There's something really awesome about bands performing studio albums in their entirety live in front of an audience. (don't believe me? go download the live concert recording of Belle and Sebastian's "If you're feeling sinister".)
and it's even more exciting when it's one of your favorite bands, doing one of your favorite albums of all time (see above).
so, is anyone else flipping out over the fact that Idaho's favorite indie rock sons Built to Spill will be performing their 1997 album Perfect From Now On from start to finish this coming September? Because I am.
So the shows are September 25 and 26 at Terminal 5 (which I actually haven't been to yet but I hear it's awful but I don't care where it is i'd even cross the Hudson to Jersey to see this show). Tickets went on sale yesterday. Who wants to join me? Buy them here (thursday) or here (friday).
In case you forgot how good the album is, let this track jog your memory:
Though this may sound like an etiquette course on appropriate arm gestures to use while greeting guests into your home, it's ACTUALLY going to be a really good show on Avenue B this weekend.
Todd Goldstein, self-described "Brooklyn-based mid-20s-type" (we already like where this is going) better known as Arms, plays the ukulele, guitar and various other instruments, and sings in a quirky, beautiful voice that at first reminds me a tad of Michael Stipe, then gets progressively more unique and unplaceable. I stumbled upon this video of him playing the brilliant song "Kids Aflame" live in Prospect Park:
To hear what he does with this song in the studio rather than a tunnel in the park:
It will be the title track from Todd's forthcoming album, due on June 8.
This Saturday, he's playing at Midway (now called rehab apparently): 25 ave B @ 2nd St, NYC, 9pm.
Hospitality will be playing as well -- also Brooklyn-based, they're a quartet operating in a quaint chamber-folk realm reminiscent of early Belle & Sebastian and the like, with lyrics that wouldn't be out of place on Tigermilk or If You're Feeling Sinister: "You're the only girl on the team, you don't golf, you don't smoke, you don't understand the jokes" from Betty Wang, below. It appears as though they're doing a little residency at Pete's Candy Store in Williamsburg right now, playing every Thursday night.
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.)
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).
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.
hey kiddos. my apologies, most especially to my blogmate, for being a tad MIA -- and i don't mean the groundbreaking genre-defying English-born Sri Lankan musician -- over the past week (or so). life just keeps on HAPPENING, you know?
anyway. i went over to Danny's the other night, and while he worked some tailoring magic on a few of my garments, we watched My So-Called Life and listened to Chris Garneau, among other things, and ever since, I've basically had this song on 24-7 repeat.
it takes him about 1:45 to kick into full voice, but man, that moment kills me, each time he sings "oh, oh, i want to catch my death of cold, oh, oh, cause i'm scared i'm growing old." be careful listening to this song on headphones late at night while it's raining and you're walking home alone to an empty bed. i'm just saying.
on a totally unrelated note, did anyone else see the disaster otherwise known as Amy Winehouse in this clip from the Euro MTV music awards? [ADDENDUM: The clip i posted first ceased to work, so here's another with a corny intro. but it's the same performance.]
i don't know whether to cry, or laugh, or throw my computer against the wall in a fit of rage. i mean, she's just so talented, and i'm afraid she's going to waste it all away. look at her. AMY: Get. Your. Shi*. TOGETHER. Please. if not for your sake, then for the sake of all the classic soul-revivalist lovers out there. Please?
also, i don't remember quite how, but yesterday i ran across the myspace profile for this Brooklyn band called the Homophones. And I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to think that a bandname like that or lyrics like "I wanna lick your popsicle" necessarily confirm that they play for my team, but... let me just say that i had a hard time finding many details about them, but they are officially on my radar. expect more info to be relayed to you as it lands on my desk. i like this song.
on a non-musical note, here are some beautiful photos (i did not take them) from the amazing secret underground dinner party my dance group performed at over the weekend. and more photos here.
that adorable boy-girl banjo-accordion duo were a real highlight, and apparently they perform under the name Fall Harbor, but i haven't been able to find any info about them so far.
okay, so it's been kind of a live music binge here at listen. lately. as you know, we saw sleeping states and horse feathers (twice) last week. in case you missed it, here are some photos:
sleeping states at mercury lounge, 10.08. how cute is markland?
horse feathers at knitting factory, 10.09.
horse feathers at silent barn, 10.10.
anyway, all of these shows were totally awesome, and i'm not going to shame you for not being there, but i will say you missed out.
but there's going to be ANOTHER totally awesome show this tuesday night at the living room. and i think it's free!
at 11:30 (late for a school night, i know) Jennifer O'Connor is playing. Now, when i was just a young buck, fresh off the train from Idaho, I spent a lot of time at the metropolitan, which for those of you who don't know (who are you?), is a gay bar in williamsburg. (that sentence sort of makes it sound like i don't still spend a lot of time at the metropolitan, which may or may not be the case.) well, i quickly made friends with my favorite bartender, this awesome chick named Jennifer. we talked a lot, i bitched to her about stupid guys that broke my heart, etc etc. Well, i knew she played music, and then the next thing I know she gets signed to Matador and is like this hot-shi* indie folk rocker. so that's kind of awesome, and she's totally awesome, and her music is totally awesome. so listen up:
Jennifer O'Connor - Sister this is a really sad, honest, kind of deceptively upbeat song about losing her sister.
i know a lot of people are haters on the indigo girls these days, and frankly i haven't heard like their last 3 records, but i used to be obsessed with them (there. i said it.), and in some of Jennifer's stuff I hear shades of earlier Amy Ray in top form. like this next one!
and one of the earlier performances tomorrow night is Hotel Lights, which incidentally is the ex-drummer for Ben Folds Five. I'd never heard of Hotel Lights, but i checked it out and it's really great, so I'm excited to see him.
in subway ad news, i really wanted to share with you all my own personal favorite ad these days which is the new manhattan mini storage ad featuring a painfully attractive mostly naked man that either cheers me up or makes me angry, depending on my mood, but i cannot for the life of me find a digital image of it to post. so the next time someone sees it, can they take a photo with their phone for me? thanks.
>ben
listen. is a mostly-daily (but don't hold us to that) offering of good music curated by geoffrey and benjamin. we tend to like old stuff (soul, jazz, classic rock and the like), new stuff (folk, indie of all kinds, whatever else strikes our fancy), and sort-of-new, sort-of-old stuff that you may have forgotten you liked. occasionally we invite friends to share their favorite music with us as well.
1. if you are an artist or a record label or anyone else that matters and you'd like us to remove a track from our blog, please just let us know and we will do so post haste. and we won't even talk shi* about you.
2. the image in our banner is from a photo ben took of the band Fall Harbor performing at Alternating Current in Brooklyn, 01.28.2008.
so many ways to listen.
count the ways you can enjoy the music we share with you:
1. each song has a little play button next to it. click it, listen to it, love it!
2. if you want to take the song home with you, right-click or control-click the title, and select "save link as..." to download.
3. some of the songs we've recently posted will be featured in the "streampad" player below, so you can listen that way too. we highly recommend clicking in the lower right hand corner to popup a new window, which you can make as big as you like.
benjamin and geoffrey are young-ish gentlemen that live in williamsburg, brooklyn. in addition to listening to all kinds of good music, they also enjoy riding their bicycles around town and cooking good meals and doing all sorts of other fun things.
