Concert review: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

Max Weinberg. All you need.

So I saw Bruce Springsteen live over a month ago and I immediately wrote a review of it. Because I'm a lazy bastard, I'm only posting it here now. I wrote the article in The Observer office though, meaning that I don't have the original, unedited article on hand, and copy had to cut a bit of it due to length issues. So, this is the version that ran, verbatim, in the paper, not the UNCUT, UNCENSORED version that I would normally post here (really I think there was an extra sentence about how great Clarence Clemons is that got cut and that's probably it). Long live Broos. Etc.

Bruce Springsteen may have turned 60 years old less than two months ago, but as soon as he and his "mighty" E-Street Band launched into a performance of the entire Born to Run album last Tuesday night at the Quicken Loans Arena, the reckless, romantic, eighteen-year-old spirit that drove the seminal record into the hearts of millions took hold and did not let up. This was a spirit that spread quickly through the sold out crowd and ultimately showed proof of Springsteen's relentless showmanship and passion.

As the crowd still kept piling in at the concert's proposed starting time of 7:30 p.m., tensions began to mount while an increasing number of people restlessly awaited the band's performance. One particularly cruel move had the arena shut its lights off, only to light up again. Nearly 45 minutes after the band was slated to perform, though, Springsteen and the E Street Band finally took the stage.The ensuing performance was well worth the wait.

Springsteen surprisingly enough started the show not with a bang, but with the mere strumming of his guitar, slowly but surely building up speed and energy on his new track, "Wrecking Ball," about the demolition of Giants Stadium earlier this year. Opening a show with a brand-new, non-album track was a welcome, yet odd decision on his part, but following it up with classics "Prove It All Night" and "Hungry Heart" was an even better decision. Springsteen crowd surfed back to the stage during the latter song and never sang a word of the chorus, letting the audience take over.

From there, he moved on to his new staple, "Working on a Dream," a song whose homecoming to Cleveland was truly significant, as just over a year ago, Springsteen premiered the song during his performance at the Cleveland campaign rally for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.

In the first break since starting the show, Springsteen had a brief talk with his thousands-strong audience, mentioning how in recent shows, he had performed entire albums from front to back. Cleveland lucked out with a full performance of what many argue is Springsteen's high-water mark, 1975's Born to Run. The album, which features such epochal tracks as "Thunder Road," "Jungleland" and the wall-of-sound-affected title track, translated almost perfectly live. For an album performed by most of the same people who initially recorded it over thirty years ago, its songs still managed to retain the same vitality they possessed when Born to Run first hit shelves.

The rest of the concert continued along as a revue through Springsteen's extensive catalog and displayed the man's versatility, able to crunch out gospel covers with the same energy that he put into his ballads. There were also plenty of moments where the show transitioned from being a mere concert into a full-blown spectacle. During one song, he collected a considerable amount of posters made by adoring fans, and displaying certain song-specific ones as he played the respective songs throughout the night. Toward the end of "Waitin' on a Sunny Day," he pulled three young girls out of the front row to make their arena show debut and lead the crowd in two choruses.

Springsteen's enormous persona filled up the arena as much as the band's sound did. He played the roles of bandleader, preacher, Good Samaritan, and marriage counselor through the course of the three-hour long performance. The latter occupation was exemplified during a heart-wrenching performance of "Back in Your Arms," which featured him dropping to his knees and urging his crowd to "fight and beg" for whatever romance in their lives they had let go.

There were a few minor missteps throughout the night, the greatest of which was the crew's decision to turn the house lights on for several entire numbers, an effect that killed some of the mood in several key songs. Additionally, Springsteen's choice to nearly conclude the show with covers and folk songs, while serving well to showcase different facets of his music, could have been bettered with perhaps something from Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. Thankfully, he had the good sense to end the show with a blistering performance of "Rosalita," a perfect concert-closer.

Few artists have managed to maintain vitality over the great length of time that Bruce Springsteen has. Early on in the show, he demanded that his audience "build a house out of Cleveland spirit" and it's likely that house still stands on the court in the Q.

Setlist:

Wrecking Ball

Prove it All Night

Hungry Heart

Working on a Dream

Thunder Road

Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out

Night

Backstreets

Born to Run

She's the One

Meeting Across the River

Jungleland

Waiting on a Sunny Day

Raise Your Hand

Red Headed Woman

Pink Cadillac

Back in Your Arms

Radio Nowhere

Lonesome Day

The Rising

Badlands

No Surrender

Bobby Jean

American Land

Dancing in the Dark

Can't Help Falling in Love

Higher and Higher

Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)

Here are a few videos I found on youtube from the evening...

Full performance of "Jungleland." Clarence's sax solo was one of the most transcendent concert-going experiences of my life:

Full performance of "Thunder Road." Video is shaky but audio is good:

Bruce doing his thing in the middle of "Hungry Heart." Whadda guy:

Ultra-belated mini-reviews!

In a sad attempt to defibrillate this nearly dead blog, I will post a couple Observer articles I've had sitting on the back-burner for a little while now. The first of these is a little set of mini-reviews I wrote a few months just for the hell of it. Look out, peoples! I get scathing and negative for once! Whoahhhhhh. And on top of that, the very day this article hit the racks, Pitchfork gave Girls' Album a 9.1 comparable to my 4 and a half stars. Not that anyone really gives a shit, but maybe I can be a tastemaker too! Look out, Chicago and/or Williamsburg!

Be glad they didn't use anything from the "Lust for Life" video...

Girls – Album

Any hype-driven band is subsequently met with its fair share of skeptics, and more often than not, the skeptics win and the hype flutters from group to group. Every now and then, a young band manages to live past the hype, and judging from the strengths of this debut, the androgynously named Girls (a band consisting of two guys who start the album by singing, “I wish I had a boyfriend”) should be sticking around for a while.

The album is easily one of the best works of modern indie pop released this year, and its range of emotion and relentless attention to pop hooks should endear it to an audience far beyond the hipster set. Songs like “Morning Light” and “Big Bad Mean Motherfucker” are up-tempo bursts of fuzzy rock while “Laura” and “Darling” admirably channel sunshiny, infectious ‘60s pop. The album’s centerpiece, however, the lofty “Hellhole Ratrace,” is an affecting torch song for the wistful pop geek inside all (or at least most) of us.

I have nothing to say about this album cover.

Times New Viking – Born Again Revisited

For what it’s worth, the current resurgence of scuzzy, no-budget garage rock has become a reputable force in the current independent rock scene, and Columbus trio Times New Viking have been one of this aesthetic’s most visible bands. Regrettably, the band hardly moves beyond this aesthetic, producing a sound that amounts to little more than all-style, no-substance, and Born Again Revisited barely follows through on the band’s promise of 25% higher fidelity than their first Matador release, Rip It Off.

Even so, there are glimpses of true songwriting talent hidden underneath the feedback, and tracks like the relatively understated “Those Days” and the powerful rushes of “No Time, No Hope” and “Hustler, Psycho, Son” justify much of the hype that persistently surrounds the band. It’s a shame then that the rest of the album uses an avoidable lo-fi sound to bury these song snippets and prevent whatever hooks (which may or may not actually exist) from flourishing. That may be part of the point, but even the experimental, filler tracks on Guided By Voices’ best albums were catchy.

Tetris!

Lou Barlow – Goodnight Unknown

Lou Barlow is one of the most unquestionably prolific songwriters in independent music history, having released massive albums of material under several different monikers. Apart from his contributions to the Dinosaur Jr. reunion, he’s been working steadily under his own name, casting off much of the rough, lo-fi sounds that he helped revolutionize and showing proof of graceful aging.

It is impressive that after so much material, Barlow is still able to craft unique melodies, and strong tracks like opener “Sharing,” “Don’t Apologize” and “One Machine, One Long Flight” bolster a collection of fine tunes. Perhaps even more notable is the manner in which Barlow, one-third of one of the loudest bands in alternative music history and one of the men most responsible for the noisy lo-fi movement, is able to pen songs like the Elliott Smith-esque “Thinking…” and love song “The One I Call” and still come out sounding more earnest than most balladeers.

Okay, that's all for now. Hopefully soon I'll post another old article and then put together a final list of the top albums and songs of the year! Hopefully...

Free to Be Evil, Free to Believe: The Flaming Lips' "Embryonic"

...The fuck?

Over the last twenty-five years, Oklahoma City prodigal sons The Flaming Lips have developed a completely symbiotic relationship with alternative rock music. They’ve had an uncanny ability to both adapt to whatever modern styles were being popularized and in turn, set trends themselves. The band’s breakthrough 2002 release Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, in particular, despite its major label, was still able to help define the “indie” sound that would overtake much of this last decade. This isn’t to pigeonhole the band into a genre; from sloppy Replacements-meets-Syd Barrett garage punk to the capital-“A” Alternative rock of the early ‘90s to the Brian Wilson-esque Soft Bulletin through the dream pop of the last decade, The Flaming Lips have a compelling, versatile and rewarding back catalogue. It is all the more impressive that at the peak of their popularity, the group has managed to practically sum up their entire career in their latest release, Embryonic, an enthralling, invigorating and even challenging work that immediately manifests itself among the band’s best music.

When the band first announced plans for a double-album, it only seemed to be a logical progression for a band undaunted by ambition. Using the studio as an instrument, spending thousands of dollars on confetti per live show and releasing a quadraphonic album meant to be played on four stereos at once are all fair game for the Flaming Lips, so the thought a double album seems almost pedestrian in comparison. That of course, still means that there’s a lot of space to fill over two discs, and the lukewarm reception to 2006’s whimsical At War With the Mystics, coupled with the frightening lucidity of their 2008 feature film, Christmas on Mars indicated that the Lips were bound to look backward to their youthful weirdness for inspiration for the new record. The prospects for a retrospective, off-kilter collection of new Flaming Lips music was thoroughly enticing, but it also immediately seemed difficult for a group who earned their pedigree through the great sonic disparities of their lengthy career to pull off a summarizing record that would play as a solid, cohesive whole.

Embryonic wisely takes cues from the Lips’ current high-watermark, the decade-old masterpiece The Soft Bulletin, weaving together an assortment of lyrical songs around various instrumental interludes, and deviating little from the Lips’ proclivity to add layers and layers of dense, rich sound. There are key differences in Embryonic’s approach in that the songs are less traditionally formed, the interludes are more numerous and less structured, and the sound is more often than not designed to assault rather than ease. On The Soft Bulletin, harp glissandos would add texture to a particularly calm passage, whereas on Embryonic, they rush in and rapidly build to an in-the-red assault of turbulent percussion, courtesy of the ever-impressive Kilph Scurlock, who arguably gives the best performance on the record.

Lyrically, the album isn’t too far removed from the ruminations on man’s nature and ideas of free will that have cropped up on the last couple of albums, but the statements are far darker, and they lack the immediate, sugarcoated optimism of songs like At War…’s “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song.” Lyrical ideas often combat themselves within the album, just as apt at one person’s own indecisiveness on human nature. Frontman Wayne Coyne sings on slow-burner, “Evil,” “Those people are evil / And they’ll hurt you if they can / I never understand,” only to be countered by multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd, who, after clearing his throat, sings on the calming “If,” “People are evil, it’s true / But on the other side / They can be gentle too / If they decide.” The concepts are simple, but charming and affecting, and the otherworldly rush of the music would render the normal incomprehensible musings associated with this sort of progressive rock to be useless and overwhelming.

The album plays out as one steady whole, with recurring musical and lyrical themes holding the diverse mass together. It ebbs and flows from massive, bombastic centerpieces, like “Worm Mountain” and “The Sparrow Looks Up at the Machine” to tempered interludes like “Sagittarius Silver Announcement” and the vocoder-laden “The Impulse,” which augment the album with welcome, subtle breaths. Embryonic is also an album full of highs. The disarmingly seductive rhythms of “Convinced of the Hex,” the dark, vibrant pulse of “Silver Trembling Hands” and the climactic chants of “Watching the Planets,” all rank with some of the Lips’ greatest songs. Additionally, “See the Leaves” with its violent groove and sepulchral coda is arguably the most menacing song the band has written since “Jesus Shootin’ Heroin.”

So, for the umpteenth time, the Flaming Lips have risen to meet and surpass the challenges they’ve devised for themselves. Here was a band with a canon of excellent albums, a few of which could easily hold their own among the best of the last twenty years. In fusing together nearly every one of their strengths, with Embryonic, they may very well have outdone themselves, and it’s difficult to imagine them being able to top this. And even in the somewhat unlikely situation that this is, as Coyne declares, “The ego’s last stand,” they’ll have gone out in a brilliant way most bands can only dream of.

WRUW's 28th Studio-A-Rama and Mission of Burma

Alt-rock legends, Mission of Burma.

So, this is some old news. The event itself happened on September 5th and it went to print on the 11th, but I wrote so much about the event that I had to cut out about 1,000 words from the article. So, here's the whole thing, as it was originally written, augmented with wonderful photos courtesy of my friend and colleague, Adam Wisniewski. Enjoy!

Since its first inception in 1981, 91.1-FM WRUW’s annual Studio-A-Rama music festival has been an exciting yet humble event full of free local music, usually bolstered by a headlining act that is moderately well known in the independent music community.

Since their reunion in 2002, alternative rockers Mission of Burma have released more material than they did in their original run, and have had difficulty comprehending their status as independent music legends.

On Saturday, September 5, these two entities met for what may have been the most intense, enjoyable and well attended Studio-A-Rama in history, and a further assertion of Mission of Burma’s importance in rock and roll.

This, the 28^th Annual Studio-A-Rama, was organized primarily by Neal “Dare Waves” and Steven Barrett, and was under the direction of current Station Manager and CWRU student Daniel Hill. The event, like every year preceding it, was held in the Mather Memorial courtyard and spanned ten hours worth of live music.

Although past Studio-A-Ramas have hosted such notable headlining acts as Guided By Voices and Naked Raygun, Mission of Burma, despite still being relatively unknown in the vast world of popular music, are arguably the biggest band the event has ever hosted.

Certainly, the headliner’s notability earned the festival more press coverage and hype than usual in the weeks preceding it, even making the front page of alternative Cleveland weekly Scene. Still, this is not to downplay the importance of the event’s eight local opening acts, who made up the bulk of the festival’s music and provided a continuous vitality that Burma could not have created on their own.

The Kyle Sowashes play as the courtyard starts to fill.

These eight Ohio-based acts ranged in style from heavy, bass-driven punk to experimental solo vocal improvisations. Each performance brought something new to the persistently amassing crowd and there wasn’t an act throughout the ten hours of music that failed to energize and captivate the audience.

Opening with a faint whimper that slowly developed into a sweeping, cinematic stomp, the festival began with the multi-layered sounds of Cleveland’s Chief Bromide. The six-piece band, which features dual keyboard players and slide guitar used for experimental effect, covered much stylistic ground, from loud, brash punk to dense, moody progressive rock. As an opening act, Chief Bromide provided welcome insight into the variety of sounds that would surface throughout the rest of the evening’s performances.

Consisting of young men not unfamiliar with Case Western Reserve University, garage punks the Neon Tongues took cues from the hazy, ramshackle sounds of bands like the Black Lips and NODZZZ and brought spastic, youthful aggression to the Mather stage. Fronted by current CWRU student Dylan Baldi and former CWRU student Adam Upp, the band was a recent collaboration between the two and despite the positive reception after a three song demo CD and only a few shows, the band’s state might be jeopardized by inconvenience.

“We were originally all going to meet up here at Case this year while everyone was still back home,” explained Upp. “Now they’re all here and I’m at Baldwin-Wallace, so it’s kind of problematic.”

Despite this issue, the Neon Tongues are still set to open for the Antlers when they perform at the Spot on Wednesday, September 23, 2009. (Edit: This already happened.)

The uncouth noise of the Neon Tongues was followed by the more systematic, shoegaze and gothic influenced noise of Flowers in Flames, who sound like the possible musical offspring of Sonic Youth and Bauhaus. The band, which has been receiving positive press from locations as far as France and Russia, gave a tight, energetic performance worthy of such distant praise.

Guitarist and vocalist Dave Chavez, who has performed with Flowers in Flames at Studio-A-Rama prior and who has appeared on WRUW’s “Dare Waves” show as a guest, offered an explanation for the European appeal. “They’re just really far more into the post-punk gothic thing,” he said, “And while bands like Interpol and The Editors have made it big in America, there’s far more of a niche for that sort of music abroad.”

Keyboardist, guitarist and singer Cynthia Dimitroff confirmed this notion. “They have a festival over there, the Drop Dead Festival, which is basically a Glatsonbury for gothic rock,” she said. “We’re hoping we can gain a following in Europe and have that travel back over here.”

Changing gears completely, the next act, Uno Lady, featured no more than a woman, her own voice and an effects/loop console. Her compositions, initially improvised and since composed, lyric-less and melismatic, are ethereal, haunting and compelling.

“The whole thing was a happy mistake,” said Christa Ebert, the Uno Lady herself. “I really wanted to create music in some way so I just sat down at a computer and started singing to it and it all just happened right there.”

Mike St. Jude and our giant banner.

After the experimental vocal aerobics of Uno Lady came a triad of punky power-pop bands, who together performed three hours worth of high-energy, fast-paced, irresistible rock and roll. The Columbus-based Kyle Sowashes played early 90s alt-rock in the vein of early indie heroes Superchunk and went so far as to close their set with a cover of Guided By Voices’ “Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory.” Kyle Sowash, the band’s titular frontman, at one point expressed an ironic surprise when the audience was clapping, although the band’s hooky sensibilities rendered his own shock shocking.

Having recently had the distinction of being the band to initiate this year’s Spot Nights at CWRU, Mike St. Jude and the Valentines followed up with a more modern take on power-pop, reminiscent of bands like the New Pornographers and the Apples in Stereo. The songs had a straightforward, danceable, good-times aesthetic with occasional ‘60s pop and surf influences thrown into the mix. St. Jude gave a heartfelt performance, having sung himself hoarse by the end of the set, and drenched himself in his own sweat.

Kid Tested doubtlessly leaned far more toward the punkish end of popular music, although their songs were still catchy and tuneful enough so as not to mark a significant change of pace from the prior two bands. These three Clevelanders wear their influences well on their sleeves, performing songs with titles like “Between the Devil and Daniel Johnston” and “Hüsker Don’t.” Although they don’t meet the nearly impossible challenge of living up to such artists, they did manage to deliver a thoroughly infectious and enjoyable set.

MEGACHURCH

Certainly the most intense and abrasive of the local openers, Megachurch, consisting of two bassists and a drummer and using tape loops of found sound instead of vocals, pummeled the now-massive audience with glorious and gratuitous amounts of low end. The band played with a post-hardcore and math rock nuance at blazing punk speeds, only pausing to let the bizarre tapes of religious sermons enrapture the audience further.

By the time Megachurch finished, everyone was ready for the headlining act, a band which had earned its legendary status through an assimilation of the sounds heard throughout the eight prior acts – deft experimentalism, pop songcraft and acerbic punk.

Regardless of all of this, the humble men behind Mission of Burma were still baffled by the effect they’ve had on underground music.

“The whole thing has just been mysterious from start to end,” said Burma bassist and vocalist Clint Conley, “I just know I’m in a very lucky position right now.”

Burma guitarist Roger Miller, entertainin' for the now-massive crowd

Mission of Burma formed in 1979 out of the ashes of the Moving Parts, a Roxy Music-influenced art-rock band that featured Conley as well as guitarist and vocalist Roger Miller. Burma drummer and vocalist Peter Prescott went through three tryouts to be involved in a new guitar-oriented project that Conley and Miller were putting together.

“The new sound that they wanted was going to be much more of a response to the band they really were, with much more feedback,” said Prescott. “I mean, their old frontman played the bassoon and looked like Fidel Castro.”

After recruiting Prescott, the band finalized their sound with the experimentation of friend Martin Swope, who during performances, would record the band playing, manipulate the sound and play the loops back live. This experimentation carried into the band’s first EP and LP, Signals, Calls and Marches and Vs., respectively.

“On the first round, well, we certainly toured enough,” said Miller, “But nothing was well organized.”

“We were very worried on the first go-around,” said Conley.

The worry and lack of success combined with Miller’s developing tinnitus caused the band to break up in 1983. In the twenty years that followed, however, the band’s influence began to burgeon in ways the members of Burma could have never predicted. Their post-punk anthems, “Academy Fight Song” and “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver,” were covered by R.E.M. and Moby respectively and they were featured with twelve other independent bands in Michael Azerrad’s seminal book on American independent music, Our Band Could Be Your Life.

“People say that we’re the first American post-punk band,” said Miller, “But that’s just what we’ve been told. The legend has completely exploded.”

In 2002, after years of relative inactivity, either in smaller groups or abstaining from the industry altogether, the band was asked to reunite for a one-off show in New York City, with Shellac bassist and recording engineer Bob Weston taking Swope’s place as tape manipulator.

“It was terrifying,” said Miller. “I asked Clint about it and I was hoping he wouldn’t want to do it, but he said, ‘Sure, absolutely.’ And then I talked to Pete thinking, ‘Oh, he’s not going to want to do this,’ but he was in.”

Burma drummer Peter Prescott, probably swearin' up a storm.

Since their reunion, they released two acclaimed LPs on Matador records, 2004’s ONoffON and 2006’s The Obliterati. Their third post-reunion LP, The Sound, The Speed, The Light arrives in stores on October 6, making Mission of Burma one of the few bands in existence to be more productive since its reunion than it was in its initial run. The band was characteristically ambiguous about their upcoming release.

“Everything is unpremeditated and unstructured and there’s no guiding approach when we go in and record a new album,” said Conley. “I guess it might be a bit more melodic than what we normally do.”

“Not too much has changed since the early days,” said Prescott, “We approach everything the same way we used to.”

“It’s extremely difficult for me to gauge how an album is going to sound until I receive feedback on it,” said Miller. “I thought The Obliterati was just not going to work and that would be the end of our run. Then it came out and started getting all these great reviews and I was shocked.”

The band ran through several new tracks from the new record, including the single “1, 2, 3, Partyy!” which, according to Prescott, “…Is just made up of a bunch of crap Clint’s dad used to tell people.” The new songs blended in well with other post-reunion tracks as well as the pre-reunion classics.

Despite initial technical difficulties that required Miller to make a last minute amplifier switch, the show was an hour and a half long stream of post-punk aggression, off-kilter rhythms, frenetic, energetic tempos and anthemic, fist-pumping singalongs. Highlights included fan favorites “Academy Fight Song,” “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver” and “That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate,” as well as newer highlights, “2wice” and “Donna Sumeria” and diehard fan favorites “Heart of Darkness” and “Peking Spring.” At this point, the Mather Courtyard was full of concertgoers, likely the largest crowd any Studio-A-Rama has ever seen.

The concert’s only disappointment came in the encore when the band charged through a verse of classic “Max Ernst” only to stop and change their minds. Prescott kept the crowd amused by joking, “Sometimes we stop songs in the middle for conversation, what the f***?!”

Burma Bassist Clint Conley, shouting out one of his many anthems.

Such abrasiveness is completely essential to Mission of Burma’s aesthetic and is the sort of thing the band wishes were far more prevalent in today’s music.

“There have been lots of bands since we first broke up who’ve really impressed me,” said Prescott, “The Jesus Lizard, Andrew W.K. and most recently, F****d Up. But it really lets me down just how many bands out there lack that sort of confrontation. For me, there’s just a need to grab the audience by the neck.”

“There’s a lot of music around whose popularity just baffles me completely,” said Conley. “It’s just very bland music that gets a lot of attention for some reason.”

Even so, despite their own drive for intensity, their newfound success still shocks them.

“The most telling moment,” said Miller, “Was when I was looking through a reissues section in Rolling Stone, and they had music from Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Van Morrison and us. It just freaked me out and I’m still not used to it.”

“Having our songs covered by big names is still shocking and there have been many more shocks along the way,” said Conley

Prescott, however, felt differently about the ordeal.

“Nothing’s really shocked me at all,” he said. “I don’t see it in any sort of historical context. I’m just living in the here and now, which is really the only place to be.” He then paused and laughed, “Until it no longer makes sense. That’s when we’ll quit.”

For a band whose parts are generally absurd – the tape loops, the twenty-year hiatus, the songs about surrealist painters – seeing Mission of Burma live, the final whole, assures that it all makes perfect sense.

The 29^th Annual Studio-A-Rama has a lot to live up to.

Your faithful blogger, after babbling incoherently to a poor, confused Clint Conley

Hand in Hand: Yo La Tengo's "Popular Songs"

I am curious to hear a song called "Hippies and a Oujia Board," quite honestly.

Wrote this one for The Observer a few weeks ago, only getting around to posting it now. I'll try and be better about this folks, if anyone's reading.

Anyway, this album... remember that post I did a while back about albums that shaped my life? Well, add this one to the mix. No doubts about that at all. Here we go:

Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, who make up two-thirds of legendary indie stalwarts Yo La Tengo, are married. This is an important fact to have in mind when listening to their music, as so much of it sounds like the work of two people, long married and still deeply in love. The hushed, nuanced vocals, the subtle, yet passionate performances and the endearing lyrics are all indicative of their marital status and essential components of Yo La Tengo’s sound. Still, with a lengthy catalog boasting such heartwarming indie staples as “Autumn Sweater,” “Sugarcube” and “Our Way to Fall,” with Popular Songs, Yo La Tengo may have released their most overtly romantic album yet, and in addition to (or perhaps because of) this, it is also one of their best.

Immediately, the band makes this romantic disposition clear with “Here to Fall,” a career highlight that pits Kaplan’s vow to nosedive into devotion against all odds over an unusually seductive rhythm and string punctuations and flourishes straight out of a Paul Buckmaster arrangement. Unashamedly bombastic, the song helps push the band into new sonic territory while still looking backwards to the band’s beloved 1960’s for inspiration. Similarly retroactive is “If It’s True,” which bases its opening lick around that of the Four Tops’ Motown classic “I Can’t Help Myself” and builds an infectious new pop song from there. The group also drags the Farfisa organ out of the garage for the catchy retro groove of “Periodically Triple or Double.”

Still, Yo La Tengo have never been the sort of band to exclusively look backward (they cheerfully let off a lot of steam while masquerading earlier this year as the Condo Fucks on the sloppy, yet infectious cover album, Fuckbook) and the rest of the album hosts several tracks archetypal of their own unique style that rank with their best work. “Nothing to Hide,” in particular, is the most perfect slab of fuzzy power pop Yo La Tengo have released since 1997’s “Sugarcube.” Perhaps most representative of the band’s true sound is “Avalon or Someone Very Similar,” a hazy, jangly Hubley-lead track that sounds like an exceptional outtake from 2000’s delightfully low-key And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out. Closing the album, “And the Glitter is Gone” envelops listeners in swirls of feedback and holds tight for nearly sixteen minutes, continuing a tradition of lengthy, trancelike tracks that have emerged on many of the band’s albums.

Still, it is in the three tracks which precede that closing behemoth where Yo La Tengo present some of the most emotionally resonant, breathtaking and ethereal work of their career. “All My Secrets” boasts one of the album’s most gorgeous and captivating melodies, over which Kaplan meditates about honesty and love as Hubley harmonizes in the background. The warmth generated by the following track, “More Stars Than There Are in Heaven” is nearly unparalleled in popular music. Layers and layers of sound are added over the course of the song’s ten minutes, and the subdued yet omnipresent chorus echoes repeatedly, “We’ll walk hand in hand.” With a discography full of meditative moments, few come close to matching the serenity of “The Fireside,” an exercise in post-rock minimalism without all the pretention the genre is burdened with. Concluding with the sentiment, “Sometime/Please think of me,” these three songs culminate Yo La Tengo’s vast exploration of beauty and romance in their music and distinguish themselves as clear highlights on an album full of them.

Popular Songs finds Yo La Tengo at the top of a game they mastered years ago, continuing to refine their unique mix of subtlety and grandiosity, of past and present and of passion and detachment. So long as the chemistry between Kaplan and Hubley never dies out, listeners can expect the group to continue to refine this sound for years to come, and judging by the devotion that lies inherently behind this record alone, it seems like they’ll be together for a long, long time.

And hey hey! There are a bunch of wacky promo clips for these tunez. And the "Nothing to Hide" one features Times New Viking, a band I'm not even all that crazy about!

Stuffy Review #3: Bat For Lashes' "Two Suns"

...well, then... 

Not gonna lie, I'm not too crazy about this review.  This was sort of a stop-gap deal, because I needed to write something, although there really hasn't been an awful lot that's come out lately that I've felt totally compelled to write about.  Don't get me wrong, this is a fine album, but it's not the sort of thing that I was able to write 800 words on like I normally do.  This is good though because it wound up being the perfect length for editing purposes, so I should make a mental note to continue to write reviews of albums I can't say an awful lot about for the paper.  I guess other people liked the review though, so everyone wins, huzzah.

Here it is:

            Bat for Lashes, the moniker for the young British musician Natasha Khan, begins her sophomore album, Two Suns, by claiming, “I will rise now.”  Throughout that opening track, “Glass,” Khan’s reverb-drench, translucent vocals resonate the music builds in layers of strings, synths and tribal percussion.  Just as she says that she will rise, the music follows suit, and as she reaches the end of the chorus, “Tonight, tonight, tonight, we ride,” the music takes off.

            With 2006’s debut Fur and Gold, Khan established herself as a growing force in indie music, gaining critical acclaim with her trained, ethereal voice and knack for dark and gorgeous arrangements and soundscapes.  She is caught somewhere in between the poetry and whimsy of Kate Bush and the emotional delivery and modern textures of Björk, and if anything, Two Suns proves that Bat for Lashes may someday be as vital an act as her brethren.

            Khan’s power is evident in several key tracks, perhaps most notably in the aforementioned lead off track, “Glass,” as brilliant a mission statement as she can make.  Amidst tom-tom thuds, her voice soars in its highest register, moody yet still subdued, and never overbearing.  The energy that bounds throughout the album’s more up-tempo tracks, featuring members of Yeasayer, could be characterized into two types of songs.  The first is marked by more abstract elements, with looser melodies and driven by the propulsive tribal percussion.  The gospel-inspired “Peace of Mind,” and truly Björk-esque “Two Planets” fall into this category, and are among the album’s most intense moments.  Likewise, other songs are held together by more traditional melodies, and pulsating, metered rhythms.  The synth-pop highlight “Daniel,” as well as the somber “Sleep Alone,” where Khan sings a tragic chant of “Lonely, lonely, lonely,” over a strangely strut-able beat, mark the second category.  Both groups of song provide contrast while maintaining a subtle energy.

            It is in the ballads that the album’s greatest strengths and weaknesses lie.  Songs like “Moon and Moon” and “Traveling Woman,” while pretty on the outset, leave little of a memory, and while the balladry fits well in the context of the album, it breaks up some of its flow.  Still, two of the album’s best tracks are also some of its most reflective and gorgeous.  “Siren Song” starts off innocently enough, but as its stately, slow melody wears on, it slowly builds until the lush orchestration gives way to violent percussion that causes the song to collapse upon itself, which then gives way to Khan drowning in her own reverberated voice.  Likewise, the album’s closer, “The Big Sleep,” a duet with pop crooner-cum-avant-garde experimentalist Scott Walker, brings their two ghostly voices together in a truly haunting rumination on death.

            Khan describes the record as “a record of modern-day fables exploring dualities on a number of levels,” even going so far as to create an alter ego for herself.  The dualities certainly could extend beyond concept and lyrics and into the contrasting music that makes the record notable, but it is also in the sonic textures and Khan’s mastery of the crescendo that makes Two Suns a notable record.  If Natasha Khan can maintain this sort of vitality, perhaps she can stake the same claim as her predecessors, earning the distinction of being one of indie music’s most resonant and otherworldly voices.

The end.

I apologize for not updating this thing ever, if you care enough for me to warrant you an apology.  If you're that person, I have good news for you!  Summer's almost here!  And I don't have many concrete plans!  This means that I'll be writing a lot, which is one of my top priorities for the coming months anyway.  Additionally, there are plenty of upcoming releases that I'll probably have a lot to say about (new albums from Bob Dylan, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., Art Brut, etc.)  So, everyone wins, huzzah.

Stuffy Review #2: The Decemberists' "The Hazards of Love"

Let me bring you songs from the wood!

Hey everyone,

Here's my review of the Decemberists' latest record, The Hazards of Love, which will be published (in some edited, probably more grammatically correct form) in this week's Case Western Observer. You get another preview! Yay! I really like this album. I think I wrote the review as if I like it more than I actually do, but each time I listen to it I like it even more. Still don't know a goddamn thing about what the plot means, but the nice thing about this album is that the plot isn't the important part.

Here we go!

Over the last few years, a wide range of formerly maligned artists have achieved new levels of indie credibility thanks to sets of young artists taking inspiration from somewhat unusual sources. From the Human League to Bruce Springsteen, many popular artists that would have been scoffed at by the elite less than ten years ago are now “cool.” It was only a matter of time then when that the modern indie snobs would draw from Jethro Tull and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and leave it to (former) indie stalwarts the Decemberists to do so.


Fans of the band shouldn’t worry though, as their latest album, The Hazards of Love isn’t riddled with twenty-minute long keyboard-and-drum solos, and due to its rock opera content, the lyrics are not impossible to decipher (though in the great Decemberists tradition, you may want to have a dictionary on hand). The progression that led up to this album also greatly predicts the band’s almost inevitable attempt at a rock opera. Not only have the Decemberists always had a proclivity toward drama, but the progressive and hard rock that dotted The Tain EP and songs like “The Island” and “When the War Came” off of 2006’s The Crane Wife leaves little surprise to the actual content of The Hazards of Love.


Still, it is a bit shocking at times to hear the sludgy blues riff that crops up as a motif throughout the album, particularly on “The Queen’s Rebuke / The Crossing,” easily the heaviest song the band has ever written. Once the shock wears off though, it becomes clear that the progressive move was a smart one for the group, as opposed to a rehash of their earlier, more conventional work.


Several moments on the album truly shine bright. “The Rake’s Song” tells a violent story where the song’s narrator kills his three children, and then proclaimins, “It never bothers me,” along to a catchy “Alright! Alright!” chorus and thunderous drumming. Similarly, the bombastic centerpiece of the album, “The Wanting Comes in Waves,” stands as one of the highlights of the band’s entire catalogue.


Even at their most rockin’, Colin Meloy’s distinctive vocals make it clear that this is still a Decemberists record, and for fans of the band’s earlier work, there is still much to be enjoyed here. “Isn’t it a Lovely Night?” is a tender ballad, while the accordion-driven “Annan Water” recalls songs like “Shiny” and “The Youth and Beauty Brigade,” which date back to the band’s inception. The slow burning “Hazards of Love IV (The Drowning)” closes the album on a reflective note.


One of the most positive aspects of The Hazards of Love (and one that otherwise could have led to disaster) is that the music is never subservient to the lyrics or the storyline. The story itself is thin; William, a shape-shifter, falls in love with a woman named Margaret, who gets pregnant and eventually gets captured by an evil forest Queen. It’s all a bit silly, and like all rock operas, a bit bloated, but what is significant and gives the story a different dimension comes from the performances from the guest artists who play the various characters in the story. Lavender Diamond’s Becky Stark and My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden, who play Margaret and the Queen respectively, not only sing their parts well, but they also come to embody the characters they portray. Robyn Hitchcock and My Morning Jacket’s Jim James also provide backup vocals, although regrettably, they do not play any characters, and a children’s choir sings on “The Hazards of Love III (Revenge!)”


The entire concept of a rock opera still seems absurd and hackneyed today, especially since the big expensive progressive and art rock of the 1970s is long gone and rock operas typically point to overreaches of ambition and pretension and therefore disaster. The Decemberists however have managed to create a record that, through artful repetition of great musical motifs and stellar performances on the part of every musician involved, stands as a true cohesive whole. Right from the opening “Prelude,” which is no more than a slowly building Hammond organ solo, the album far more often recalls Thick as a Brick than it does Castaways and Cutouts. The Hazards of Love is one of those rare albums where this is a very good thing.



Okay! That's that one. See you kids next time when I continue to write with even worse grammar.

Stuffy Review #1: Antony and the Johnsons' "The Crying Light"

GYARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I'll tell ya, writing reviews for official publications can be pretty tough sometimes. I can get away with so much garbage here that could never fly in something like The Case Western Reserve University Observer, which I write stuff for. I can write incomplete sentences, I can curse all I want, I don't need to thoroughly explain things so much, I can assume the readers already know so much information about any given artist - otherwise, why would they care to even read the review right? And thus, the great popular draw to blogging.

What's even more difficult, however, is writing a formal review of something you're really emotionally attached to. Like Antony and the Johnsons. I swear, maybe I'm just susceptible to displays of hyper-emotion and grandiosity, and that's very possible, but their music drills nails into my heart every time. I do love me some melodrama and sappy orchestral arrangements just as much as I love me some raw, nasty punk shit (see Mclusky review below), and most of the time, Antony and the Johnsons is my number one prescribed drug for just that. Usually, it'll leave me feeling melancholy in the very least, and at some times, just downright depressed! Hey, if you ever see me lookin' down and out, there's a durned good chance that Antony Hegarty was a part of my day in some way!

BUT IT'S JUST SO FRIGGIN' BEAUTIFUL... GAHHHHH

And "durned" is apparently a word! Didn't know that.

Now you see, folks, that stuff could never fly in The Observer and that's why I have this blog - so I could ramble on about crap incoherently and see if people can take it as (semi-) serious criticism. Or something like that. Anyway, here's what CAN fly in The Observer, and it will fly this Friday somewhere in the Focus section, probably in a somewhat cleaned up and edited version, courtesy of my friend, colleague and co-worker Cory. But here's the original manuscript, warts and all:

ACTUAL REVIEW STARTS HERE:

Antony Hegarty is nearing forty years old, yet his music bears out the notion that he has the wisdom of an eighty year old and the spirit of a child, and most certainly, a voice that is ghostly, too surreal and sublime to even come from a living thing. If 2005’s I Am a Bird Now suggested that Hegarty and his revolving door of musicians, The Johnsons, were an emotive force to be reckoned with, their latest, The Crying Light solidifies it. This is a truly gorgeous work of modern music, transcending the limits of beauty and creating something otherworldly, yet still ultimately human.

The beauty of Antony and the Johnsons’ work is easy to miss out on, particularly because Hegarty’s warbly croon is an acquired taste. He sounds like no other singer out there, lost in time somewhere between 1920s cabaret, 1960s soul and today’s indie vocalizations. He knows that his voice is a unique instrument of its own, and he uses it wisely. Whether he is belting his lungs out, on the soulful “Aeon,” or if he’s filling in negative space with a soft croon, as on something like “One Dove,” his voice is always effective. When backed by modern classical composer Nico Muhly’s rich arrangements on The Crying Light, the result is nothing short of sublime.

Sonically, The Crying Light is very similar to his previous efforts, although a few subtle distinctions reveal that Antony and the Johnsons are not simply repeating themselves. First of all, Hegarty’s lyrics deal less and less with his personal issues of transgenderism, a subject that no matter how universal he could make it appear, was still alienating to some extent. Those themes found in songs like “For Today I Am a Boy” and “You Are My Sister” are gone, and much broader, wide-reaching themes of alienation, desperation and a need to escape the physical and spiritual confines of Earth that were found in songs like “Hope There’s Someone” are now given fuller detail.

The main difference between a song like “Hope There’s Someone” and something like “Another World,” from The Crying Light, however is that in the former, Hegarty fears the inevitability of death, but in the latter, he welcomes some sort of passage to another world, despite the devastating sentiments of “I’ll miss the animals/I’m gonna miss you all.” Elsewhere, themes of a need to find comfort outside of this world are found in some of the album’s most melodramatic moments. After a sudden flirtation with the minor key in “Daylight and the Sun,” the great revelation is revealed in a lifting major section, as Hegarty sings, “Now I cry for daylight.” The album’s final track, “Everglade” concludes these thoughts. “When I’m lying sweetly in my bed,” he sings, “Then I stop/My body stops crying for home,” amidst a rush of oboes and violins.

The second great difference between The Crying Light and I Am a Bird Now is that Antony no longer needs to place focus on guest artists like Devendra Banhart and Rufus Wainwright. Now, he goes it alone, a suitable move for a man whose voice does not need accoutrements and support from others, no matter how notable they may be. Proof is found in the uplifting “Aeon,” which rivals I Am a Bird Now’s neo-soul rave-up, “Fistful of Love,” which featured guitar and vocal work from Lou Reed. Elsewhere, the bouncy “Kiss My Name” and gentle waltz, “Epilepsy is Dancing” also provide respite from the darkness, marking not only some of the album’s lighter moments, but also some of its best.

Perhaps his hyper-emotiveness could become overbearing, but the sincerity and earnestness of Hegarty’s voice and the lush performances of the Johnsons prevent any moment of the album from sounding contrived or banal. And if the melodrama is too much, one only need turn toward one of the album’s highlights, “Dust and Water.” Similar to the album’s stark cover, displaying butoh dander Kazuo Ohno in an epiphanic pose, almost on the verge of death, it is easy to picture Hegarty singing this song’s melismatic chant in a similar position, with his trembling, yet assured voice backed by nothing but a quiet drone. It is a moment of utter beauty in an album full of them, from an artist known for them, and while The Crying Light may not find itself too far removed from Hegarty’s previous work, it cements the singer’s reputation as one of the most unique and important voices in today’s popular music.



Phew. So that's as much about the album as I'd like to muster up for now. I've listened to it a lot over the last week and it still hasn't worn its welcome. So ch-ch-ch-check it out. It's pretty incredible.

And while we're at it, apparently, Antony and the Johnsons were on an episode of Later with Jools Holland! Neato!

And thanks to Bert and Bruce for helping me out with analytics.

And damn you blogger for leaving everything bold.