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Sorry So Late!

Hello, Newspeak Radio.

Enjoy the audio companion to Jay Schwan's Muscial Confessions of a Thirtysomething. We've uploaded nearly 100 delightful SHOEGAZER tracks for your listening pleasure at [NEWSPEAK RADIO].
(Playlist available after the jump.)

July at The Black Sheep.

Some changes were made to The Black Sheep's lineup that differ from this month's ad.

The Tickle Me Pink show (w/ The Rogue, Vegas Baby) scheduled for tonight was canceled.

meanwhile scheduled were.....

7.28 The Secret Handshake w/ Breathe Carolina, Vegas Baby

7.31 Son Ambulance w/ Agronomo, The Exploding Ticket

FREE Concerts All Weekend

This is what I'm Listening to: Musical Confessions of a Thirty Something

     Man! I’m a fickle bitch, no? So I’ve come full circle and started listening to a lot of vocally based music. If you recall, I love instrumental music, hell my band is even instrumental. But recently I have been listening to a few bands that really know their shit when it comes to developing lush and intricate vocal arrangements. I am insanely jealous of people who can sing because I sure as hell can’t. That’s some hard shit to do. I have to have a least six beers to get the balls to start belting out “Photograph” at karaoke, much less stand up in front of a bunch of people and crow my way through whatever bullshit I wrote. See, at thirty years old, my voice seems to be stuck in perpetual puberty and it cracks and warbles with the slightest elevation in volume or pitch. So, uh, I guess I’m living vocally vicariously through these records. (I sing along with them in the car, though. Shh!)

     Man I want to see Dirty Projectors live so badly. I just want to see how they pull the album Rise Above off on stage. Rise Above is a cover and re-interpretation of songs from Black Flagg’s Damaged album. The songs on Damaged are short punk anthems about being broke, alone, and getting wasted. However, in the hands of Dave Longstreth, these songs become longer, get way more melodic, and even seem to embellish the themes of the original recordings. The arrangement of each song is entirely altered. The chords and structures are not kept intact and the vocal melodies are vastly different. Different as in fucking awesome. Longstreth’s histrionic and yet strangely melodic voice is joined by the dual feminine chorus of Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian. These ladies provide solid harmonies that are almost as straight-forward as Longstreth’s are all over the map. Vocals aside, the guitar work is pretty tight on the record too; machine gun bursts of notes that are nails on the chalkboard one moment and church bells the next. Check out “Depression” and “Rise Above.” They are probably the most accessible tracks on the record and then go back and listen to the Black Flag versions. Weirdness!

     This record has only been out like a week but I swear I’ve listened to it at least a hundred times. I had heard a little buzz about Fleet Foxes from some friends and listened to a few song on their MySpazz page. Then I got the record. Then I didn’t listen to anything else for like three days straight. Seriously. I don’t have another record to talk about because this one hasn’t left my stereo. I have deep respect for all singers, but when you get like 4 or 5 of them together and they all sing at the same time and it sounds like the Vienna Boys Choir (and their testicles have dropped and everything), I freak out. It’s like CSN&Y or The Beach Boys playing indie rock. Everything on this record has its place. The guitar work isn’t over the top, but it carries just as much prominence and majesty as the vocals. There isn’t any gratuitous use of keys or strings. The drums are perfectly accented to each song and you really have to concentrate on them to hear what’s going on. It’s easy to imagine that these guys had their roots in more rock oriented beginnings and have since pursued a unique blend of pop, folk, and country. But the vocals are most definitely the highlight of the record. The end of “Ragged Wood” combines a running guitar arpeggio with a three part harmony chanting, “Tell me anything you want/Any old lie will do/Call me back to you.” That’s not to say that they rely on solely on harmonies to get by. “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” is a solo-sung ballad that has just as much weight as the song that follows it, “Quiet Houses.” This song showcases more running guitar lines and lush vocal harmonies. “Heard Them Stirring” is an interesting one. It’s instrumental with some oooohs and aaaahs for vocals, but it totally sounds like it should be in a Castlevania video game. Remember these guys? Well, I better enjoy these guys while I can because I’m sure they’ll get huge and then I won’t like them anymore when they finally admit defeat and blatantly rip off U2.

     No honorable mention either, but one thing has become glaringly apparent: my record collection is devoid of good hip-hop. I have some, like Common and Mos Def, but I think I need to expand my horizons a bit. I can tell you that I don’t like hardcore gangsta shit because I can’t really relate to it. You guys have suggested some great records and I want to see what else is out there and maybe give my take on it. Hilfe!

Guitar Freaks Only: This Is Phenomenal

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This is What I'm Listening to: And watching this week!

     Aside from this record, I have been listening to a lot of records that came out more recently. I’ll just get records at random or (gasp!) download them from a file sharing utility. Hey, I buy them if I really like them so get off my back. I’ve been all nostalgic lately and now I’m headed in the complete opposite direction by indulging in contemporary releases. Not just newer records by bands, but new sounds altogether. There are some truly innovative bands that are gaining in popularity and I’m jumping on the bandwagon. Yee-fucking-haw. I guess it’s just refreshing to hear something unique when so many terrible bands and American Idols are weaseling their way into the minds of our youth and ruining yet another generation of musical taste. (Remember this little nugget? I’m still trying to forget.) I might be preaching to the choir here, but if you haven’t given these bands a listen, I strongly suggest that you check them out. Wave of the future? Could be. It’s better than the bullshit on the radio.

     The great state of Georgia has given us many delightful exports: R.E.M., RuPaul, Lil John, and Deerhunter. Not these guys. These guys. The self-labeled “ambient punk” band from Atlanta have carved out a new niche fusing dance, post-rock, noise, and pop all into one giant ball of sonic deliciousness called Cryptograms. I’ve never seen them live, but I imagine that the crowd could go from manic dance party, to mosh pit, to stunned silence all in one set. “White Ink,” “Tape Hiss Orchid,” and “Red Ink” are completely instrumental ambient/noise pieces that breakup the steady pace of the album pretty well. Bradford Cox’s vocals are pretty low in the mix, but really contribute to the music as another instrument rather than stealing the spotlight away from the rest of the band. Songs like “Octet” and “Cryptograms” are more straight-forward rock songs. But “Strange Lights” sort of hints at some roots in shoegaze and dream pop. The are guitars dripping in reverb and some kind of looped beeps and washes all over most of the songs. There is so much going on here that it would be easy for people find something that they like about the record. They blog about their poop too. Isn’t that awesome? The subject of feces just doesn’t get enough attention on Newspeak.

     Ok. This one might be a little played out, but I still love it. Battles is like a math rock wet dream. I saw them last year and you could see the nerds, like me, counting their fingers and trying to figure out what time signature they are playing in. (11/8 btw. *wink*) Their first full-length album Mirrored is an interesting foray into the math genre. Killer beats, looped guitars, wild keyboards, amplifiers, samplers, loops, 12 ft. tall ride cymbals; this band is a gear nerd’s ultimate fantasy. Oh yeah, Ian Williams from Don Caballero is in the band and plays guitar and keyboards at the same time.  I stood right by him the entire time and was hypnotized by the simultaneous guitar tapping and key slapping. Ooo sounds dirty! Listen to, the opening track “Race In.” There is a part where singer Tyondai Braxton harmonized with himself via a sampler. It’s amazing how tight the band is and has to be in order to synch up all of their samples. (Gear dorks pay attention. The secret to their success is the Gibson Echoplex. It’s a delay/sampling unit and multiple units can be connected and controlled through one control source.) Oh yeah, John Stainer from Helmet is the drummer. He’s a badass if you didn’t know. He hits loud, hard, and has amazing stamina. Man, I’m turning myself on. I better stop talking about Battles before I have an accident.

      If you live in Europe, which you probably don’t, you’re a lucky bastard. Why? Because you could see Deerhunter and Animal Collective while they are on tour together. Animal Collective is the kung pao for my chicken. Their last record, Strawberry Jam, continues their grand expedition into molding, cutting, and twisting sound to create something entirely unique and refreshing. Almost all of their music is created by the manipulation of samples with some accompaniment by guitar and drums and wild vocal melodies provided by Avey Tare (for this record, anyway). This record blends their layered sampling with some more intense pop hooks and more straightforward beats. I am really fascinated by this band because I have no idea how they make this stuff. I think their brains work differently than ours. Maybe I’m just not that smart and/or afraid of technology. Yes. So, there isn’t a bad song on this album. It’s solid from front to back. My favorites? “Peacebone,” “For Reverend Green,” and absolutely “Fireworks.” I seriously challenge you to listen to this song and not fall in love with the music. Seriously. CHALLENGE! It’s on like Donkey-Kong bitches. And hey, this song isn’t on this album, but it’s great and the video is wicked. Wait till the end!

Honorable Mention: Get this record already.

Oh, and Starbucks stole my idea. Fuck you Starbucks. Well, maybe I stole it from Starbucks. Fuck me.

And Snapple realized my greatest fantasy. Fuck you Snapple guy. 

 

Okay, I like this against my better judgement.

I give you the new video for Weezer's song "Pork and Beans," which semi-cleverly combines every internet sensation ever in an unexpectedly warm way. The video features real versions or simalucrums of that kung fu guy, Tay Zonday, that Albanian singing guy, that guy playing that girl who likes shoes, that guy who wears lots of shirts, LonelyGirl15, that stupid Miss Teen America girl and omigod-is-that-K-Fed? among about a trillion others that I don't recognize because I don't really spend a lot of time on the internet. Clearly.

The result is unusually joyful and inclusive and I actually sort of welled up when Rivers Cuomo hugs Chris Crocker. (I am a little girl.) The message seems to be: "Yes, we are all freaks, but we're freaks who are in this together. Let's get some lightsabers and play some rock and roll and celebrate our freakishness, as we are all part of the crazy kaleidoscope of the international human cyberfamily."

I mean, uh, ahem. Football.

This is What I'm Listening to - Musical Confessions of a 30-something

     Remember when I said that I fall in and out and back into love with bands and then soak up all of the bits of their catalog that I missed? It happens quite frequently and it made me go back and look at some of the records that I was late in acquiring. This happens for a variety of reasons, but mostly commonly because of my miniscule attention span. I tend to wander from band to band or genre to genre on a whim and never really get intimately familiar with their entire catalog. I came to realize that there are a lot of older records that I listen to religiously that I only recently got into. I kick myself for not getting these when they came out. Maybe they got too popular for me to listen to. Maybe I was too cool to keep listening too them. Maybe I’m still the same dork that I was 14 years ago. Yeah. The last one. 

     Icky Mettle from Archers of Loaf was released in 1994 and I was working at Josh n’ John’s Ice Cream in downtown Colorado Springs. It was summer and I was a junior in high school. I listened to this record all day at work and then at night when I was driving home at 1am. This record was way more important to me than any Nevermind or Siamese Dream or whatever was pulling the heartstrings and stimulating the synapses of America’s youth at the time. Then I discovered Fugazi and forgot all about that Archers of Loaf shit. So sad. Their third album, All the Nations Airports, is amazing. I got it last year and can’t put it away. It was their major label debut and nearly ended the band, but the songs are great and had I gotten in 1998, I probably wouldn’t have liked it as much. Why? Because it wasn’t Fugazi and I probably wouldn’t have thought that it was “punk” enough or whatever. It’s not punk. (I’ve never been good with genre labels, so I don’t know what it is. Music tends to fall into two categories for me: 1. Fucking awesome. 2. Really shitty.) All of Archers of Loaf’s music is characterized by Eric Bachmann’s signature voice and high, jangly guitar melodies. They really stand out here since the production on the record is top notch. “Scenic Pastures” is a standout single that is about as poppy as the record gets. Every song is full of scathing guitar riffs and pounding drums supporting Bachmann’s scratchy wail. Too noisy for the grungies and too soft for the punks, this record failed to find a place in the mainstream “alternative” but the band was always somewhat successful on college radio stations. Colleges used to have radio stations?

     Real quick. I love shoegaze music. From 92’ to 94’, I listened to nothing but My Bloody Valentine, Ride, and Lush. So why is it that I only discovered Slowdive last year? Don't I have any friends? Their second album Souvlaki is quite possibly the best shoegaze record ever created and I kick my self every time I listen to it for not getting it when it came out. I listen to it a lot, so my ass is pretty sore. There are so many great songs on here that exemplify the genre: “40 Days,” “When The Sun Hits,” and “Altogether” are that borderline shoegaze/pop that that hooks people in. They all have really glassy guitar riffs with another guitar creating washes of sound over it. And then another guitar is playing the same chord progressions as the bass guitar. Yep. Three guitar players. I remember thinking how cool it was that Radiohead had three guitar players, but Slowdive beat them to it by a couple years. (Pablo Honey came out in 1993 and Slowdive’s first record Just for a Day came out in 1991.) Brian Eno helped out with the track “Souvlaki Space Station.” It’s like a dub song or something. It’s cool, but it kinda doesn’t jive with the whole record.  The album closer, “Dagger,” is a nod in the direction that Neil Halstead ended up taking with Mojave 3; acoustic and melodic. Anyway, my favorite track on this record is “Alison.” Probably because the lyrics remind me of some dumb shit that I said or did while intoxicated at a party. Oh and the video for the song is exactly that. It gets me all nostalgic an’ shit. Maybe if I had access to the internet, or subscription to NME, I would have picked up on this.

     Never has a record made me want to try heroin before. But when I listen to Cure for Pain from Morphine, I can’t help but think that heroin would make me cool. I just think that if I did do it, I would want to listen to Morphine. I don’t normally like saxophones. I detest ska and Kenny G. can go and sit on his soprano. But Dana Colley can fucking play. The approach to the saxophone here is almost like a guitar. It carries the songs with riffs and hooks and there are mad solos all over the record, complete with saxophone wah-wah work too.  The guy plays a baritone and a tenor at the same time too! Mind blowing! I’m freaking out! Not really! I guess Morphine will probably always be known more as Mark Sandman’s band, though. He played a two-string bass tuned to the same two notes with a slide. You think that there would be a finite number of ideas when you limit yourself like that, but the guy was a musical genius and was very prolific with Morphine and other lesser known bands.  His low and slow voice is delivered in a comforting croon, but has surprising range in songs like “Buena” and “I’m Free Now.” The whole record has a very melancholy tone to it, both musically and in the lyrics. Like “In Spite Of Me;” a song pretty much about an ex-girlfriend who goes on to achieve great things, but only because of her hatred for Mark. Then there’s the title track: Someday/there’ll be a cure for pain/That’s the day/I throw my drugs away. Songs about infidelity, songs about getting sucked into terrible relationships, songs about getting high. Man. Maybe this should have been in last week's post. So why didn’t I get this sooner? I dunno. Maybe I was lazy? Maybe I just forgot? A little bit of column A and a little bit of column B.

     Honorable Mention: Not too much else going on other than: Tom Waits – Bone Machine – Do I have to really say anything about this record? Yes I do. “A Little Rain” is awesome.  Sonic Youth – I made this killer mix of all my favorite Sonic Youth songs. Check it: 1. “Unmade Bed” 2. “Peace Attack” 3. “Snare, Girl” 4. “Jams Run Free” 5. “Sympathy for the Strawberry” 6. “Mote” 7. “Star Power” 8. “Theresa’s Sound World” 9. “Wish Fulfillment” 10. “Sugar Kane” 11. “Chapel Hill” 12. “Teenage Riot.” Word. Now about that heroin…