Welcome to my humble blog. It's mostly about music I am listening to with some other occasional digressions. If anyone ever has a problem with an mp3 posted, please let me know and I will remove it. Visitors can sign up for a handy, dandy email subscription (below) which will email you anytime I add a new post, fantastic isn't it?! Enjoy...
The Walkmen are one of my favorite bands, I have really enjoyed most of what they have put out thoroughly. Anyway, they have surprised us fans by releasing their album a few weeks earlier digitally for 5 bucks and all proceeds from the online sales are going to go to a great cause, cancer research and treatment.
"All donations go to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in honor of Luca Vasallo, a friend to the band and a current patient who is seven months old and doing a great job fighting a very difficult disease, this is a very good organization that certainly deserves the attention" Go to http://amiestreet.com/artist/the-walkmen/ right now and order it up. The physical album comes out August 19th on Gigantic Music.
Have a bunch from the new album but haven't gotten a chance to really listen...here is a classic from "Bows and Arrows" Click to download the mp3.
*Note: (I think my email subscription notifier has been out of wack. So you may need to sign up again, or for the first time:) I think it is working now but who knows...)
First off, saw Bon Iver on Friday at the Space Gallery here in Portland and it was soooo goood! I can't even begin to say how good it was. They were really down to earth guys in the band, the lead singer looked like my buddy Volker from the west coast. They were all amazing musicians and amazing singers with great harmonies. And at the end of the show, the lead singer sang "Skinny Love" on a stool in the center of the crowd, came off the stage and set up shop amidst all the people. He was joined by the opening band as well as his band and it was a great sing-along. Great, great stuff. Check out some of his stuff over at Daytrotter here.
You can see myself W2 and B in amongst the onlookers, This was the encore... (click on pix for larger image)
Here's another (thanks to Bryan Bruchman who took these pix and was so quick to put them on flickr. Don't know you Bryan, but thank you so much and I don't really know the etiquette for doing this so if I did something wrong, let me know)
Then there is Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson. The song that caught my attention is about his own death and funeral (I think) but it isn't sad or melancholy sounding really. It is daydreamy, folky sounding and it is called "Buriedfed". The names to be dropped here are Grizzly Bear (guys from the group back him up and produce) and TV On the Radio member Kyp Malone as well. Here is a video and an mp3...
Sunday there was no rain really at all. The sun was out for most of the day, hot but not unbearable, no complaints at all. Started with Boris, a japanese Hard Rock band. They were awesome. The lady on guitar was really good and it was an updated, cooler version of 80's hair metal. Then they finished a song, stopped and said something pretty indecipherable about the power I think. Pitchfork this year seemed to be plagued by minor sound issues. I think that the small stage started up late and threw some of that timing off, but not sure. Saw Health and they were pretty cool. But the show that may have stole the show for me was Les Savy Fav's set. Right when we got into the concert area, we saw a massage table set up. Some kid laying down with nothing but his Richard Simmons shorts on and this middle aged looking, balding and beer-bellied dude was lubing up the kid with some kind of lotion. He worked him over pretty vigorously. While he was going we realized that it was Tim Harrington, the lead singer of Les Savy Fav. Then onto getting good spots for the show. One of the many things that were great about the concert was the fact that you could pretty much get as close as you wanted if you really wanted to with no real agression or animosity directed at you, or you could stay back and be not as packed in but still have a great view and be relatively close. It definitely seemed like more people this year than last but can't really be sure. Anyway, back to the LSF show. It kicked ASS, simply put. The band was great and Tim Harrington was a really entertaining lead singer. He did all sorts of crazy things that I am sure will show up online all over. I was forced to choose between Ghostface/Raekwon and M. Ward and watched a bit of Ghostface and then watched the M. Ward set. I have really been listening to him a lot and was excited to see him. That crowd was pretty subdued but large and M. Ward sounded great. They have a woman on drums and the other guitar player is a Willie Nelson looking guy who was great on stage. I felt like this show was much too short. Perhaps 6 or 7 songs? I was bummed when they were done. Watched Spiritualized, who sounded great. They had 2 ladies on stage doing sort of soul, gospel backing vocals which really added a cool element to the loud, feedback filled guitar. Oh it was loud too, really LOUD. Sat through A bunch of Bon Iver's set but wasn't too worried about checking him out since I will be seeing him next week at Space Gallery headlining a show. Then was again forced to make a choice between getting good seats for Cut Copy on the smaller stage area or checking out Dinosaur Jr. and after waffling a bit went off to see Dinosaur Jr. Dinosaur Jr. was very cool, kind of just tearing through great versions of the songs. Had to choose between going to try to reunite with buddies over at Cut Copy or staying for Spoon and had to check out Spoon, I am a big fan and couldn't pass it up. Spoon was really good and professional, tight, loud but perfectly loud. They played a bunch of songs from the recent album and from a few others. But they seemed to me to just sort of simmer, and then it was over. I bet a show with more time would just be amazing. I was psyched to see what I did though. Spoon didn't disappoint. And that was that. I found out later that Cut Copy showed up really late and only played 4 songs. Supposedly the 4 songs were really good though. I have to give a shout out to my Live From Apt homie Shamala for hangin' and lookin' out for me in Chi-Town (oh to have more time in Dusty Grooves). And Mauricio and his crew in Wicker Park. They sure know how to take care of a fellow and show him a good time. Thanks guys!
I am going to update this with pictures when I get home but for now enjoy this, McCarren Park Pool show July 9th 2006. It doesn't do any sort of justice to how cool the show was, but it was all I could find quickly:
So pitchfork started and it was off the hook. The highlight of the day for me was !!!. They tore it up. It was a huge tribal dance party. The two lead singers were great, weird ring leaders. Second best show of the day was Dizzee Rascal, who would not let the crowd be apathetic and got everyone into it. Vampire Weekend was really good too. Fleet Foxes were great but seemed to be too intimate for an outdoor concert, definitely best served in a small venue. Started the day off with Caribou and they were awesome. Although it was cool, the end of the night sort of petered out with Jarvis Cocker, No Age and Animal Collective. I am not super big into these last three and they ended the night. It was a great day of music though.
So I read this book when it came out and thoroughly enjoyed and devoured it in like 2 days. It was a psychological thriller that made my skin crawl a couple of times. Pretty intense. It is by the same guy who wrote A Simple Plan. (Scott Smith)
Here is what slashfilm.com has to say: (Trailer after the blurb)
DreamWorks has released a movie trailer for the upcoming big screen adaptation of Scott Smith’s bestselling novel The Ruins. Smith is of course the critically-acclaimed author and screenwriter of A Simple Plan. The Ruins follows two American couples, just out of college, enjoying a pleasant, lazy beach holiday together in Mexico , who become entangled in a brutal struggle for survival after visiting remote Mayan ruins, site of a fabled archeological dig. Directed by Carter Smith, the film adaptation stars Jonathan Tucker (The Black Donnellys), Jena Malone (Saved), Shawn Ashmore (X-Men: The Last Stand), Laura Ramsey (She’s the Man) and Joe Anderson (Across the Universe).
Peace
*Edit: My good buddy from LivefromApt (link on the left) told me but I didn't believe it. This movie actually came out a while back and is all ready on video. whoops! Good reminder to do my due diligence...
So I have been meaning to post about 2 albums that have been in heavy rotation lately...first
The Black Keys, a bluesy, rockin' guitar and drum duo that I really like. Some of the tracks really remind me of Credence Clearwater. Danger Mouse produced, and it was after The Black Keys had been in the studio with Ike Turner before he passed. The New album is called Attack and Release... The Black Keys - Same Old Thing
Here is a video from the self-titled Santogold album, pretty good track but there are better on the album which is really all over the place, but in a good way. Too lazy to upload music right now but enjoy this and if you want to hear some really phat beats click on this link
and last, some more lead up to Pitchfork festival here is a clip of The Clipse playing the festival last year (they tore it up by the way)
