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05.02.2007
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May 2nd, 2007

My Concert Forecast: Amy Winehouse

Jump aboard the blog bandwagon, kids. Today we have an extra special installment on how to beat a dead horse to death. This Winehouse lady has been the subject of much blogging in the last few months. I was resistant to her siren songs, I tried to keep strong and pass her off as a fleeting success. I’ve failed.

Unfortunately, the margin by which I am cooler than the next guy is fairly slim. At times his interests and mine are bound to share a common border or even overlap. There are times when I’ll meet a random delta bravo (my new favorite term) in the bar and truly despise everything about him except for the fact he is rocking a badass RVCA hoodie or a copped flavor of my Obey steeze. Occasionally, and clearly by pure accident, he might appreciate a band that truly does deserve appreciation.

We live in a world kept aspun with certain inarguable truths. You would be as unsuccessful trying to convince me that newton did not observe an apples uncontrollable behavior as you would trying to convince me that Amy Winehouse is nothing more than an over-hyped pretty-face. She is. But she is more. She is the girl with the pin-up girl tattoos that drinks too much — the one I lust after in bar after bar, night after night. She’s the snarky jewish girl that beclevers me with witty parables.

She’s the girl I’ll be doing my damndest to see live tonight. Scalpers are trying to be the monkey on my back — fetching $200 for a single ticket to tonights show. Those that legitmately purchased tickets (the same ones that get drunk and join in my hatred of ticketmaster) are now trying to extort CRIMINAL sums of money from other music fans. BASTARDS!

I’ll be there regardless — trying to lie, cheat, steal, sneak, beg, crawl, fly, knock out, or sweet talk my way in. I’m usually pretty successful at these sorts of things, but I’ll be sure to keep you updated. In the meantime check out these live tracks that serve as monumental evidence to just how talented this drunk actually is. That voice. Sigh…..

Amy Winehouse – Love Is a Losing Game
Amy Winehouse – Rehab
Amy Winehouse – Valerie
Amy Winehouse – You Know I’m No Good

Also — can we work towards having every wikipedia entry for a person include their favorite cocktail? Brilliant!

Winehouse’s favourite cocktail is a Rickstasy (three parts vodka, one part Southern Comfort, one part banana liqueur, and one part Baileys). “By the time you’ve had two of them you’re like, don’t even try and go anywhere. Sit down and stay down, until the birds start singing.”

04.27.2007
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April 27th, 2007

The 50 States: Wisconsin!

Good morning, my sweeeet sweeet blog reader babies. I’m awake. Sober. Happy. Excited to be here with you on this gorgeous spring day. THRILLED, nay… OVERTHRILLED to be bringing you a continuation of our 50 States Project. Today? Wisconsin.

Wisconsin. What is there to say? I love you. While compiling these songs it was fascinating to me that the majority of them are about how beautiful this fair state is, or how the songwriter only wishes to be in Wisconsin, or how the songwriter is lost in wisconsin (oh, such a true and spectacular treat.) Let it be known — I spend many of my weekends hopelessly lost on the county roads along the Mississippi River.

Wisconsin, you have been kind enough to give us 27,000 miles of streams and rivers, The House on the Rock, Willem Defoe, Chris Farley, the first hydroelectric plant, the typewriter, the ginseng capital of the world (Wasau?!), The American Berkebeiner, this blog, the Troll Capital of the world, the National Mustard Museum, the nations largest water park (Noahs Ark), the nations first kindergarten, serial killers, milk, cheese, Frank Lloyd Wright, the Fishing Hall of Fame, Barbie, drinking and biking, Harley Davidson, the Ringling Brothers Circus, Woody Herman, Harry Houdini, my felony conviction, the inner tubing capital of the world (on piss river, Somerset), the ice cream sundae, the modern-day republican party, the Hamburger Hall of Fame, the greatest bar in the world (Casino Bar in LaCrosse), the Swiss Cheese Capital of the World (Monroe), the nations largest music festival (Summerfest), Douglas Macarthur, William Rehnquist, the snowmobile and biking capitals of the world, the bratwurst capital of the USA, the Green Bay Packers, (holy shit this list doesn’t quit), Liberace, Jackie Mason, Pat O’Brien, Georgia O’Keefe, Tom Snyder, my happiness, Orson Welles, Thornton Wilder, Bob Ueker, and Les Paul (PFEW!).

Since you’ve done so much for us, dearest WI — I want to let you know what we’ve done for you. We’ve written some songs for you. Here’s some of them. Look for pt 2 tomorrow — yeah — saturday. I’ll do it. I promise.

King Radio – Wisconsin
Johnny Bush – What Made Wisconsin Famous
Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner – Milwaukee Here I Come
Mountain Goats – Going to Wisconsin
Robert Crumb and his Keep-On Truckin Orchestra – Wisconsin Wiggles
Pulsars – Wisconsin
The Dead Milkmen – I’m Living in Wisconsin
Player Piano – Milwaukee Mile
The Suicide Pact – Wisconsin
Flogging Molly – What Made Milwaukee Famous (Made a Loser Out of Me)
Elmore James – Madison Blues

04.25.2007
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April 25th, 2007

Beer Commercials Rock

Occasionally I’ll let the TV rot my brain. Lately however, there has been a surge of great programming and great commercials. These Errol Morris commercials are gorgeous, clever, and well…. gorgeous. I just want someone to explain this one to me. Are they really saying that by enjoying Miller High Life you’ll be able to better manage your vehicle?

Awesome!

04.24.2007
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April 24th, 2007

Departure Point

I’ve just recently begun reading The Bad Plus blog every day. The blogs are pretty much written by Ethan – since I’ve started reading, I don’t think anyone else has contributed. Anyway, it’s interesting.

I was going to write a huge post about how much Points of Departure by Andrew Hill meant to me, but Ethan does a far better job, and is much more knowledgeable than I am. I’m gonna pass the buck. Do yourself a favor and check out his blog. And, if you can, check him out with Buffalo Collision in Philly tonight.

Sometimes there isn’t much mystery in the things you listen to, but I’m always blown away by the things I hear coming from The Bad Plus. Now I can appreciate what they write too.

Andrew Hill / Grass Roots on “Do The Math“

Check out the mp3 clip “Grass Roots” while you’re there.

04.23.2007
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April 23rd, 2007

Klaxons. Live. My Take on it.

The Klaxons. If you haven’t heard of them or read about them then you friend, you are in a dark and sad place. They’ve been on the covers of magazines, displays at the big box retailer, and all over iTunes. These NME darlings recently stormed the US with a tour that kicked off at Studio B in brooklyn and triggered a torrent of blog posts and downloads. I’ve read so much about how much energy they have and how the cd translates really well into a live show — so I stopped by Seventh Street Entry last week to check them out.

I really can’t think of a better local venue to see a loud british rock band than Seventh Street Entry. It was hot, it was crowded, it was very small, and very loud — and this is exactly how I would design it if I knew bands like The Klaxons were going to play there. The energy of the crowd was insane. A small group of younger kids in the front were enjoying dancing around, the really drunk guy standing next to me was content to stop jumping up and down to grope his girlfriend every once in a while, and the older kids near the back were drinking like madmen and foreshadowing their spillage down onto the floor to drunkenly sway around and then trade punches with each other. This was a rare show for me — I wasn’t drinking, wasn’t drunk, and had a pair of sober eyes to observe the entire mess with.

The band seemed to feed off of this energy. They were very chatty with the intimate crowd — posing for pictures — answering questions that were shouted out (“What Do you think of the USA?” “Fucking way better than the UK.”) and jumping off of things as they played. It was an ideal situation for a show and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire atmosphere.

Here’s where things go south, however. The show was $12 (expensive at the entry) and listed on the calendar was TBD for an opening band. When I showed up I was optimistic that they would have a solid local opener, so I was pretty dissappointed that they had substituted a house DJ to play the set before the band went on. Once the band did come on they played a really short 45 minute set with no encore. I guess they stuck around and hung out to meet fans afterwards, but I still felt slightly taken advantage of. They could have tacked in a few cover songs or an extended jam and I would have left feeling much better about the whole transaction.

The other thing that was bothering me during the entire set was the obvious influence of The Libertines on this band. (Let’s not get all huffy here, readers — I understand that the libertines came from oasis, oasis from the smiths, the smiths from the velvet underground, etc…. that’s a different post altogether. just be patient and see where I’m headed with this.) These days it seems like every NME band is trying to jump on the flavor that was invented by The Libertines by way of Oasis, by way of the Doors. This involves wild shows, sloppy guitar playing, improvised vocals, and chemicals. Lots of chemicals. But the Klaxons look to be about 17. They were all drinking red stripe throughout the show, but I didn’t see any of them actually finish one. They just nursed them the entire time, and then flailed around and bounced off of things and played their guitars all sloppy like they were at the end of a 9 day bender. They weren’t. The music couldn’t vary too drastically from the plan or they would have gotten out of synch with their sampler (that pretty much served as a prettier click track) to keep them all together. They vocals were awful, their harmonies could have been invented in a shower or a speeding car, and their technical abilities on their instruments were just embarrassing. I overheard a younger girl comment about how cool it was that they were constantly switching instruments and I wanted to grab her, shake her, and just explain that if you were going to play one or two notes throughout a 3 minute song — it didn’t matter if you were playing an accordion or a tambourine — it would be easy enough for anyone to master.

Their live set on the Current from earlier that day confirms that. Without the wild dancing, alcohol, sweaty, packed, hot crowd — these guys would pretty much just be a regular garage band that crossed an ocean and ended up with shoes too big for them to fill. You hear that Brooklyn? YEAH? Good. Then we can go ahead and backlash this shit real fast, thanks.

Klaxons – It’s Not Over Yet
Klaxons – Golden Skans
Klaxons – As Above, So Below

Thanks to The Smudge of Ashen Fluff for the mp3s. I’ve done the right thing and hosted them myself, but where credit is due credit is given ’round these parts.

Next we’ll get to something somehow related. I haven’t finished how to draw the link yet, but I saw Modest Mouse on 4/20 and Isaac was as sober as sober could get for the entire set. It made me miss the Modest Mouse I used to see when he would drink at least a bottle and a half of Jack Daniels before he even went on stage. His band mates seemed much happier with this Isaac, however. Much happier.

04.21.2007
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April 21st, 2007

four/twenty-one

It’s Saturday. Finally. 4/20 was a terrible day, but at least I got to get drunk at the end of it. Thankfully, it’s over. Let’s hear it for Saturday!

Billy Bragg – The Saturday Boy
Cat Stevens – Another Saturday Night
Nick Drake – The Saturday Sun (it’s warm out, no?)
Elton John – Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting
Lyle Lovett – On Saturday Night
Kaiser Chiefs – Saturday Night (courtesy of The Music Slut)
Biffy Clyro – saturday superhouse (Live Acoustic Radio Session) (courtesy of To Die By Your Side)

Oh, and if you’re in the Boston area, I would recommend seeing Junior Brown at Johnny D’s in Sommerville tonight. I like country music (obviously) but even if you don’t, he is worth seeing. He plays a double neck – one side telecaster, one side lap-steel. And he can play both of them like a crazy man.

04.19.2007
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April 19th, 2007

Two Videos for Thursday

Hey kids — I have been hard at work in real life so I’ve been neglecting you and your needs. (Ok, honestly I’ve been spending all my time trying to get caught up on Werner Herzogs complete body of work. It hasn’t been easy.)

Here’s two things that I know you’ll appreciate — because I appreciate them.

The first sounds really lame on the surface, but it might possibly be one of the funniest things I’ve ever witnessed on the internet. This guy sits down to play the worlds hardest level of Super Mario Brothers and narrates his progress. His narration is effin’ hilarious.

Super Mario Brothers Commentary

The second is the new feist video. Feist you sez? One continuous shot with hundreds of dancers? Beautiful, you sez? I’m down. Bingo Orangutans!

Feist Video for 1-2-3-4

04.15.2007
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April 15th, 2007

Storm

I’ve already vented about the Northeast and it’s uncommon inability to cope with the weather. Well, finally the weather is something to complain about. It sucks here. It’s cold, wet, and the rain just will not stop. Good thing I’m renting, because I would hate to have to pump out my basement. That, and the fact that I’ve just gotten over some pretty bad food poisoning and a visit from my mother. I would prefer to sit on my ass and do nothing for the next two weeks. As a matter of fact, I may just do that.

Because of my terrible week, I don’t really have much to say or contribute to the pretty awesome weeks Rob’s been having. I’m don’t think I’m the only one that has been shitting their pants over the return of the “50 States Project” …or maybe that was just the food poisoning.

This will help me get through the upcoming three-day noreaster – just a little good humor.

REO Speedwagon – Ridin’ the Storm Out

04.13.2007
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April 13th, 2007

Fribootdayleg. Hayden, Madison, 2-28-02

Does the title make sense? Not really. Do you get what I’m going to try and bring you every friday? Yes? You can shift your over-active brains into slow-mo mode to try and pick up what I’m throwing down? Good. Very goood.

Hayden is and has been for a very long time one of my favorite singer/songwriters. I forget how I was turned on to him, but some kid lent me his 45s when I was in High School and I never gave them back. He emailed me on MySpace just a few months ago wondering where they ended up and I have no idea — but I would suspect that they are worth a few bucks on ebay. Haydens been with me on plenty of adventures. I rarely leave the house without him on my ipod or stuck in my head.

So yeah. I’m a Hayden fanboy. I’m not ashamed. I’m ashamed that you’re not one.

The very first bootleg in this series is going to be one that I recorded. The quality is ok, you get to hear me talking to random people (Haydens girlfriend) in the beginning and trying to get a good microphone position, but by track 3 I’ve got it all sorted out and the quality is very good. It’s at a bar and even though I believe tickets were $12, there are still plenty of people there to drink that I don’t think even realized a show was going on — so there is some crowd noise issues from time to time.

This post also feeds into the next post in our 50 states project: Wisconsin. As I drove down from Minneapolis for the show I was faced with many obstacles. It was snowing and hailing so hard that Hayden (who was also in Minneap. the night before) commented he thought the windshield on his van was going to give out. When I showed up to the show — frightfully early — I found out it was 21+ and I was still 19. Luckily, as I was hanging out outside trying to figure out my options (songs: ohia was playing across the street) I saw Hayden pull up in his van. I introduced myself and offered to help him out with his stuff if he could get me into the show. Everything obviously worked out, a-ok.

Without further ado, Hayden – Live in Madison. Recorded on February 18, 2002.

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