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A Good Read A Good Listen and a Good Drink, John Moen, Perhapst

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It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.

In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.

Revise Your Maps is the second solo record from Perhapst, aka John Moen (The Decemberists, Maroons). It is a delightful folk-pop record, smooth and refined in some places, rough and jangly in others.

Here is Wilamette Valley Ballad, which got stuck in my head for a couple of days recently:
 

 

Other especially strong tunes are Revise Your Maps, Sorrow & Shame, and Still (Mt. Zero).

The more I listened to the record, the more I wanted to know more about the man who made it. So here is John Moen to tell us about his favorite book, record and drink:

A Good Read:

My favorite book is The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt. Because I felt the need to loan it out, and read it at the same time, I now have two hardcover copies on my over-burdened bed stand. The author is (at least some of the time) a Portland guy which makes it all the sweeter, but this isn’t just a case of local pride gone to a reader’s head; this is actually one of the best books you’ll ever read.

It is a Western, of sorts, and a strangely violent look at sibling relationships. A great story told by a very smart and extremely funny writer – I found it hard to make time for others once I had started reading. Luckily, for those impatient folks who seemed to need my participation in their lives, I finished the book much sooner than I desired.

It is so good that you may even buy it twice. I highly recommend The Sisters Brothers.

A Good Listen:

It’s hard to say how good a record really is, when you get hooked as a teenager… I first heard Emergency Third Rail Power Trip by The Rain Parade when I was a hormonal 16 year old, and it made me feel great! By “great!” I mean totally depressed and introspective to the point of inspiration.

I am still inspired by the same record these days and continue to rob it’s “vibe” when writing music of my own. The album is true downer pop written by guys from the eighties taking on the sounds of the sixties. To my ear, the record is incredibly melodic, a tapestry of textures, and also imperfect in all the right ways. I will be buried with a copy… on Saturday.
 

Rain Parade - Talking in my sleep

 
A Good Drink:
Jack and Coke. My favorite. Yummy.

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The Architects, Border Wars Vol. 1

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Border_Wars_Book_Cover

Border Wars by The Architects, is, or will be, a concept album in five parts. Each part will contain both a comic book and a record, intended to be experienced simultaneously.

Volume 1, the comic, written by Brandon Phillips, lead singer for The Architects, and magnificently illustrated by Mallory Dorn, is the start of a dense, dark and bloody story of life along the Texas/Mexico border, full of interesting characters, including but not limited to: an inmate on death row who shares hints of a complicated past; a duplicitous, murderous reality-tv-star sheriff; a mega-church pastor and his estranged son; and a mysterious girl whose appearance – naked and half-dead – adds fuel to the narrative.

Volume 1, the record by the Architects, illustrates the same story in a different but complimentary and congruent way. The bruised jewel-tones and thick black lines of the comic are echoed by the bright brash punkabilly guitars; the lyrics allow the listener to get an idea of the character of the broad outer world of the comic while also illuminating the inner world of individual characters.

Also, while we here at NTSIB vigorously resist falling into the “sounds like” trap, I have to tell you, it would be reasonable to make comparisons to both Born in the USA-era Springsteen and early ’90s Social Distortion. The world may be different – this place The Architects and Mallory Dorn have brought to life is Darlington County if Darlington County was run by Walter White and Jesse was driving around listening to Ball and Chain – but the raw propulsive power and deft compression of a big, complicated story into only a few lines are the same.

Below is Volume 1, in its entirety. All of the songs are strong, but I particularly enjoy Lucky, Heartbreaker and I Chose Wrong. And by “enjoy” I mean “would happily listen to them on a little loop multiple times in a row.”
 

 

Volume 2 is currently in pre-order. Meanwhile, The Architects are hitting the road. New York, your show is November 19th at the Knitting Factory; everyone else, check their dates and make your plans accordingly.

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Jus Post Bellum, Oh July

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IMG_1769

Jus Post Bellum (Justice After War) are Geoffrey Wilson (lead vocals, guitar), Hannah Jensen (vocals), Zach Dunham (drums, percussion, vocals), and Daniel Bieber (bass, cello, vocals), and they are from Brooklyn, via Minnesota and upstate New York.

Oh July is their second record, and it is some of the freshest and most lovely folk music I’ve heard for a while.

Their sound is traditional, and American, and intended to evoke the period after the Civil War. What distinguishes them from a million bands with the same idea is that they incorporate elements of a kind of folk music not often heard in folk-pop – spirituals – and that their old-timey concept is leavened with a distinctly modern sensibility.

Exhibits A and B: Gimme That Gun and Call to My Jesus. The former is the first song on the record, and is spellbinding live. The latter comes in the middle, and pinned me to my chair the first time I heard it.
 

 

 
And then there is Measure of a Man, which drifts closer to “pop” than “folk”, and is my favorite, because of lines like I’m lost / I’m a wildfire burnin’/ I’m a voice in the Devil’s chorus / I’m a dog / I’m a sleepy morning / I’m love / and I’m coming without warning:
 

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Gary Numan, Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind)

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gnsplinter

There are times when I wish I could transmit the experience of listening to body of music for the first time whole and complete and unfiltered, so that y’all could experience it just as I did.

Because if I could, all of you would be able to stand with me on the subway platform on a crisp cold sunny morning, half-asleep and surrounded by other commuters, while the initial notes of I Am Dust, the first song from Splinter (Songs from a Broken Mind) by Gary Numan rolled over us like a grimy tide coming in. They’re darkly seductive and a little bit intoxicating, like heavy sweet aural smoke.

And perhaps, as I did, you all would smile into your scarves and let the dark tide pull you under.
 

 

Here’s what I think about Splinter, now that I’ve listened to it a few times: it is a dark, dense, contemplative record, rigorously constructed and at times a little chilly. A candle-lit cathedral with broken windows. It is gloomy, but pleasingly so.

And while the slower songs – and there are several – are lovely, the places where the lights that shine most brightly through the gloom are the club bangers, like Love Hurt Bleed:
 

Gary Numan - Love Hurt Bleed

 

Note: there is a remix competition going on for Love Hurt Bleed through November 25, 2013. Get on that, producers in the audience!

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Video: Villebillies, Love is Kind of Crazy

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And continuing the cannibalism theme, or maybe just going off on a little “monsters in love” tangent, here is the video for Love is Kind of Crazy by the Villebillies, of Louisville, Kentucky, which makes excellent use of both a Dusty Springfield sample and a firedancer.

 

Villebillies - Love is Kind of Crazy

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Video: Natti Vogel, Cannibal

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Here is the video for Cannibal by Natti Vogel, directed by Rebecca Rojer, and starring Vogel and porn star Colby Keller.

The song is a cabaret-pop gem about wanting to be consumed by a lover.

The video plays with and explores the definitions and conventions of “food”, “porn”, and “food porn” by simultaneously mashing them together and flipping them inside out. “Boy in a cage” is mixed with “boy about to be dinner” in one scene, while “one partner washes the other” is presented in the context of “human washes his next meal” in another. “Sensual eating” and “food photographed to look luscious” are twined together and exaggerated to the point of grossness as part of a “fattening the kill” montage.

There was also one particular sequence that made me squawk with glee, which comes at 2:40 and I’m not telling you what it is, because that will ruin the surprise.

Meanwhile, while I may never look at pomegranates or savory danishes the same way again, as soon as I recovered from the initial shock of watching this, I had a list of people I wanted to share it with right away.

 

Natti Vogel - Cannibal (Official Video)

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Name That Face: Happy Flowers vs Happy Mondays

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Name That Face: the series inspired by Jennifer’s adventures in musician misidentification over the years. For anyone who has ever misremembered a band name at a crucial record purchasing moment and tragically bought Patty Smyth rather than Patti Smith; melded “Arctic Monkeys” with “Wolf Parade” and Googled in vain for “Arctic Parade” or “Wolf Monkeys”; or been unsure whether they want something by Swiiim or SWIMM. To tell your own tale of woe, drop Jennifer an email.

Happy Flowers VS Happy Mondays

The Time: November 1988

The Place: A hospital in suburban Virginia

What happened?

I was 13, and recovering from major surgery. My parents, being dear, sweet, people, offered to bring me some new music to listen to while I was trapped in bed. I requested: The Happy Flowers. They checked the name several times. Yes, I said, I’m sure. I was very, very keen to get hold of their music. I had been waiting for months for it to be released. The new Happy Flowers tape was absolutely the one thing I wanted.

A day or two later, a brand new copy of I Crush Bozo was delivered to my eager little hands.

I felt a pang of disquiet just looking at the cover. But I pressed onwards – I mean, bands but all sorts of random things on album covers, right?

This is the first track on I Crush Bozo:
 
http://youtu.be/ysMSuUgVdDQ
 

I listened to it in a state of baffled shock. Maybe just the first song is bad, I thought, and kept going.

No.

They were all terrible.

(I was not an experimental noise fan at the time. I am, now, and I still don’t like it.)

I hit the “stop” button and sat there, glaring at the tape in horrified confusion, wondering what had gone wrong.

Eventually I put it away; it sat in my music collection for years, a stone on my mental shoe. I wondered, frequently, what I had really been looking for.

Twenty years later, I was making my way through a Stuart Maconie book – I think it was Pies and Prejudice – when, thanks to one of his musical digressions, I realized what I had done.

My clue was Maconie mentioning that the Flowers had gotten some US press in the late ’80s, which was approximately the same time I was ducking into the magazine section at Tower Records to read Circus and anything else involving guitars and/or tattoos in rushed 10 minute bursts, while my parents picked out movies to watch.

Somehow, between relying on jumbled memories of hastily read material and trying to think around the last of the anesthetic fog, I had confused the Happy Flowers with the Happy Mondays.

This Wrote for Luck, a song from Bummed, by the Happy Mondays, released in, indeed, November of 1988:
 

Happy Mondays - Wrote For Luck

 

And that is much more what I would have been into at the time.

Mystery: solved.

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A Good Read A Good Listen and a Good Drink, Chris Jones, Ghost Twins

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It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.

In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.

The last time I shared a Ghost Twins song, it was Dream On/Dream Off, which is a zippy up-tempo number. Today I bring you Unknown Animal, which starts off at the other end of the “dream noise pop” spectrum – it’s slower, and a little more unearthly – and then suddenly kicks into gear.

And I’m sharing it in video format because, you guys, this video is kind of dream-like itself. In the sense that it starts off with a “behind the scenes” vibe, detours through trippy and weird and then becomes a concert video.

 

Ghost Twins - Unknown Animal

 
After listening to the tracks, I was curious about the two gentlemen who created them. So joining us today is Chris Jones (vocals/guitar), to share a favorite read, record and drink:

A Good Read: Charles Bukowski – Come On In!

The poem This Machine is a Fountain is stuck up on my desk at work. It’s a great poem to refer back to whenever creating any type of art.

A Good Listen: The Velvet Underground and Nico
This record manages to travel across many, many genres but still retain its focus. Pop, folk, punk, rock n’ roll and avant-garde noise perfectly sit next to each other. Nobody else could have achieved it.
 
http://youtu.be/iLQzaLr1enE
 
A Good Drink: BrewDog Punk IPA.

The name and label drew me to it at first. And even if a lot of Brew Dog drinks are un-drinkable (Tactical Nuclear Penguin for example) the balance of the punk beer is pretty spot on. It also helps that I can get it from Sainsbury’s rather than having to order it from Scotland.

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Video: Fé, Time

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Good morning, NTSIBbers. Here is the video for Time, the first single from Fé, aka Ben Moorhouse and Leo Duncan, of London.

They first started writing together in a meat container under the Westway (elevated highway) that Duncan was living in at the time; he moved there after the houseboat he was living in on the Thames started taking on water.

You’d never know all of that from this song, though. It’s a mellow tune, and the video is sweet casual-stroll-through-a-lush-sunny-cider-farm moment of zen – with a little surprise at the end.
 

Fé - Time (Official Video)

 

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Colornoise, Polychronic

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polychroniccn

Colornoise are Sonya Carmona (lead vocals/guitar) and Alison Alvarado (drums/vocals), and they are from Costa Rica. Polychronic is their second full-length record.

As you may have guessed from their name, they play experimental noise. There are aggressive guitars, steady drums, the occasional burst of bright keyboard tones, and just enough fuzz and distortion to make things interesting.

Here is Button, the first song on the record; I like the alternating guitar tones at the beginning and the thudding beat:
 

 
And Pieces, which blends some excellent menacing guitar with Carmona’s eerie vocals:
 

 
And finally, Weblocks, which might be my favorite, and is a heavy, droning meditation on net-censoring software and/or the hidden horrors of the Internet: