Aside from the obvious listening-ahead I have to do, I’ve been trying to go back and dig up things that I’ve just had sitting on my CD rack and hard drive and ignored for ages. I’ve also not been getting to as many shows as I should, but I plan to fix that over the next week or so.
-Iron Thrones, Visions Of Light: Twin Cities metal with a polish that makes the riffs gleam.
-Deftones, White Pony: If someone had just told me that some of Deftones’ songs provide a missing link between Jawbox and Tool, I’d have been on this a lot sooner.
-Akimbo, Harshing Your Mellow: I’ll fall back on this when I need some good noisy gut-squirmy fun.
-Chris Pureka, How I Learned To See In The Dark and Jason Collett, Rat A Tat Tat: Both things I might be reviewing, both proof that you can make a sturdy singer-songwriter type of album and still get creative with the arrangements. Not that they’re ultimately all that alike, I’ve just had both on in the car this past week.
-Ted Leo And The Pharmacists, The Brutalist Bricks: The odd thing is that even though he’s one of my all-around favorites, it always takes me a fair bit of work to get into each individual record. So I’ve yet to see where this ranks in my Ted hierarchy. It’d be tough to unseat Hearts Of Oak, though.
-Oscar-Nominated Shorts: Every year, the local Sundance theater screens the live-action and animated shorts up for Oscars. I’m previewing this for work soon, and I can definitely say that “The New Tenants” is the funniest film I’ve seen this year. Actually Oscar Shorts is my one reason not to be annoyed with the Oscars. It’s turned me on to some hilarious and soul-crushingly empathetic films.
-Hanah Jon Taylor at Mother Fool’s Coffeehouse, Feb. 13: Hanah, who I mentioned last week, played two improvised sets with Harrison Bankhead on bass, Vincent Davis on drums, and Biff Blumfumgagne on a variety of strings and effects gadgets. The entire finish of it changed so much from piece to piece. I especially loved how Bankhead charged into the rhythms, but all four played with elegant curiosity.
James Blackshaw, The Glass Bead Game: My new favorite record for ignoring the world to. Along with Helen Money’s album, it’s one I’m kicking myself for not hearing last year. D’oh!
Hanah Jon Taylor Artet, HyrPlasis: Hanah is a sax and flute player who lives here in Madison but for very specific reasons does not like to be called a “local musician.” Hanah and the “Artet” improvise around themes that range from Latin music to Middle Eastern scales to, well, what sounds like “jazz” to my uneducated ears, though he dislikes that term as well. I enjoyed the album, but one of the coolest parts of my week was getting to sit down and talk with him a couple of times. Some people just have this way of making conversation a hospitable, long-form thing. It’s nice for an interview to feel like a real conversation instead of just a couple of people swapping quips and anecdotes and occasionally pulling teeth.
Dosh, Tommy: Out in April, and might be the best Dosh thing I’ve heard yet. He’s playing Feb. 20 at the High Noon here in Madison. I have an interview running ahead of that, so I listened to this a bit (but didn’t get ahold of it until after talking to Dosh, which was frustrating). He has been a favorite of mine since I heard The Lost Take. I’ve been wanting to hear what else he could do that wasn’t very much like The Lost Take, and this album has many answers to that.
Wings Of Desire: “Is that Columbo?”
Mountains, Tape, and Spires That In The Sunset Rise, Project Lodge, Jan. 31: Spires are probably the weirdest local band that I genuinely enjoy.
Eyedea And Abilities, By The Throat: I love how flexible E&A (hip-hop duo from Minneapolis) are, but I wasn’t expecting them to jump into raw, rock-based production and a such a rapid-fire album. It put me off at first but then I realized, this is what a lot of underground rap tries to accomplish, only they’ve basically just flayed it down to something more essential and less pretentious. Or just marched through it General Sherman-style.
Trap Them, Sleepwell Deconstructor: Huge, grotesque hardcore contortions. The very spiffy Ear Wax had it in a vinyl-digital package, which was about the same price as most CDs and had amazing album art depicting a torrential graphic rain of upside-down crosses. That’s how it should be. I also just realized I was playing this at the wrong speed. The fucked-up thing is, I enjoyed it both ways.
Clipd Beaks, To Realize: Reviewing this for A.V. Club so I’ll mostly save up for that… it’s definitely too long for me, but it’s slowly rewarding my patience. This time they sound less weird-noisy-post-punk and more like they’re trying to stretch off into their own version of psychedelia. Song titles like “Desert Highway Music” sort of tip the hand here…
Hellraiser and Hellraiser II: “IT IS NOT HANDS THAT CALL US… IT IS DESIRE!”
Local stand-ups at Comedy Club On State, Jan. 20: A pretty solid night of Madison comics. Recapped by Joel here.
Also finally started watching Twin Peaks, among other things…
“Weekly” is stretching it. Over the holidays, I gave myself as much of a break as I could from computers and even checking out new stuff. Consider this a catch-up edition.
I fear that over time, people will realize less and less what we lost when Vic Chesnutt died. I can name a lot of good songwriters going today, but not one whose music has been so beautifully crushing. Kristin Hersh’s website is taking donations for his family. I guess what upsets me the most is that when I interviewed him in October, he said that his song “Flirted With You All My Life” was “the song of a suicide’s realization that he wants to live.” Somehow, it seems appropriate to note that he also corrected my pronunciation of “Guy Picciotto.” Thanks, Vic!
I also saw him twice. The first time, he provided a gloomy opening set for a bunch of Jonathan Richman fans anxious to start singing along to “I Was Dancing In The Lesbian Bar.” The second time, on the awesome joint tour with Elf Power last year, he noted that, “though a bit precocious” (imagine a gently scolding grandma voice), the local opening band, Whatfor, had been his favorite support act of the tour so far.
OK, time to get on with it.
Charlie Louvin at New World Brewery, Ybor City, Dec. 20: Apparently, people in Florida need a heater for patio shows when it’s 60 degrees out. Hearing an 82-year-old country singer say things like, “If I weren’t up here slavin’ over this hot mic, I’d go out and catch me some beaver!” is the champagne of inappropriate.
The Magnetic Fields, Realism: The songs aren’t yet hitting me like they did on Distortion, but the production—think I’s uppity stepsister—throws just the kind of witty curveball I expect from anything Stephin Merritt does. Also, a pop record that uses the word “if’n”!
Helen Money, In Tune: A cellist metal fans embrace, but it reminds me more of a creepy, minimal Barbez.
Retribution Gospel Choir, 2:A.V. Club review going up when it comes out on the 26th. RGC’s first record didn’t do justice to how awesome they are live (one of my favorite bands to see), but this one really expands on the sound. Really, can’t go wrong with anything that involves Alan Sparhawk of Low.
Battlefields, Decapitado, and Wife, Jan. 13, The Frequency: I went back and forth on Battlefields’ recorded stuff—pretty metal can lose some of its punch on record—but they brought the ballsy loudness here. Decapitado features Dan Kubinski of Die Kreuzen on bass and vocals. He’s a super-friendly guy, as it turns out, and his high snarl goes well with the band’s noisy industrial-metal sound. Wife’s a new local band that has just a few songs and some really over-the-top Maiden/Priest-style vocals, which I suppose Madison could use some more of.
Bill Bryson, I’m A Stranger Here Myself: The laughs remind me of reading Dave Barry for the first time as a kid.
Corpse Bride: A Christmas present from my sister. It’s time to stop neglecting Tim Burton, yep.
Slayer, World Painted Blood: I’m glad I work with a guy who can appreciate me putting stuff like this on our office boombox.
Lightnin’ Hopkins compilation: “Let Me Play With Your Poodle,” and a woman who “walks just like she got oil wells in her backyard.” Why do I not listen to old acoustic blues every damn day?
…and plenty more, but those are my favorites lately. Expect more regular ramblings and a new clips site before long.
-Roger Daltrey, live in Orlando, 11/25: I think Daltrey and I have almost the same taste in under-appreciated Who songs. Daltrey and band mixed neglected classics like “Naked Eye,” “Pictures Of Lilly” with some of his solo work and covers.
-The Books, live in Madison, 11/30: A great, completely strange Madison show that people actually came out for. Plenty of new stuff in this set from the album they’re planning to put out next year.
-Current season of Dexter to tide me over during a week of Wire deprivation. I think it ends there, though John Lithgow’s amazing in this.
-In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. Finally got around to re-reading this. My favorite part is a two-page passage cleverly bookended with a pair of cats who go around eating dead birds from car grilles.
-CunninLynguists, Strange Journey Vol. 2: A generous mixtape-bucket, and further evidence that humanity is retarded for not making these guys a bigger deal.
-Black Sabbath, Vol. 4: Yeah, after a couple years of being more and more curious about metal, I (duh) decide to learn more about Black Sabbath than the handful of songs I know. I didn’t realize how sparse it would sound compared to most of the metal I’ve checked out recently. Love “Snowblind,” “Supernaut,” and “Wheels Of Confusion,” but the fact that “Changes” somehow got recorded is just wrong… perhaps evil?
-Disguised As Birds, New Demons: EP from a good Milwaukee post-punk band. They don’t abruptly go between quiet and loud so much as explore the tense, creepy degrees in between.
-The Red Chord, Fed Through The Teeth Machine: Plenty of grinding metalcore blur, and I like that. Plenty of weird melodic breaks, and I like that too.
-An Educationat the beautiful Tampa Theatre. This may convince me to read more Nick Hornby, finally.
-Paul Blart: Mall Cop: My little brother insisted that we all watch this together while I was home for Thanksgiving. And for some reason I live-Tweeted it (scoll down a ways). What baffles me is that I ended up with more followers after that little stunt.
If you line up 12 Paulas, does the Thankspocalypse happen?
-Lots of re-digesting in preparation for The A.V. Club’s national best-of-music list and A.V. Club Madison local year-end music roundup.
-Amon Amarth, Versus The World: Recently re-issued by Metal Blade. “Death In Fire” is one of my favorite metal-album opening tracks.
-Kylesa, Static Tensions: Glad that I had a proper home-stereo sit-down with this one. I knew I’d basically love it when I heard the band’s two drummers converging on me from different sides of the room.
-BK-One, Rádio Do Canibal: Latin-inspired beats and playful guest verses from Rhymesayers and elsewhere.
-Paranormal Activity: Wow, that demon attack couldn’t have happened to a more tedious couple! Actually, it is very creepy.
-Paul F. Tompkins, Freak Wharf: I was there for one of the CD-recording shows, so I’m disappointed that it leaves out this one great bit (about New Yorkers who go out of town, only to constantly brag about what they could be doing back in “NEW YAAAWK!”). Still, almost as awesome as being there.
-The Wire, ongoing. First time I’ve ever heard the phrase “Throw a fuck into her.” Sounds festive, no? Is that some kind of Baltimore thing?
-Brother Ali, Barrymore Theatre, Nov. 19: Awesome, of course.
-Rust Belt Sermon, High Noon Saloon, Nov. 18: Sweet local post-hardcore band.
And other stuff I’ll deal with once I’ve written about it for AVC.
