listen.

ONE NIGHT ONLY AND THAT NIGHT IS TONIGHT

full disclosure: I work for Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Icelandic artist Hrafnhildur Arnardottir a.k.a. Shoplifter receives studio space for this project as part of the LMCC space grant program in which I work, Swing Space.

That being said, I wouldn't be any less excited about this if I were a stranger off the street.  Shoplifter creates stunning sculptures out of, among other materials, human and synthetic hair (as seen on Björk on the cover of her Medulla album), and she is currently collaborating with wunderkind composer (okay, so he's like 26 or something, maybe no longer a "kind") Nico Muhly, who has arranged/composed/conducted for three of my favorite musicians: Björk, Antony and the Johnsons, and Bonnie "Prince" Billy.

Together, Shoplifter and Mr. Muhly are creating a performance for The Kitchen, March 7 and 8.  Only the 10pm performance on the 7th has tickets left, so ACT FAST if you want to see it, and I highly recommend you do.

Tonight (Thursday 2/28) at 6pm, LMCC is hosting a low-key little Open House at Shoppy's studio to preview the installation pieces she's been creating for next week's performance.  Nico will be there as well, along with violist Nadia Sirota -- they'll be demonstrating some of the music from the performance.  And there will be wine.  And snacks.  You should come if you can. Here are more details.

You can give Nico's music a listen here on the New Yorker's website; it's all quite good, of course, but I particularly recommend checking the "Keep In Touch" section, featuring vocals from Antony.

And as if all this wasn't enough to excite you, Nico and Shoppy are also working with Sam Amidon, who will be playing banjo and singing at next week's performance.  Sam, of course, is a brilliant musician in his own right, and lately I've been really digging his newest album, All Is Well.  Here are a couple gorgeous tracks from it.  (And if you missed my earlier post on his Head Over Heels cover, remedy that immediately.)

Sam Amidon - Saro
Sam Amidon - Fall On My Knees

Still not enough?  Okay fine. I'll give you more. Here's a clip of Sam performing in Paris with Nico on piano.

see you tonight?

>ben

listen gets bicoastal.

the reason you didn't hear much from us last week is that listen went on the road to beautiful PORTLAND, OREGON.

it was a pretty awesome trip, with all the trappings of your typical trip to the PacNW: crazy-beautiful nature, yummy seafood, cool laidback people, and some fun nights out on the town (nightlife points of interest include the talented performers at silverado, and the murinal at the eagle).  I also whipped up a little mix CD of some of my favorite portland-based bands to provide the soundtrack in our hot-hot-hot rented chevy impala (not even kidding), so I thought I'd share some highlights from that mix.

Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out
this is the title track from what i think may have been the first truly indie CD that I ever owned.  I bought it sound-unheard based on a friend's recommendation, and as a shy kid almost exclusively immersed in the indigo girls and tori amos at that point, i didn't really know what to think of it at first, but it didn't take long for me to get into it. these girls taught me what it meant to rock out. once when i was in college i cut all my hair off to this song and felt REALLY cool and misunderstood.
{{Sleater-Kinney}}

Quasi - I Never Want To See You Again
Another track from the early-ish part of my love for indie music, Quasi is a divorced couple, Sam Coomes (keyboards) and Janet Weiss (drummer; incidentally, also drummer for S-K).  the spare keyboard-drums combo makes for a pretty unique sound, and sam has a really sweet tenor voice that he uses to sing with a clever yet poignant dare-I-say Chekhovian perspective about the plight of the modern working class and the rat race in which we - i mean they - i mean we - are mired.
{{Quasi}}

 

Horse Feathers - Walking and Running
I've blogged about these guys quite a bit, and not just because frontman Justin Ringle is a friend from high school. Words Are Dead was one of my favorite albums of '06 - it's gorgeous.  They recently got signed to Olympia, Washington's Kill Rock Stars which is exciting. This track is from their daytrotter session last year. (photo by Jason Quigley, from HF's myspace page)
{{Horse Feathers}}

Loch Lomond - Bird and a Bear (I Am The Bird)
Loch Lomond - A Field Report
I just ran across these folks a couple months ago and have really been digging them.  I believe there is some crossover in the lineup between them and Horse Feathers.  "A Field Report" contains the awesome line "The sound of children laughing makes my eyes bleed."
{{Loch Lomond}}

Menomena - Wet and Rusting
Menomena - Gay A
Another recent Portland discovery, Menomena sort of calls to mind Animal Collective, but they strike me as being both more experimental and more pop-oriented, if that's possible. Wet and Rusting would have easily made it onto my top tracks of 2007 if I hadn't somehow missed it until a month ago. A bizarre and complex pop song with some erratic rhythmic stop-and-go to it, along with some killer piano hooks, it's all built around the simple (yet undeniable) refrain "it's hard to take risks with a pessimist."

Gay A is a track from the Wet and Rusting ep, cleverly taking issue with those Christian camps where self-loathing homosexuals go to either "cure" themselves of their "condition", or learn ways to ignore and stifle their sexuality. With the ironic opening line "All my pathetic and small life, I made big steps with small strides to fight what just feels right" the song illuminates the wrongheadedness of such an approach.  So I was kind of troubled to find a recent interview on the (awesome) blog You Ain't No Picasso with bassist Justin Harris, containing the following passage:

JH: A friend of mine went to one of those… like, places where they didn’t want to be gay any more.

YANP: Like a religious camp?

JH: Yeah. Like one of those where they didn’t want to be a part of the gay lifestyle any more. It’s based on my misconception about what that was. I was under the assumption that you go to these places to not be gay any more, but that’s totally not what it is. It’s just for people who don’t want to be in the gay lifestyle. You can’t really can’t stop being gay. But the point isn’t to rid you of your gayness, but just to help you if you don’t want to be a part of that lifestyle.

So, I just want to point out that the ex-gay movement is a complex and splintered social phenomenon, and yes, many groups or organizations do describe what they do as curing or treating homosexuality as a condition or disease.  I question what exactly JH means here when he uses the phrase "gay lifestyle".  If he means a healthy, non-repressive relationship with one's homosexuality, then it's unhealthy and irresponsible to be fostering people's avoidance or fear of that.  If he means, as many misguided people do, some sort of self-destructively promiscuous or otherwise unhealthy sexuality, then that's not a "gay lifestyle", that's an unhealthy relationship with one's own sexuality. I firmly deny the legitimacy of ANY formalized attempt to treat, cure, ignore, stifle, or "overcome" one's homosexuality. And I'll leave it at that.
{{Menomena}}

Sorry to end with the rant, but Gay A is a great song, so... give it a listen.

xoBen

i sold my heart to the junkman

as with most of my posts this is two days late but not a dollar short.

but i was mostly done with it so i figured i would still post it so it wasn't a waste of time.

pretend as you read this that is between 11 am and 6 pm on thursday feb 14th. THANKS!

--------------------------------

hey hey listeners.

so, unless you live somewhere where the government has outlawed a lot of western things you are somehow plagued with (or celebrating) valentine's day.

for most post modern young cynics like myself this is just a greeting card gimmick in order to make money and force people buy more stupid crap that will end up floating in that garbage landfill island in the pacific. 

that being said i figured we could enjoy some 60's girl group songs about love with a little emphasis on the  heart break aspect of love.  i really love songs about heart break -- you could say i am melancholy by nature but i think mainly i just love the juxtaposition of heart break and doo wop in a song.  they are also pretty dramatic which is hard not to enjoy.

(all these songs were brought into my life when my friend micah made me a copy of his collections of girl group songs. it was a really wonderful addition to my music library and i have become rather obsessed with some of the songs.)

OKAY! so let's start with some truths:

the first cut is the deepest, pp arnold.
she was a back up singer for tina turner and then she had a solo career. and damn if this isn't a song for the history books. first, it's true: the first cut is the deepest but you'll always try to love again. second, the trumpets.   i just can't get enough of this song.

every little bit hurts, brenda holloway
a great motown singer and a great song.  every little hurt counts. ah, life.

okay. moving on. i call this next section REALIZATION:

you don't love me no more, madeline bell
rockin song, intense back up vocals.  similar to the magnetic fields' song i don't want to get over you it's good to have this song in your music library because there may be a time when you'll need to listen to it a lot.  it'll make you feel better or it will allow you to wallow - either way IT will never leave you.

you're no good, dee dee warwick
until i got these cd's from micah i just assumed this was a linda rondstat song. oops.  you left someone for a tool bag who winds up being no good. i'm sure you're friends warned you not to.  you live and you learn, right?

let's call this next section PRIDE:

crying in the rain, carole king
i love carole king. i enjoy this song. i think the flight of the concords song i'm not crying (is that what it's called?) is a modern answer to this song. i'll just go out in the rain and sob and then you won't be able to tell - unless you're really sobbing and your face contorts in that ugly crying face, then everyone will be able to tell you are crying carol, sorry...

girl don't come, sandie shaw
does this fit in the pride section? maybe.  why do you keep asking this girl out? she keeps standing you up!  i think it's your pride. i love this song: dramatic story, brass and string instruments and her voice is really awesome.   i love how the song never gets to a point where the person realizes they are better than this girl - the girl just never shows up. ha.

and since not everything is doom and gloom the final section is LOVE:

cause i love him, aldar ray   

isn't that nice?

oh, and for good measure here's the song that gave me the title for the post:

i sold my heart to the junkman, the starlets

i believe in love
g

on how strange it is to be anything at all

Don't worry: I won't be making a habit of celebrating the 10- (or 5- or 7- or 25-) year anniversary of any good album ever released.  But Feb. 10th marked the 10th anniversary (golden birthday!) of Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, arguably one of the most important albums of the 90s, and unequivocally my own personal favorite album of all time. so please indulge me while I dive back into NMH's world for just a bit.

I highly recommend checking out Pitchfork's double-header of 1997 interviews with Jeff here. He talks about a lot of things, including the "I love you Jesus Christ" song which no one ever seems to get -- it invariably weirds someone out.  Here's part of what Jeff has to say about it:

The thing about me singing about Christ; I'm not saying "I love you Christianity." I'm not saying "I love all the fucked-up terrible shit that people have done in the name of God." And I'm not preaching belief in Christ. It's just expression. I'm just expressing something I might not even understand. It's a song of confusion, it's a song of hope, it's a song that says this whole world is a big dream-- and who knows what's gonna happen.

I also love this part of the interview:

Pitchfork: [After moving to the kitchen for some reason] Wow, you have a lot of melodicas lying around!
Jeff Mangum: Yeah.

Since a good many of you have heard the album (if you haven't, please go buy it now), I thought I could post a few "deep cuts", as iTunes grossly calls them -- some obscure-ish live tracks (is anything really obscure anymore with youtube and 18million musicblogs wherever you turn?) from Jeff Mangum and Neutral Milk Hotel.

Neutral Milk Hotel - Ferris Wheel on Fire
something about this song gets under my skin.  i don't know if it's the terrifying imagery of a ferris wheel falling apart while the crowd below cheers, or the way the catastrophe described is matched by an escalating chaos in the music, or that last line "now finally fading from view is everything we ever knew". a song about the ephemerality of our material surroundings.

Neutral Milk Hotel - Oh Sister
if you're familiar with the album, some of this song will seem familiar -- lyrically it overlaps particularly with Oh Comely and Holland 1945. not sure why it didn't end up on the album... i like it as much as a lot that did. some great lines, and a simple but terrific melody, all matched with Jeff's otherwordly caterwaul (which truly becomes a caterwaul at the end).

Neutral Milk Hotel - Engine
as he says, "a children's song". this was the b-side to Holland 1945.

Jeff Mangum - Little Birds
the only recording (as far as I know) of any song Jeff wrote after Aeroplane. an intensely haunting and creepy song about a little boy whose body becomes inhabited by little birds. it gives a glimpse of what NMH's next album might have been like, had they ever made one. i also feel compelled (as I would) to point out the unsettling gay subplot, sung from the boy's father's perspective:

did you know the burning hell it took your baby brother?
did you see how far he fell and how he made us suffer?
another boy in town at night he took him for his lover,
and deep in sin, they held each other.
so i took a hammer, nearly beat his little brains in,
knowing god in heaven would have never could forgive him.

I was actually going to stop there, but that's a pretty depressing note to end on, so here are a few more treats:

Jeff Mangum - I Love How You Love Me
An adorable Phil Spector cover from Jeff's solo Live at Jittery Joe's album (pardon the extended spoken intro for Engine, tacked at the end of this track)

And two touching video recordings of Jeff solo and with band performing the album's gorgeous title track, one of the most beautiful songs ever written about life, love and death.  The second video is from Dec. 31, 1998, one of the last shows they ever played.

xoB

covers for the weekend!

so i've really been digging this handful of covers lately.  they're somewhat all over the map musically, but i guess they're sort of all about longing.  in very different ways.  i always get obsessed with revisiting the originals when i get really into a good cover version, so i've included those as well.

HEAD OVER HEELS
what a f-ing good song. you know a good cover when it makes you hear a song in a completely different way, and this Samamidon version really cracked the Tears For Fears song open for me.  And now the T4F version is killing me too.  Some really hard-hitting lines throughout, but this section leading into the chorus really drives it home for me:

You keep your distance with a system of touch
And gentle persuasion
I'm lost in admiration could I need you this much
Oh, you're wasting my time
You're just wasting time
Something happens and I'm head over heels
I never find out till I'm head over heels

I never find out till I'm head over heels.  Seriously.

Samamidon - Head Over Heels
This fella has a new album "All is Well" coming out... omg MONDAY.  So... more on him soon.

Tears For Fears - Head Over Heels
hearing this song and revisiting whatever my emotional landscape was in the late 80s gives me a very bizarre feeling.

and here's the buh-zarre video from T4F, just for good measure.

IRREPLACEABLE
Beyoncé's version is, of course, pretty awesome.  But I rather like D's take... he seems to be playing against a surface reading of the lyrics which I think is a more compelling interpretation: whereas Beyoncé is empowered and on top of her shi*, i think D sounds a little more precarious, like deep down he fears his lady actually might NOT be so irreplaceable...

D - Irreplaceable

Beyoncé - Irreplaceable

SEXUAL HEALING
It's just such a good song, with one of the best opening lines ever: "Baby, I'm hot just like an oven, I need some lovin'."  And these three versions are so awesomely different; so differently awesome.  I couldn't possibly pick a favorite. Though I might say I'd have to choose Hot Chip's version as the soundtrack for the healing it describes. Possibly with the fellow on the right there. If that's an option. Thanks.

Hot Chip - Sexual Healing

Hot 8 Brass Band - Sexual Healing

Marvin Gaye - Sexual Healing

alright kiddos. enjoy and have a beautiful saturdaysunday.

xoBen