When most of us hear the word Apocalypse we think of the end time and the rapture. We think of fire and destruction. But that isn't the whole story, is it? It's befitting to write about a thought like this after Easter. In the theory of the Apocalypse, a few believe that we must tear everything down in order to rebuild a new in a way that is for the better. What that better is is always up to interpretation and personal taste. It is of course usually the writer. History is written by the victors, while the future is written by the losers and the present is written by bloggers.
Bill Callahan's musical career has spanned 3 decades now and through that time he has learned on his own how to best find his sound. We as media folk are always looking for the next hot young sound to constantly feed our readers or viewers, but sometimes the best horse in the race is the older more experienced. You have to live to learn. You have to go through heartbreak to understand love and you have to have gone through some shit to understand the blues. Are you allowed to sing the blues if you are younger than 30? And that may be too young.
Through the last 20 plus years Bill (can I call him Bill?) has perfected his voice by becoming more comfortable with his vocal limitations and stayed true to his late 80s lo-fi roots. He has been true to himself musically and it has fully translated over the years to where we are now, with his 3rd "solo" record, Apocalypse.
I can sit here on my couch and tell you that this is the way to go about creating music. The long hard path to success and notoriety, and both of those things are so relative. Instead of the American Idol/N*Sync/Bieber route. Bill Callahan, by doing what we should all do, has found a way to make his mark with his undeniably strong, unique voice by looking inside and being true to himself. That is what we all want. Everyone we deal with to speak truly to us and hopefully they expect the same from us. And I think Bill puts it best, "you must reap what you sew, or sing"
Yesterday saw at least two much anticipated records released from highly successful bands in the oughts, TV on the Radio and Panda Bear from Animal Collective. I think that their differing styles leads to an interesting debate about popular music and if a band "gets it".
The new Panda Bear record, Tomboy, starts with a track titled You Can Count on Me, and if nothing else I can count on him being honest with himself and the style of music he brings to an album.
Tomboy is the follow up to the highly acclaimed Person Pitch that features some of the most ground breaking music of the last decade including Bros and Take Pills. It's definitely in my top 10 of the last decade. Which leads me to wonder as to what direction of an artist that he is going in, and weather he is one of the most genuine artists out there that honestly doesn't care about public opinion and only really cares about making music for himself.
Tomboy is one of the most beautifully crafted albums I have heard in a long time, with amazingly executed production along with Noah Lennox's use of his own unique voice to perfection. As a former chamber choir singer he no doubt knows how to execute in that department. My problem with the album is that there is no one track on it that I could point to and say that defines the album. It kind of just goes from track to track executing the game plan to perfection, much like a good role player in basketball i.e. Scottie Pippen. There is no one play by Pippen that you could point to and say that that is what made him a great basketball player. It is more about his body of work. Nor could he carry a team by himself (the bulls never got as far when Jordan played Baseball for those two seasons), but there is no denying that Pippen is one of the best Basketball players of all time.
In this sense, Animal Collective is the 90s Bulls and Noah needs the rest of the band to make a work that is more mass appeal. I am sure if I asked him he wouldn't be worried about accolades, he just wants to make quality music, which is totally admirable and there is no doubt that Tomboy will be a highly acclaimed record, but it is not a record that I will be playing a lot of around the house or at parties. Unless you are at a lame Williamsburg or WTUL party where some kid in the corner has control over the IPod and has to prove how much cooler his/her musical tastes are than yours.
Now on to a band that I wouldn't mind hearing around the house, in the car or at a party. The fifth album by Brooklyn based TV on the Radio is definitely one of their most solid records, and that is saying a lot. It is a vast improvement from Dear Science which seemed slightly lost. TV on the Radio has always been known as an amazing live band and I think they finally have fully translated that energy to a record.
I always believe there reaches a moment in a lot of artists career where you feel like they just "get it." I think of this as understanding what your strong suits are and running with it. We as fans are such a pain in the ass. A musician puts out a great record, than all of a sudden we are torn. We want them to bring something new, yet we loved them for the fact that they sound a certain way. And we also want those artists to be all ours through all of this, so we sometimes deep down don't want them to create a work that makes them mass appeal artists.
I first noticed this with Modest Mouse. After their record the Moon and Antarctica they seemed to understand what moved units. They then put out Good News For People Who Love Bad News and the world heard Float On. I felt like they "got it" in the sense that they couldn't keep making epic ballads to cowboys if they hoped to make an honest living and support a family with music. I am not saying that artists that I consider "getting it" like Modest Mouse and Arcade Fire are selling out. I'm just saying they understand what works for them to make them successful.
This is something that we all find in us as we mature in our careers. We start to understand what works for our suits and the smart ones stick to it and execute it to the best of their abilities. I think both the Panda Bear and TV on the Radio records exemplify this. They both know where their strong suits are and you can count on them both to bring it night in and night out just like the 96 Bulls that won 72 games.
I still think the TV on the Radio album is the stronger release this week, and here is just one reason why:
This is the only picture I took from last night. I did this while using the bathroom, mostly to remind me who the opening bands were. Isn't it arty?
Ran out of work to catch this show. The only thing I missed by getting there on time was a chance to drink. The opening band, Adventure, was about as boring as it comes. They create the kind of electronic music that makes me understand why people don't like machine created music. I heard 2 songs than went back to the bar.
We didn't even realize there were two openers. Being old men that my roommate and I are, this put a damper on our Sunday night. Second Band starts at 10:30??? I have work in the morning people!!! The second band was named Braids. They started out strong. They have a top notch drummer that lead into two cute ladies singing some layered harmonies in the vain of Panda Bear and Grizzly Bear (what's up with that by the way?). They of course don't have the same natural talents or experience, so I got bored with their lack of execution on an unoriginal styling. Guess where I ended up? If you guessed the bar, than you are correct.
Toro y Moi finally hit the stage at about 11, and now for my whole point of writing this post. What goes into picking an opening band? Do you purposefully choose bands not as good as you? Does this come naturally in the fact that these are the most talented bands that can't tour on their own as headliners? Whatever the reason, by comparison (and maybe due to my blood alcohol level) I was finally shaking my hips. Toro y Moi has a nice funky sound that with time can take their music to nice hights and maybe could open up for bands like Grizzly Bear and Animal Collective.
No, but seriously. It was hard for me to decipher what was going on and made me ask questions about music and art as a whole. If all I knew was top 40 pop music, would I walk into a Spoon show and declare them the greatest thing to happen to Rock and Roll? This is kind of like Plato and the Cave (I'm making a philosophy teacher smile somewhere). If all I'm exposed to in a night is mediocre music then by comparison the only decent band will come across as mind blowing, and will tempt me to go get their record on wax (which apparently I couldn't find available on my way out last night). Am I reading too much into this? I mean, I really like Toro y Moi and think they do new and interesting things, but the whole night made me wonder if through me not hearing enough or seeing enough art I am a truly informed "critic."-- Juxtaposition --
I was going to do a rant on people taking pictures on their cell phones for half a show, but I feel this review is scatter brained enough to add that to your plate. Another time I guess.
Now play these two songs back to back and tell me how great Toro y Moi sounds.
Actually after hearing this Braids song I kind of like it, though I recall this song being played early when I was still listening. I tried to find the first band, but low and behold they had nothing out there that I could post, except some knock off Static TV type show did.
Our friends in Caddywhompus need your help. This came from their blog.
"Hey everybody,
I know we already stopped the hate once already, but when dealing with a crime so hateful and destructive as band equipment theft, you can never be to sure when it will unexpectedly strike again. I think you know where this going . . .
Chris Rehm’s pedal box was stolen on Sat. April 2 from outside our practice space at Fountainebleau studios. . . So in retaliation (and desperation), we’re going to throw a last minute benefit show at The Caddy-Whomp Haus (3027 Banks St.) this Saturday April, 9. Chris’ pedal box is really important to the Caddywhompus live show as you might have imagined and we really can’t afford to replace $1000+ worth of pedals and cables right now.
If you would like to make a contribution, please click below and know that we are very grateful to have you as a listener/friend.
Fielded from Chicago will also be performing on Saturday so please come out and show your support! The show will be a $5 dollar suggested donation and we’ll be selling merch and probably some coldrank. Starts at 7 p.m.!
-Sean
If you are able to, do go and support them. This is one of the worst stories I ever hear from bands. I think if I had to travel with my office and investments how nervous I would be on a regular basis. If you can't go and want to donate (every little bit helps), donate here.
Happy April! I hear that the weather is to the point where shorts are the norm in New Orleans. Well lucky you. We here in Brooklyn are on the brink, and I am happy about this because that means 100 degree weather is further away.
I love the month of March: My birthday, Basketball starts to get really good, Baseball starts and SXSW gets us all excited about new music. This past month I started using the website Rdio which allows me to stream most music for only $10 a month (there is also a $5 option). Which for me as a huge music fan made me super excited. You can also follow other people including the likes of Spin Magazine, Vice, and Pitchfork to name a few and see what they are listening to. I could go on, but let me just say that it is a great service and if you are on it you should follow me and my monthly playlist. Here were the tracks that I was really digging this past month. Some new, some old and some weird. Enjoy!
I was fortunate enough to catch LCD Soundsystem's "last" show at Madison Square Garden this past Saturday with our old friend Jared. I have no pictures to put up because A. I had seats very far away and B. I truly believe to fully enjoy a show one should not be on Facebook/Twitter/Foursquare or whatever the next social networking site is.
The show started out with me starting to understand why I would want to retire if I were James Murphy. The crowd was pretty annoying and, as we used to say back in the 90s, full of posers. Maybe I am getting old and maybe I am expecting too much out of people, but a majority of people that attend rock shows these days are unbearable. They have little to no respect for the people sitting around them or to the people working the event. TIP YOUR BARTENDERS!!! I also loved all the people wearing all white, like James used to. He now wears suits more often. Get with it kids! And also, white is a very unbecoming look on most people. I could go on and on concerning people's fashion choices in public. Let me just end on this, if you need to dress up to feel like you are bringing the party, then you don't know how to bring the party. Let's move on.
The actual performance started with some songs off their latest album. The kids behind us new every word and were singing them out loud. This quickly stopped as soon as some of the older stuff came on. Not that I have a problem with them enjoying themselves, is is just that they also didn't stay standing long after they stopped knowing the songs. These tickets were too damn expensive for you to only know one album and to not stand. And on that not, LCD Soundsystem added 4 shows after the MSG show sold out so quickly by scalpers (I paid twice the face value from a computer expert outside of San Francisco 3 minutes after the tickets when on sale because it had already sold out). This whole experience was disgusting. This isn't the first time Ticket Master has done this. I am not going to buy from Ticket Master or Stubb Hub for at least a year. I am just shocked James Murphy didn't see this coming either.
The actual performance was alright. My favorite moments were when they deviated from the norm. The use of a choir during two of the songs. Reggie Watts came out to perform and Arcade Fire making a weird cameo to sing harmonies. Maybe it is MSG's sound (though, I had great times at both Arcade Fire and Kanye West performances there) or maybe they are really spent from doing this whole rock and roll life style. I thought it lacked energy and emotion on some levels.
But then again, who am I to judge. Throughout their short career they have made some amazing music that I will be listening to for years to come. I was happy to see them before they called it quits (I still have my doubts about that). And I totally get why he would want to stop touring and just focus on his label.
I wish him and DFA the best, and he will always be seen as a fortune teller in my eyes for making this one of his first releases
Posts
