Friday, October 28, 2011

Yes.

It cost me a hefty lot, but after much debating, I decided I had to see DFA before I died. And who knows when they'll come around again or what the band's status will be after this tour? Sure, I could wait and find out, and if fans are lucky, DFA will record another album and tour again, but I'd rather see them now, because there's hardly a tour hotter than on a reunion tour. Now, I just hope I can get my closing shift for that night switched ...

P.S: How is this video of DFA on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, featuring Conan's then-band-leader-and-sidekick Max Weinberg on drums, still not on Youtube?:

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Gary Numan - "Metal"; Nine Inch Nails - "Metal"

Today's Halloween song is "Metal" by Gary Numan, from his 1979 third album The Pleasure Principle:



I'm also re-posting Nine Inch Nails' cover of "Metal" because it is honest to God one of the best covers I've ever heard:

New Black Keys Song: "Lonely Boy"

Can the Black Keys ever do wrong? "Lonely Boy" is the first single from their upcoming new album El Camino, due Dec. 6 on Nonesuch Records:

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Jack White Covers U2

How did I miss Jack White's cover of U2's "Love Is Blindness"? It's been streaming for sixteen days. I never even knew the man was a fan, although it kind of makes sense, considering Jack's and the Edge's involvement in the 2009 guitar-doc It Might Get Loud. As you will see by following the link to Jack's version of the song, this post also concerns Nine Inch Nails, Killers and Patti Smith fans.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Male Bonding at the Electric Owl

October 21, 2011
The Electric Owl
Vancouver, British Columbia


I arrived at the Electric Owl about fifteen minutes before London, UK noise-pop-punks Male Bonding took the stage. I rarely skip opening acts, but I didn't know who was playing, and my roommate and I had a couple of guests over, so I wanted to head over as late as possible.

Male Bonding tore through their sixteen-song set loud and clear. However, "clear" didn't mean flawlessly executed: the music sounded really good overall, but the vocals were nearly inaudible. Furthermore, some of the guitar parts didn't really come through, such as lead singer John Arthur Webb's solo on "Weird Feelings."

Maybe Male Bonding are just normally a "get it done" kind of band, but judging but their straightforwardness, short set and obvious tech problems (they, on more than one occasion, asked for more sound on the drums and guitars ... and I think bass too), I got the sense that they weren’t exactly thrilled to have been at the Electric Owl. Furthermore, the band didn't really acknowledge the crowd until the end of the show, though I can't remember what they said. Perhaps that was due to the lack of volume on the vocal mics or because they just didn't say anything noteworthy.

I know Male Bonding aren't a huge band, but I still expected a new buzz band such as them to have been better-attended. Maybe they felt the same way. Maybe they actually were accustomed to bigger, more enthusiastic turnouts. Regardless, hypotheticals aside, those of us who were enthusiastic (all six of us at the very front of the stage) made ourselves known. I'd never moved ("danced") so much in such a non-compact space. I always feel a bit weird doing so when I'm not packed like a sardine in a crushed tin box.

As soon as the last song "Year's Not Long" ended, I grabbed John's set list and headed home. I didn't stick around for an encore (which is also rare of me), in the hope of catching the last of my and my roommates' guests' company.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Slow Season

Well, month, really.

The blog's been a little slow lately mainly because I've started posting a Halloween(ish) song a day until Halloween, and I've opted to post those songs (with the exception of "See You in the Boneyard" by the Flesh Eaters) straight to Facebook for convenience's sake. Afterwards, I'll compile them all in a post here.

Since I'm already here though, I might as well post tomorrow's track, a Jack White/big-band-assisted rendition of "Funnel of Love" by Wanda Jackson on Conan:

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Feist - Black Cab Session

I've been waiting to hear any variation of a live, acoustic or stripped-down version of "Undiscovered First," my favourite song from Metals:

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Constantines - "National Hum"

This song (and Shine A Light, the album it's from) always makes me think of cold walks to and home from campus in Autumn. It makes me think of university in general too, even though I think I was only super into Constantines in second and third year:

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The Flesh Eaters - "See You in the Boneyard"

"... their music was distinctive for its morbid lyricism and often for its sophisticated arrangements, as heard, for example, on 1981's A Minute to Pray, A Second To Die. [Chris] Desjardins's poetry has been described as 'wonderful bleeding collages of B-movie dementia, street crime, Mexican Catholicism and Dionysian punk spurt poetics.'" Cool:

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Never Wavers

I'm referring to Philly psych-rocker Kurt Vile's talent. Vile is quickly becoming one of the most prolific and consistently good artists today. Yesterday, he released the track "Life's A Beach" from his upcoming EP So Outta Reach, available November 8 on Matador Records. Hear the new track at NME.com.

The new EP will also contain a cover of "Downbound Train" by Bruce Springsteen. I can totally imagine Vile's tripped-out, reverb-soaked version with haunting vocals now. Cool.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The Drums - "Days"

Who gives a shit if something sounds original when it sounds this good? I'm late as hell on the Drums, but I'll say it anyway: they definitely smack of New Order. Here's my newest walking/driving song:

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

James Blake - "Limit To Your Love" (Feist Cover)



I "strongly dislike" post-dubstep (yes, there's already a post-dubstep), but U.K. dubstep producer James Blake's cover of Feist's "Limit To Your Love," from his self-titled debut album, is pretty fucking gorgeous. I remember hearing this song for the first time while waiting for the Wildbirds & Peacedrums show at the Waldorf Hotel to start. I never thought to ask that night's easily accessible DJs what the song was - for whatever reason - but fate brought me and James Blake's cover together once again.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Feist - Metals (Cherrytree/Interscope Records, 2011)

It's been four-and-a-half years since Leslie Feist released her third album The Reminder which catapulted the post-Aughts queen of indie rock into bona fide superstardom. Few have likely forgotten her since her subsequent hiatus, and even fewer will likely forget her after an album as fresh and powerful as Metals.

If there was one thing that struck me right away about Metals, it was its dense, intricate and bold arrangements. Opener "The Bad in Everyone," a track as musically and lyrically turbulent as one would expect from its title, pretty much sets the pace and bleak tone for the rest of the album with its heavy opening drums and sombre strings and horns.

The next track "Graveyards" includes the first of Metals' several sweeping harmonies. The dark orchestral quality that pervades the majority of Metals, which is often heightened by these very harmonies, continues on "Caught A Long Wind," a delicate track lightly accented by tenuous strings. As "Long Wind" shows, even when the pace slows down on Metals, and the songs are sparser, Feist still sounds very loud. (It should be noted that in this and similar cases, "sparse" on Metals still at least means seamlessly composed strings, pianos and guitars.)

Upon first listen of Metals' lead single "How Come You Never Go There," listeners might have wondered how the song, so unconventional from the rest of Feist's work, would fit into the album. But such wonder is completely dispelled when the song seamlessly transitions from "Caught A Long Wind": "How Come You Never Go There"'s unusual song structure, less-is-more horns and particularly the song’s plodding rhythm seem all too logical of progressions when compared to the rest of the despairing album.

The dramatic "A Commotion" gave me chills, the first time I heard it. And although the harmonic chants of the song's title, agitated, jittery riff and overall sense of urgency all give me goosebumps, the highlight of "A Commotion," and perhaps the most unexpected musical moment on the album, is an exotic instrumental line by something that sounds like a wind instrument I can't identify. "A Commotion" was indisputably the most attention-grabbing song on Metals for me, up to this point.

Metals mellows out by its second half, starting with the next track "The Circle Married the Line," the most tender moment on Metals yet, if only for its few twinkling triangles, note-picked acoustic guitar and soft harmonies.

Following "The Circle Married the Line" in sequence as well as tempo and sparseness is "Bittersweet Melodies." What sets this latter triangle-sprinkled song apart from the rest of Metals (besides "Anti-Pioneer," which I will address momentarily) is that it harkens Feist's first album Monarch (Lay Your Jewelled Head Down), though "Bittersweet Melodies" is more intricately composed, louder and clearer in production than anything on her debut. Likewise, "Anti-Pioneer," which may tie with "Cicadas and Gulls" as the barest song on Metals, also harkens classic Feist, as it is a re-working of her popular live number "When the Month Changes Numbers" from as far back as 2004. And speaking of "Cicadas and Gulls," it is the only instance I can think of during which I thought of another artist while listening to Feist. Indeed, Feist’s hollow vocals, thin harmonies and folky acoustic guitar on the lullaby-like "Cicadas and Gulls" could unwittingly pass as a Cat Power song and also closely recall the Reminder cut "The Park" by Feist herself.

My favourite song on Metals may very well be "Undiscovered First," the most guitar-oriented track on the album, although it too is interspersed with horns and erupts in a HUGE climax with an insane, torrential, high-register harmony, thudding drums and various other rattling percussion before ending with the echo of ghostly background vocals.

Overall, Metals features an emphasis on strings not heard of much from Feist since Monarch. And it is often the rich confluence of these strings with other elements such as heavy drumbeats, pianos and horns that prevents even Metals' lightest songs from sounding airy and upbeat to the overtly poppy extents of "1234," "Mushaboom," "I Feel It All" and "Past and Present." Even Metals' most relaxed moments almost always take stormier turns with huge climaxes wherein all of the aforementioned elements collide at once, making for a very stark contrasts within songs.

Even during Metals' most reserved moments, there is at least an underlying force behind the album. Surprisingly, that force, as well as the latter half of Metals' frequent quiet/loud, soft/heavy contrasts within individual songs, never becomes overbearing or exhaustive. Indeed, Metals is striking in its size and ambition and furthermore striking when compared to the sparseness of Feist's previous albums which focus on her near-whispers, gentle coos and playful arrangements. Whereas Monarch, Let It Die and The Reminder are albums you could put on during a dinner party, Metals affords no (or few) opportunities to unwind.

The most satisfying aspect of Metals, besides giving fans fifty minutes of awesome new music after a four-and-a-half-year-long wait, is that Feist has been able to grow so much so (relatively) late in her game. It's always easy for artists to become complacent after finding as much success as Feist did with The Reminder, and as great as The Reminder was, it wasn't too much of a departure from her previous work. But if Feist continues to grow as she has on Metals, she'll have no problem keeping fans interested for years to come, even if they may not always fully recognize her at first. After all, to make listeners work in such a way - and for such rewards - is one of the best thing fans could ask for from their favourite artists.