason than this is an electronic/house album, an album which falls into a genre which is (almost) by definition required to be up to date (to the week) on new music releases... always scouting for new tracks. However this is exactly what SHM didn't do, causing them to seem painfully out of touch.

The Pains Of Being Pure Of Heart at The Paradise Rock Club

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart brought Boston a fun set of sparkling and shiny twee-pop during their set at the Paradise Rock Club last week.

The set was made up of a mix of cuts from their 2009 self-titled debut LP, 2009's Higher Than The Stars EP and a new track here and there. From the second they took stage, it was clear that the goal was to get the audience dancing. The songs were fast, jangly and full of tongue-in-cheek lyrics sung by doe-eyed singer, Kip Berman. They raced through several songs before finally pausing to thank the audience for coming.

One highlight was Young Adult Friction, a standout from the debut. The song tells the story of a young boy and girl who have a fling in the stacks of a library. Featuring an uber-catchy chorus that chants "don't check me out!", the song live was a 3 minute long piece of pure pop brilliance. Another standout from the show was the new track, Heart In Your Heartbreak, the lead single from the band's upcoming second LP, Belong. Heart In Your Heartbreak showed that the tracks from the new album will be just as catchy and fun as the old ones are.

The only qualm I had about the show was it was simply too short! The entire set (including the encore) lasted just 45 minutes. After the band left the stage, it was obvious that everyone in the audience wanted more. Despite that, the Pains put on a lovely show. If you have the chance to see the band, do it! They won't disappoint.

Black Angels at the Paradise

The Black Angels show at the Paradise this week was, well, sorta’ stinky. (And no, I’m not referring to the guy next to me whose dinner was definitely disagreeing with him) As much as I love them- yes, I still love them and always will- the Black Angels played like an opening band.

They started off strong with each of the first three songs taken from their three different albums. They kept playing, seemingly enjoying themselves, and the crowd was having fun. But then they played “Manipulation” a classic off of their first album Passover and they lost it. For whatever reason they really screwed up the song, and from there on out the energy was just gone. On top of that, the next song they played, “Yellow Elevator,” is on of the more complex tracks from their newest album, Phosphene Dream. They weren’t comfortable with it, and especially after the mess of “Manipulation” it just didn’t go well.

Alex Maas was having trouble with the microphone- too much reverb, not enough reverb- Nate Ryan couldn’t hear himself on the guitar, Kyle Hunt broke a bass string in the middle of playing “Haunting at 1300 McKinley,” the band just fell apart.

But that’s not to say they didn’t have a few good moments here and there. They did. They were all on key playing Phosphene Dream’s “The Sniper” and they did a great job ending the show with “Young Men Dead.” Overall though, they just weren’t really in the zone.

No, Thank You Mr. Amaker.

An email we received yesterday... 

"Howdy Margaret [WECB], 

Just dropping you a quick email to personally say thanks for giving my new album some attention.  We're out on tour right now and it means a lot to me to hear that we're getting radio support.  Brent Amaker and the Rodeo thank you for your efforts!  

Sincerely,


MR. AMAKER

Brent Amaker and The Rodeo"
www.brentamaker.com
www.sparkandshine.com
www.terrorbird.com
www.myspace.com/brentamakerandtherodeo

Another big dump...

Somehow my password changed without me changing it. That, or I'm a complete dumbass and made it something I wouldn't remember last time I changed it. Either way, I have a bunch of reviews backed up from the past several weeks. Here they are.

The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger - Acoustic Sessions 

Sean Lennon and his wife, Charlotte Kemp Muhl, combine their bold, clean, British-tinged harmonies with colorful acoustic chords and fantastical lyrics. Lennon echoes his father’s interest in pairing lively nouns with unlikely verbs and adjectives to create lyrics and melodies that dance to their unpredictable chord progressions. The songs are not as sweet and accessible as they at first appear for their sometimes jarring chord changes, but their juxtaposition against the soft vocals and warm guitar tone makes this album interesting enough to get through pretty easily. It’s not the kind of album that you’d listen to regularly, but it’s good to have a wild card to go to when you’re absolutely stumped on what to listen to on your walk back from the T.

Zach Hill - Face Tat (Sargent House)

Add Zach Hill’s sophomore LP, Face Tat, to the ever-present and increasingly significant “What is music?” discussion. Hill, the swooned-over drummer whose oddly timed and seemingly impossible beats have marked innumerable bands (perhaps most notably Hella), adds Master Noise Arranger to his impressive resume with thirteen tracks of pure, unadulterated, and meticulously calculated chaos.

The at times nearly amusical programming on this album benefits incalculably from Hill’s virtuoso-caliber drumming; his signature bone-crunching hits in out-of-fucking-nowhere meters do their darndest to demolish the (intentionally) overwhelming wall of noise that Hill staked somewhere between Animal Collective, Dan Deacon, and Tera Melos territory.

“Memo to the Man” gives us a first clue that most of these songs were probably written (or, more aptly worded, constructed) over drum beats and patterns. Hill’s latin-esque, frantic roll drives the track beneath a light but sticky film of electronic banter. Perhaps the most friendly track on the album, “The Primitives Talk” is the closes thing to a conventional song that Hill is willing to create with his solo venture. It highlights one of the rare moments on Face Tat where any kind of melody is distinguishable from accidental crossings of programmed paths. If not for the virtually unfollowable time signature in “Burner in the Video,” one might be inclined to sing along to the Crash Bandicoot-style pseudo-tribal melody as well.

The album mercifully (I say that with at least modest affection) ends with “Second Life,” an industrial march with a forcefully infectious choral hook that sticks to your brain like musical fat. In fact, it might be the only hook you remember after listening to Face Tat. Whether that’s a good thing or an abomination is up to the listener.

The Avett Brothers - Live, Volume 3 

There has always been something about The Avett Brothers that I just miss. I could never put my finger on it any more than I could put my finger on why the world seemed to be so enthralled by their folk-rock standard rewrites; all I knew was that I really, honestly wanted to like them.

I was hoping their performance at the Newport Folk Festival this past August would present me with the epiphany that the state park full of Avett Brothers fans seemed to have experienced to the fullest. I think I came close, but it wasn’t the divine revelation I was looking for. The best thing, maybe the only thing, about the Avett Brothers on record that impresses me is their whistle-clean sound and harmonies that could’ve only come from the same womb. But on the harborside main stage in Newport, the brothers sounded rough; they replaced the equalizing harmonies with haphazard yelps and the barky guitar tones with tinny, poorly mixed mush.

With a mixture of hope and technology-wrought cynicism, I hoped the Avett Brothers’ third live album would smooth out some of those sonic wrinkles. It didn’t. On one hand, I admire them for allowing the record to accurately portray their live sound (this came shortly after I heard The Band’s Complete Last Waltz bootleg in contrast to the official deceptive spotless official Last Waltz). On the other, however, I wish there was at least a trace of their studio sound in their live show. Sometimes a little shot of energy in a live show is a good, even spectacularly great, thing…in the Avett Brothers’ case, it just makes them sound sloppy and out of control.

Venetic - Signs and Pointers

There’s a fine line between quirky, simplistic cleverness and amateurish showboating. There’s the pervading no-so-funny joke that all you need to be famous today is FruityLoops and a MySpace account. Venetic may not be all that famous, but their almost cartoonishly base instrumentation and structureless arrangements point more directly to dilettante rather than to maverick tendencies.

Opening track “Quantative Easing” does its best to trick you from the get-go as the overly percussive organ repeats the same intermediate-level phrases for almost five minutes straight. The drum machine is programmed to play a rather interesting and unorthodox beat on this song, but a deeper dive into Signs and Pointers will reveal that the unconventional percussion amount more to no one in the band knowing how to play drums than any kind of calculated originality.

“Into the Light” amounts to five minutes of one clumsy, wah-clouded guitar progression with an occasional, heavily distorted lick thrown around every minute or so. The band dedicates the first minute to singing the eight lines or so of lyrics (the first time vocals appear on the album), and the last four to jamming on the four chords that repeat throughout the entire song…only there’s almost no variation on any aspect of the song whatsoever at any point.

More of the same ensues throughout the rest of the album. The music on Signs and Pointers isn’t challenging in a satisfying way; there is no payoff for getting through to entire album, or any one song for that matter. There are no dynamics, no intriguing structures, and very little emphasis on strong songwriting. I just found myself asking, what do I have to gain from listening to this album?

I also have some videos to post and some more reviews if I can find them. Until then, enjoy these aforementioned albums (or don't) and tune into the New Music Show every Wednesday from 6 to 8 (http://WECB.fm).