Author: Jennifer

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Video: The Pixies, Dig For Fire / Allison and Here Comes Your Man

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The Pixies are one of the bands that I can put on shuffle and listen to for a morning, or even all day. I don’t think there’s a single track that makes me stop and mutter oh, not now.

I have picked this particular set of songs today because they are three of my favorites. Here Comes Your Man was the #1 most played song in my iTunes for several years, until it got (accidentally) dethroned by a Vienna Teng song, and on a Pixies-only playlist, Allison and Dig for Fire are right behind it at two and three, respectively.

The first video is the “official” video, from 1990. The music holds up; the visuals are endearingly dated. Especially the part where they’re playing in an empty stadium. Some of you may not remember but that was a time when there were a lot of videos made in empty stadiums.

 

 
The second one is a live video shot during their 2011 tour, which I picked over the “official” video because the official video is weirdly terrible and not in an entertaining way.
 

 
If you’d like to hear more, there are free live downloads – including one from Coachella 2011! – and much more in the blog posts on their website.

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Empires: Garage Hymns

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I’ve been writing about a lot of dreamy electronic music and chill folk rock lately, but now I’m ready to push the pendulum the other way.

Luckily, I have some Empires – scrappy little band of my heart, North American division – to listen to. Garage Hymns is their latest record, out earlier this year, and it is just what I need to clear out the cobwebs.

Some sample tunes, with annotations:
 
Can’t Steal Your Heart Away: A perfect evocation of a particular kind of party, specifically, the kind that ends with people playing Bad Decision Bingo. And so wryly observed that it fills me with longing for nights that end with fries drenched in cheddar cheese and mornings that start with strong tea.
 

 
Night Is Young: This one will always evoke the lights of Times Square blinking while I study for the bar, for me, but there’s other things in there, too. Like, I live here in this rambling, sometimes beautiful sometimes disgusting 19th century city because every day is anything can happen day. Maybe I’ll pass the bar on the second try. Maybe someday I’ll get to spend a summer in France drifting between music festivals and eating French carnival food. The night is young!
 

Surrenderer: This is the one I put on in the morning when I need a little push to get moving.
 

 
Hard Times: Choosing between this one and We Lost Magic was difficult, but this tune finally won because as much as I like songs that double as squares on Bad Decision Bingo cards, I’m twice as fond of songs about finding people who love you even when (or perhaps because) you’ve got a bad habit of backflipping yourself into the slipstream and calling your dismount as you come down.
 

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Video: The All-American Rejects, Heartbeat Slowing Down

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And for Tuesday, the lyric video for Heartbeat Slowing Down, the most recent single from The All-American Rejects‘ fourth record Kids In the Street.

I like this video because I have a weakness for lyric videos, but also because of the way the lyrics are presented: hand-written by Tyson Ritter himself. I’m particularly fond of the shot of him writing out one verse on torn hotel note-paper, and the way the camera lingers on the tense curve of his fingers.

The lyrics also appear written on torn scraps of paper, large posters, pillowcases, arms of other members of All-American Rejects, and other surfaces, which is a simple but clear visual metaphor supporting the “messy breakups” theme of the song.

Heartbreak isn’t tidy. Sometimes it gets on other people. Sometimes there are rageful things you wish you could font size +7 at people, because maybe if you write it large enough, they’ll finally hear you. Sometimes you there are things you font size +7 at yourself, in hopes perhaps this time you’ll learn.
 

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Video: Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Fishin’ in the Dark

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I put this song on my prom mix tape in 1992, sandwiched between Miracle (Bon Jovi) and Veronica (Elvis Costello). All of which kind of sums up me, age seventeen, pretty neatly.

Also in the mix: A lot of Rocky Horror Picture Show and Red Hot Chili Peppers, leavened by Edie Brickell, Bruce Springsteen, Depeche Mode, Aerosmith, Queen, The Spin Doctors, Richard Marx, John Mellencamp, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and, most baffling to me now, The Beach Boys.

All I can say is, I’m surprised there’s only one country song on the tape.

 

 
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band official website

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Wickerbird, The Crow Mother

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And now, from the wild woods of Washington State, is Wickerbird (Blake Cowan) with The Crow Mother.

I’ve been listening to it all weekend and it is just lovely. If dreamy, soothing folk music with rich harmonies and an undercurrent of melancholy is your thing, you are going to want to listen to these songs.

Some examples:
 

 

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Link Session: Hurricane Sandy Relief Edition

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I’ve seen a lot of music and music-related hurricane relief efforts in my various feeds in the last week; I’ve gathered a bunch of them here for quick reference.

  • Web Aid is a benefit album assembled at lightening speed and featuring a wide variety of electronic music artists, including Staten Island native Udachi, Kicks n’ Licks, Disco Fries and Mic the Drums. Their goal is to raise at least $5,000 for the Carl V. Bini Fund.

    [Ed note: The Bini Fund is based on Staten Island, New York City’s smallest borough, and as all of you have probably seen on the news, they took quite a beating. What the news may not have mentioned is that Staten Island is also home to many, many of the first responders – police, fire, sanitation, etc – who were out in the howling wind and rain taking care of the rest of the city, and will be up to their necks in the wreckage for weeks and months to come.]

  • Portions of the proceeds for the NYC premiere of the Bobby Bare Jr. documentary Don’t Follow Me (I’m Lost) on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2012, will be donated to the relief efforts; email the filmmakers for more information.
  • Bayside, who are collectively Manhattan/Long Island/Queens natives, have benefit shirts available; proceeds to the Greater New York Red Cross.
  • Taking Back Sunday, collectively from Long Island, have adjusted their current Tell All Your Friends tour to include some benefit shows. Proceeds will go to the Toms River Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund (New Jersey) and also relief efforts in Long Beach, NY.
  • Richie Sambora (Bon Jovi) will be donating all of the profits from his upcoming solo show at the Fonda Theater in LA to the Red Cross Hurricane Sandy Fund. He’s also added some special ticket packages.
  • Bands on a Budget, Humble Humans and CoWerks, all Jersey Shore businesses, have joined together to create the Restore the Shore campaign and create benefit shirts/hoodies. Proceeds are currently going the Red Cross but other beneficiaries/partners are in the works. They are temporarily sold out of merchandise but there is a waiting list!
  • Un-Flood BK Music is taking donations to help rebuild studios and practice spaces destroyed by the storm, including Translator Audio.
  • And finally, Candidate is offering a free copy of their new record to anyone who has contributed to hurricane relief who sends them an email with the subject line “I donated.” They solemnly swear no spam shall be forthcoming, only delicious music.
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Postcards from the Pit: Father John Misty / La Sera / Jeffertitti’s Nile, Bowery Ballroom, 10/24/12

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My post-show summary of Jeffertitti’s Nile was that they were loud and swirly, but pretty, and on reflection I think that sums them up pretty well. Their songs were almost entirely instrumental, and, were, well, psychadelic kaledeiscopes of notes. And yes, that is Father John Misty you see perched behind their drums; he was sitting in with them for the tour.

 
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The second opener was La Sera. They started out kind of sweet and twee and then somewhere around song two or three abruptly kicked into gear, sprouted some harder edges and jumped several notches on my approval matrix. They also got bonus points for a partial cover / interpolation of an Elvis Presley song, because there really should be more punk/rockabilly Elvis covers.

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And then Father John Misty (J. Tillman) re-appeared, having apparently briefly decamped to Tom Petty Fest and found it wanting. Here’s what I’m going to tell you about his set: what you hear on the record is what you hear live.

He did some jazz-hands and a lot of shimmy-shake and hit all of those notes in achingly beautiful style, with occasional breaks for snarking on the Tom Petty Fest and other miscellaneous rambling. It was obnoxious and beautiful and hilarious and I can’t wait to do it again at Webster Hall when he comes back in January.

Other notes: Jeffertitti Moon returned the sitting-in favor and played guitar during Tillman’s set.
 

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Candidate, Psychic Dissonance from the Unself

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Do not be fooled by the title of this record. It might sound terribly heavy and serious, but really it’s a collection of jams that stretch across the mellow-bouncy spectrum. There’s some fuzz but no drag, which is an intriguing change of pace, and draws me back to it over and over again.

For example:
 

 

 
Candidate is: Cedric Sparkman (Vocals), Laurence Adams (Lead Guitar), Jason Matuskiewicz (Bass), Chris Infusino (Drums) and Justin Craig (Guitar, Synth), and they are from Brooklyn.

They survived New York’s recent Weather Event unscathed, but the studio where they recorded the record – Translator Audio – was completely destroyed.

To encourage donations to hurricane relief, they will be giving a free copy of the record to anyone who sends them an email with the subject line “I donated.” They solemnly swear no spam shall be forthcoming, only delicious music.

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Build A Fortress Around My Tears: Picardy III, Lonely Songs

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Lonely Songs, by Picardy III, a musical collective led by James Summers of Austin, Texas, starts with a spoken word track, As You Climb The Mountain, which sets the mood for the rest of the record: quiet, meditative, embued with the quality of sadness that goes with rain on foggy windowsills and low, heavy skies, but can be banished by a warm cup of tea.

And what comes after the introduction is music that called me out of my bedroom, away from my unpacking of bags and boxes of things lately liberated from storage, that said: I require your full attention. You have to listen carefully.

The record is officially out in January 2013, but a partial version is available for free for a limited time from both bandcamp and Noisetrade.

The Noisetrade download also includes a special bonus track, a folk-rock cover of What Is Love by Haddaway, and, you guys, never has a club banger been so magnificently transformed into a mournful lament.

As encouragement/enticement, here are a couple of his tunes: Going (The Lonely Song) is the first single; Ever Be is the one that punched me right in the heart.
 

 

 

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Mosey West, Merica and Vaca Money

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Mosey West are: Mike McGraw (vocals, bass), Adam Brown (vocals, guitar, harmonica), Matt Weitz (drums, piano) and Cody Russell (Pedal Steel/Banjo/Dobro), they are from Fort Collins, Colorado, and they play some A++ folk/rock.

They have two EPs out right now, Merica and Vaca Money, both of which are – for a limited time only! – available for free at bandcamp.

Some highlights / personal favorites of mine: