It Came from Youtube...

Ra Ra Riot - "Too Too Fast" (Live)

Destroyer - "My Favorite Year" (Live)

Frightened Rabbit - "My Backwards Walk" with a little of The National's "Fake Empire" for Good Measure

Bon Iver - "Skinny Love" Live at Later With Jools Holland

I had never seen this performance of "Skinny Love" before tonight but all I can really say about it is if the emotion of this song does not move you than you than you must not be able to feel anything at all...

Sunset Rubdown - Granada Theater (Dallas, Texas) 9/29/2008

I need not write a review of the concert as you know I will say it was awesome. Spencer and the gang played several new songs as he put it that they needed to "warm up" to get these new songs ready to record. The highlight of the night for me was actually meeting Spencer and Camilla before the show. The venue was not very packed when I arrived and Spencer and Camilla were sitting at a table before the Hospital Ships set (which was great by the way). The two could not have been any nicer as they happily signed my copy of Random Spirit Lover and thanked me for coming to the show.

I was so star struck from meeting Spencer that both he and Camilla had to introduce themselves to me (as if I did not know their names). I asked if they were going to record a new record soon and Spencer said, "That's the plan." Thus, it looks as if Spencer is not going to rest on his laurels and his prolificness will continue.

Sadly, there was a fairly small crowd as I can only hope it was because the show was on a Monday night. Spencer had mentioned to me that it was their first show in Dallas but I hope it will not be their last due to the putrid turnout. To make matters worse some idiot near the stage kept clapping off beat and yelling loudly which obviously bothered the band. At one point Spencer acknowledged this idiot by saying, "That's cool but could you do it to the beat?" To further irritate the band the same idiot yelled requests for songs that had already been played which may have been a worse offense than a girl who yelled a request for a Wolf Parade song.

I enjoyed the concert overall on a personal level because I got to see my favorite band front row center and meet my musical hero (Spencer Krug). Meeting Camilla was very cool in its own right as if you have ever seen the band live (and know what to listen to on the records) she really does bring great personality to the songs. Let's hope the band makes it back to Dallas and that the area learns to love the musical theatre that is Sunset Rubdown.

Cool Indie Drum Songs Starring The New Pornographers

I am musician (using the term loosely here) and used to listen carefully to the instrumentation of songs, but I have found that lately I just listen to songs as a whole. The idea for this post came during my morning commute when the New Pornographer's "Bleeding Heart Show" popped up during a shuffle sequence. Now I know this song is the star of a University of Phoenix commercial but let's not hold that against it. Kurt Dahle absolutely rocks the drums at the end of the song. Some guy in a Chevy Tahoe gave me a funny look as my arms flailed about during my tribute of air drums. Floored by Dahle's amazing pounding of the 'skins' I pressed on to try and remember more great indie percussion. Immediately my mind went to another New Pornographer's song "Use It" (talk about percussion driving a song) that happens to be on the same album Twin Cinema. Anyways, here are some other songs that the drums and percussion truly drive the song and make me look like a fool on my morning commute.

Please feel free to leave comments and list other such songs where drums are king...

New Pornagraphers - "Bleeding Heart Show"
New Pornagraphers - "Use It"
Sunset Rubdown - "The Taming of the Hands that Cam Back to Life"
Broken Social Scene - "7/4 Shoreline"

Ra Ra Riot - The Rhumb Line

I know this album has been out for a while but I legally procurred it and I have a job so get off my back.

Wikipedia defines a Rhumb Line as:

In navigation, a rhumb line (or loxodrome) is a line crossing all meridians at the same angle, i.e. a path of constant bearing. Unlike a great circle route (for which bearing is not constant), following a rhumb line requires turning the vehicle more and more sharply while approaching the poles. At lower latitudes, however, a loxodrome may be easier to follow than a great circle. The effect of following a rhumb line course on the surface of a globe was first discussed by the Portuguese mathematician Pedro Nunes in the 1530s, with further mathematical development by Thomas Harriot in the 1590s.

Ok, now that I have my junior high opening to the essay (or review for our purposes) we will move on to the substance of the album because I don't know what the $#*@ a Rhumb Line is after reading the definition over and over.

Ra Ra Riot's The Rhumb Line is the kind of album that I never thought I would like. After the first couple listens of the album my initial impression was that these guys were trying to be Vampire Weekend. If you are unfamiliar with my opinion of Vampire Weekend it can basically be summed up as music that is trying too hard. In fact, the first words I came across regarding Ra Ra Riot was in a forum in which some poster wrote, "They (Ra Ra Riot) are like Vampire Weekend but boring." It was with this quote I knew I was going to love these guys and decided to give the album a couple more spins before prematurely retiring it. I'm glad as "boring" to me has equated to sincere and good music. Now I have to admit that when I listen to this album I still picture northeastern preps/hipsters but I like these yanks much better than those previously mentioned. I'm going to go get my turtleneck out of the mothballs and give this album another go... -(7.5/10)

Ra Ra Riot - "Each Year"
Ra Ra Riot - "Too Too Fast"
Ra Ra Riot - "Can You Tell"

High Places - High Places

I haven't listened to the rest of the new High Places' self titled album coming out on September 23rd but this song is fantastic. I'll let it speak for itself...

High Places - From Stardust to Sentience

Women - Women

I'm convinced that Candian based band Women are doing every thing they can not to be found. It's next to impossible to find these dudes on the internet and I'm beginning to think that Women share the same agent and PR group as Osama bin Laden. Can you think of a more generic band name that will frustrate the shit out of a simple google search? Let's type "Women" ok, we're fucked here as there are only 782,000,000 hits. Let's try "women band" or "band women" ooh, only 5,940,000 hits this time... Ok, let's try "bands who should fire their agent/PR machine" now we have a manageable 42 hits this time, but still no sign of our Canadian noise makers. I'll save you the frustration as the band's website can be found here.

Women continue my frustrations as their album clocks in at about 29.5 minutes and with only 10 songs. Let's further the frustration with the fact that there are 2 songs that are roughly a minute long and 4 songs (including the 2 prior) that clock in under 2 minutes. 'God Bless You', Oh shit I just sneezed over an entire song... I'm thinking that Women have no agent or PR machine as there is no way they would ever release this album as it would be a slap in the face to the modern status-quo of what "suits" think an album should be (12-15 songs clocking in around 45-55 minutes).

Ok, enough of that banter. If you have read up to here and think I don't like this album, think again. Women's Women is the first thing to come around and kick me in my musical behind in several months. Women has become sheer bliss to my ears in that way that only musicians wanting to experiment and try new things can. Women is obviously an album that was written by a musician with no thoughts of commercial viability. In fact, It seems very much like an album written by musicians for musicians. There may be a little too much musical doodling on the album which makes 10 songs really about 6 or 7 in a traditional sense.

Despite what many may see as flaws to Women's approach in this debut should not keep them from giving it a listen. If the short run-time, experimental doodling and lack of traditional song forms bothers you let's be 'glass half full' types here and recognize serious talent and promise for the future. Even if you don't like the musical doodling the more traditional songs are every bit Grade A stuff.

Oh BTW, I'm going to abolish my own no album scoring rule for Robert A/K/A "Bullet" over at Put It In Your Face so that he might actually publish one of my reviews... -8/10

Women - "Group Transport Hall" (Your computer isn't broken, it's 1 minute of bliss)
Women - "Black Rice"
Women - "Lawncare"

Sunset Rubdown - Granada Theater - Dallas, TX

So I am going through the Granada Theater email with headlining groups "Deerhoof, The Mountain Goats and Electric Six" in the header and deciding to scroll down for grins "Holy $#!*,Holy $#!*, Holy $#!*" is spewing from my mouth as I see Sunset Rubdown is coming on September 29th. I just saw Wolf Parade on July 24th and they blew me away despite the high expectations I had entering that concert. Last time I saw Sunset Rubdown I had to drive 3 hours to Austin, TX so this will be a nice visit for me inside of the Metroplex to see the greatest band on the planet.

The Dodos - Interview

Here's a cool interview with the Dodo's that is intertwined with live performance clips:

Daytrotter Sessions - Annuals

The Annuals are one of those indie bands that are well known but seem to be slightly under appreciated (I include myself in this category). I fell upon the Annuals performing for the Daytrotter Sessions and it helps bring back a lost appreciation. Be He Me was one of my favorite albums of 2006 and these takes by the band bring a new breath of life to some of my old favorites. I always felt that "Ida, My" was a beautiful song but that the true emotion of the song was lost in translation in the studio, however it translates much better in this version.

Annuals - "Ida, My"
Annuals - "Dry Clothes"
Annuals - "Bleary Eyed"