Space Race Lego Rave
Brighton is sunny, apocalyptically rainy and stormy all at the same time today, with a hairstyle destroying wind that shears through the streets like invisible bullet trains. I am inside packing boxes moving from xxjfg Towers to Genuine Heights, listening to Lego rave ballads: XXJFS2 gave the heads up on Thrust Lab, Baltimore based 8-bit enthusiasts, Daft Punk if they were 5 years old and
20jazzfunkgreats
Nothing Ever Could
Washington White - “I Am in the Heavenly Way” How deep is Washington White? As deep as the Potomac River? As deep as the Georgetown philosophy department? The White Sox bullpen? 1. Greg is studying for his GREs and when I ran into him today, I asked him how it was going. “Well, it’s actually pretty hard to make an analogy using words you don’t know.” “Impossible,” I said. “Yeah.” 2. My favourite records are to my record player as my conversations with acquaintances are to my mind. 3. So it occurred to me that in my conversation with Greg I made a terrible, terrible mistake, and that, as a result, my reputation (considerable and seemingly unassailable as it was) had been ruined. Now a pariah, I would have to leave Montreal as I had left so many cities before: humiliated, homeless, hungry, hoping that I would be always correct in San Francisco, or Lisbon, or Tokyo, or somewhere before the whole world finds out I’m a fraud. 4. You don’t have to know any English to know that ‘lived’ is to ‘devil’ as ‘peed’ is to ‘deep’, for example. 5. Which is deep (maybe deeper than the Potomac), but…
playpal: dr mwhile…
As the sunlight drops down m83’s “run in to flowers” swips the remains of this worm Nature… he down water teAR ropx from the clouds n’ sky evaporates, nathan fake’s “falmer” dus Tha job, clearly making progress onto the “darkest star” big, bad, fat, bass beat, eighThies remined me… flash deck load with peace divisi n’s Club theRaphy… meanwhile im thinkin’ =’what a heck am I doing whith my self… Ahhh yeah that in between was a James holden Remix… I just need some good musiK, cheers everyone!!! I’ll try to… read more
charm and strange: Does That Make Me Crazy?
So my friend (who bought a pin that says “Decatur” two weeks ago) and I were sticking clover and goldenrod in a statue the other day, and I think I might have started dancing in public to Save Ferris the other day, and I dated a boy because of a few lyrics in a song once, and a boy I asked out because of songs says scary prog makes him do his homework, and I’d like to know what the craziest thing a song’s ever inspired you to do is. read more
The Skygreen Leopards - Julie Anne, Patron of Thieves
The Skygreen Leopards originate from the Bay Area-based Jewelled Antler forest of bands. Donaldson co-founded the Jewelled Antler label in 1999, which has since released over 25 CD-R’s ranging from straight field recordings & outdoor improv-folk to noise & fractured pop music. The Skygreen Leopards are without a doubt the most structured and accessible of these projects. Much of the Jewelled Antler music is recorded live outdoors on mini-discs & boomboxes while the Skygreen Leopards primarily focus on a surreal form of multi-layered folk-pop recorded on an old reel-to-reel housed in a moldy trailer on the back of a horse ranch. 12-string guitars, banjos, dulcimers, Jew’s harps, organs, maracas, mandolins, harmonicas, ocarinas & reed flutes harmonize with the field-recorded songs of birds, barnyard animals & insects. This hedge of sounds is the backdrop for Quinn & Donaldson’s mythological rants & hazy melodies. And don’t forget that the Skygreen Leopards are playing on the 17th of August—for more information please click here.
Some Roads Are Only Seen At Night
No Frontin’
IN THE WATER HID
Less the Band - “I Want to Know You”. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is in full swing and on Friday night I went to a play - Pulitzer Prize nominee Adam Rapp’s Finer Noble Gases. I wasn’t sold on the production. Despite the cast’s antics as drug-addled slackers, the play’s emotional core felt out of reach, ambivalent. Imagine my surprise therefore when the actors cleared away the set, threw on guitars, and closed the show with twenty minutes of hot, flickering My Morning Jacket-like indie rock. There was something magic in the way their songs resounded in the room, a voicing of things that the play’s main action had left unsaid. It seems that when the actors aren’t acting, they’re in fact a band (albeit a band with a lousy name). That band has a CD. And “I Want to Know You” is the finest of their songs. It’s a track that glows with want, full of questions, hopes and riversnaking dreams. There’s talk of robots but they might as well be singing about muscle and beating heart; voices gather in yearning, electric guitars remember. Feelings fly. [buy/info] Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy - “Cold and Wet”. The album’s not all I…
Mp3s: Ted Leo live in Cambridge, MA
Ted Leo came to town earlier this month and pulled a nice little bait and switch on an unsuspecting all-ages crowd at the Middle East Upstairs in Cambridge. It’d been years since he’d played a space that small in this area, and I’d fortunately seen him put on some great shows in that very room before he graduated to the much larger downstairs stage. It was no surprise to some that the Sunday matinee show sold out weeks in advance, but I naively figured I had some extra time with students yet to flood back in town. Well, silly me… I completely underestimated Ted’s under-18 following and missed out, and was only there by the grace of Craigslist and another fan with an extra. Good thing, because I would have missed something pretty special.
Knowing that show-opener Drew O’Doherty used to be the second guitarist in Ted’s band, the Pharmacists, I figured there might be a bit of low-key collaboration between the two solo singer/guitarists. What I didn’t expect was to find a drum set and bass amp on stage when I walked into the already-crowded room. Hmmmmmmm. I glanced around for Ted’s ace rhythm section, drummer Chris Wilson and bassist Dave Lerner, but saw neither an impressive beard nor a curly mop in the room. Double hmmmmmm. When I came upon Ted & Drew back by the soundboard scribbling setlists, their jokingly evasive explanation confirmed it… this was to be no ordinary solo show.
Yes, after a short but sweet set from Drew (at the end of which Ted joined in for a Springsteen cover as musical hand-off), then a few solo songs from the man himself, the Pharmicists emerged from their ‘hiding place’ in another room of the MidEast. They walked in halfway through ‘
Timorous Me‘, took their places on stage, and proceeded to help Ted blow the roof off the place. The overwhelming enthusiasm of the surprised young-ish crowd filled the room with an energy that fed the band, and they gave it right back to us. It was a rockingly beautiful thing. Even though I was one of the oldest kids in the room (along with Ted himself, and guest backing vocalist Jodi, his talented
Secret Star significant other), I sure as hell didn’t feel like it.
With full-on Pharmacist action in effect, Drew jumped in on guitar for a few songs as if he’d never left the band, while the trio shared a bunch of new ones to the more-than-receptive fans. Some were familiar, with Ted having posted demo versions of ‘Army Bound‘ and ‘Some Beginner’s Mind‘ on his site earlier this year, and the band having performed ‘Sons of Cain‘ during a KEXP studio session in September ‘05. I’m sharing up the live versions of those three previously-heard new songs, but in keeping with Ted’s wishes, I’ll let him unveil the other as-yet-unreleased numbers when he’s good and ready. They’re all worth the wait, especially the absolutely killer ‘The Lost Brigade‘, which made its debut and was a personal highlight.
So here’s (most of) the set, including the transitionary Springsteen song…
Ted Leo will be back on the road for a few dates in mid-September, including a set at the
Touch & Go 25th Anniversary weekend on September 8th in Chicago (I’ll be there… will you?). Other cities include DC, Memphis, New Orleans, Austin, & Houston, and then I imagine he’ll be hunkering down to get all those new songs ready for the studio and his eagerly awaited next album. Here’s hoping…
Some Leo-centric links…
The Boston Phoenix’s On The Download was at the show as well, and wrote it up. Check out their descriptions of the new stuff, although I’m not sure which song they thought was titled ‘Catch You On the Way Down‘. Did I miss something?
Grab those previously-released Ted Leo demos from the Timorous Me fan site: MP3s: ‘Army Bound‘ & ‘Some Beginner’s Mind‘. You can also grab a live recording of another as-yet-unreleased song over there: MP3: ‘La Costa Brava (live)‘. Speaking of that very fine fansite, it was sadly hacked awhile back and has been suffering from a bit of neglect since. Hopefully it’ll return to its former extensive self sometime soon.
Stream the KEXP studio version of ‘Sons of Cain‘ right here, watch it performed live at a Philly gig in December ‘05 on YouTube, or snag an ezarchive MP3: ‘Sons of Cain‘ (live).
You Ain’t No Picasso wrote about Ted’s bloody appearance at the Pitchfork fest back in late July, and Clever Titles Are So Last Summer did the same for a show the night before at the Temple Club in Lansing, MI.
I recently (and finally) ordered up the DVD of the Ted documentary ‘Dirty Old Town‘ from Plexifilm, and it’s pretty much a must-have for any TL fan. Stellar footage from the 2003 Coney Island outdoor show (back when Drew was in the band, along with keyboard player Dorien Garry, and Ida Pearle on violin), nice incidental footage of the boardwalk area, and some insightful interview clips with Mr. Leo. DVD extras include a generator-powered Pharmacists performing at the South Street Sea Port during the August 2003 NYC blackout, as well as outtake footage from a July ‘03 solo appearance at Piano’s, hosted by David Cross. Check out a quicktime video clip of the band performing ‘2nd Ave., 11am‘ right here, and order the DVD over here.
