50 Songs Brought to You By the Year 2009, Part I

These are some of my favorite songs from the concluding year.  They are generally, but not exclusively, pulled from albums that aren’t in my evolving Top 10 list for 2009.  Too, they are less in order of priority than listed chronologically as I noted them in my Blackberry before deleting the full length. 

One question this brings up, Why don’t I pay the $20 or whatever to WordPress to archive my audio so that you can play them right off my blog?  Some day I may do that, but the legal workaround might be an impolitic policy because of my current employer and position in the media.  So…with no further delay, Part I:

Iran – “I Can See the Future” from Dissolver.  Former experimental rocker Aaron Aites cleans up nicely on this radio-ready track.

Asobi Seksu – “Familiar Light” from Hush.  Rhythmically exciting dream pop.

Black Lips – “Starting Over” from 200 Million Thousand.

Gun Outfit - “Guilt and Regret” from Dim Light.  Wide open rockabilly mash-up of Lou Reed, X, and Lamb Chop.

Mazes – “I Have Laid in the Darkness of Doubt” from Mazes.  Enchanting lullaby from 1900’s side project.

The Phantom Band – “The Howling” from Checkmate Savage.  Dark guitar rock with a little Who thrown in.

Elvis Perkins – “123 Goodbye” from Elvis Perkins in Dearland.  One of my big disappointments, but this is a song worthy of debut Ash Wednesday.  Hearkening to his dead parents, Elvis writes, “”The songs are their grandchildren they didn’t get to meet.”

Dan Deacon – “Red F” from Bromst.  Dan went a little more mainstream after Spiderman of the Rings.  The payoff about 2:00 into “Red F” is heart-pumping joy.

Other Lives – “Black Tables” from Other Lives.  Look, I know there is no indie-accepted way to admit that I bought this CD for this one song and I recognize it is total Coldplay rehash.  But I love it.  And it’s my list.

Michael Zapruder – “Ads for Feelings” from Dragon Chinese Coctail Horoscope.

Great Lake Swimmers – “Pulling on a Line” from Lost Channels.  I was a bit tepid about Tony Dekker’s previous album–I’m sorry I can’t recall if it was in fact Ongiara I downloaded or Bodies and Minds.  But this one I really liked.  “Pulling on a Line” is warm and universal like Iron & Wine.

Metric – “Sick Muse” – from Fantasies.  How can you complain about this chorus?  Video from the “Sick Muse” video contest.

Micachu – “Vulture” – from Jewellery.  Don’t know exactly what to do with Micachu, some kind of twee/math rock hybrid.  But this song is fun to challenge yourself with.

Passion Pit – “Little Secrets” – from Manners.

Apostle of Hustle – “Soul Unwind” from Eats Darkness.  My mind is full of mush, I can’t quite place the 80’s influence on this charmer–The Police I think.  Someone help me with this one.

God Help the Girl – “God Help the Girl” from (yes) God Help the Girl.  It sounds like Zooey Deschanel (It’s not) and the sing-off backstory to GHTG is art school pretentious but there’s no getting around it’s a nice ditty.

Star Death and White Dwarfs – “New Heat” from The Birth.  Galloping 60’s psychedelia fronted by Dennis Coyne, nephew of the Flaming Lips’ Wayne.

Free Swedes Please!

While I catalogue the year’s music and try to catch up on everything I missed, I thought I would pass this along.  I downloaded the new EP Tänd eld på dig själv (för det du tror på) by Symfoniorkestern around Thanksgiving and have been really enjoying it. 

As closely as I can tell, the EP translates into “Let’s Say We Did (Sebastian Fors)” and came to my attention courtesy of  Swedish fetishist website Swedesplease. 

It really is a delightful collection and best of all–it is free!  As of today, you could still download the EP gratis here.  So shop early, meaning now, and give a listen to this lovely bit of work.

You cannot go wrong with an album composed of largely indecipherable characters that you cannot type on an English keyboard.

Park City’s Rock ‘n B-Roll

Park City will host a music festival the week before Sundance next year.  The first Orion Independent Music Festival has been announced January 14-20 for the Main Street area of Park City.  Sundance, which has dabbled in music in year’s past, then begins on the 21st.

Organized by Steffon Olsen of Salt Lake City, Orion promises “national and international artists” but also to give exposure to unsigned artists.  So far it looks like there will be quite a bit more of the latter and less of the former.  The website is a little difficult to navigate but I don’t see anyone booked that is likely to bring the world’s Beautiful People to town a week early ahead of the Sundance Party.

A writer for the Park Record newspaper describes something a little more organic.  As many as 60 bands and dozens of record reps kicking the tires.  Olsen promises one big name performer will “attend” Orion but it’s not clear if they’ll play.  He’s not dropping any names.  Olsen’s hoping for up to 3,000 folks per night which may be a little ambitious.

Kudos to Park City.  Maybe we’ll get a notable act before January.  Or perhaps the nascent event will bloom into a full blowout in 2011 with side venues and a main stage that lures brooding Hollywood socialites and their retinues to Utah for an extra week of Seeing and Being Seen. 

Shows are $5 each with wristsbands for the week priced at $40.

UPDATE:  It looks like the headliner for 2010 will be Joshua James Wednesday night January 20 at the Spur.  Band of Annuals opens.

The Pains of Managing Your Music Budget

With no little sacrifice, I skipped a couple of promising shows this fall because the music dollar only goes so far when the country is still muddling through a deep financial rut. 

For instance I skipped Dutchess and the Duke, Great Lake Swimmers, Dinosaur Jr, and Le Loup.  A guy just has to make decisions.

America, your bands are suffering! 

 

Most regrettably, I passed on The Pains of Being Pure at Heart at Kilby Court.  Instead I felt compelled to conserve my spending for the Phoenix concert that was originally scheduled six days later at the Urban Lounge.  Morning of the show, I learned it had LONG AGO been cancelled and that Phoenix would soon be headed overseas. 

Heartbreak.

By now Salt Lake’s touring season has wound down.  The first two weeks of November included shows like Art Brut, Fanfarlo, and Joshua James.  And then not so much in the way of headline-making performances until next year.

So here’s a benefit.  I consolidated my limited music budget into CD purchases since I didn’t see as many shows coming up that I was interested in.  In fact, in one fell swoop yesterday I bought several discs that I had been trying to find used all year.  The end of November is pretty much a cut point.  No more time to lurk around the used section if I want to assemble a partially cogent Best Of list.

I kept my shopping list pretty well focused on things that could be Top 20 candidates like Grizzly Bear, Brakes, and Brother Ali.  Plus I found a promo copy of Soundtrack of Our Lives “Communion” for a buck. 

I loves me some TSOOL and it was One.  Freaking.  Dollar. 

I think I’m going back today for The Antlers “Hospice” and I special ordered 3 or 4 groups I couldn’t wait on any longer like BOAT and Cornershop.

So…a little buying splurge but only because the live shows are drying up.  Makes me wish I hadn’t skipped some of those acts earlier this year.  One other opportunity is to take in a few local artists that I need to be more familiar with. 

What’s a recession for, if not keeping your money local?

Fanfarlo at the State Room

The buzz over Fanfarlo has been growing it seems since the London-based band wowed audiences at SXSW this summer.  Their debut album Reservoir was originally released in February, but their Atlantic Records release last month and this fall’s heavy U.S. tour has spawned a wave of momentum.  I downloaded several tracks from Reservoir this fall but listened to the album in its entirety twice Saturday.  I grew more excited as the day went along; it was going to be a fun night.

Freelance Whales from Queens opened the night and I caught enough of the set to get the gist.  Like Fanfarlo, they specialize in brass and odd instrumentation to create a mildly eccentric hootenany.  Oddly enough, I liked a couple of songs better that were somewhat more twee.  Overall, the arrangements were a bit swallowed up in the mix and the vocals seemed out of sorts and tentative.

If I thought Freelance Whales looked no older than reform schoolers, how about Fanfarlo lead singer Simon Balthazar?  Seriously he cannot be 16 years old.  Absent a verifiable bio online, I choose to believe that he is a Swedish child prodigy born in 1993 until proven otherwise.

Balthazar, drummer Amos Memon, and violinist Cathy Lucas…who looks six months Balthazar’s senior and is cute as a button…began the night as a trio on “Drowning Men.”  They were joined by bassist Leon Beckenham and trumpeter Justin Finch for the remainder of the show.  All night band members freely traded ukeles for glockenspiels, glockenspiels for trumpets, and trumpets for something called a Fanfarlophone, perhaps this thing:

To address the many points of comparison that have dogged (benefited?) Fanfarlo this year:  The most apt to me is Balthazar’s similarity to Sufjan Stevens.  Several times Saturday night he would lilt his voice in a way that reminded me distinctly of Beirut’s legato “Sunday Smile.”  Note I am not a huge Beirut fan so I am glad to report that the similarities largely end there.  And to call Fanfarlo “Britain’s Arcade Fire” doesn’t work at all.  I just don’t hear it.

Fanfarlo breezily, if not compellingly, played the larger part of Reservoir, plus one song they wrote “this morning, on the bus.”  Highlights were the more energetic numbers like “Harold T. Wilkins” and encore “Luna.”  The band was entertaining, tight, and competent; if that sounds like mild praise, perhaps it is.  I thought I would be more bowled over by their 50 minute set.  Maybe I’d bought into the Arcade Fire comparisons and the truth is Fanfarlo is a gentler experience. 

I also took about a billion pictures and that may have distracted me.  It was the first night out with my wife’s camera instead of using my cell phone and I went a little berzerk.  I also got busted for using the flash, which I swear I had disabled before I started. 

You, at least, get the benefit of a swell gallery of photos and next time I will do better on shutter speed.  The muted live experience notwithstanding, Reservoir is a sweet record, particularly if you have tried to like Beirut but have low accordian tolerance.

One last note on the State Room itself, which I visited for the first time.  It is built like a modified high school theatre.  Pews (seriously?) climb the back 3/4 of the performance space and leave just a small floor in front of the stage for standing.  It doesn’t invite a lot of energy.

The State Room definitely seems suited for the adult alternative crowd to chill to folk, samba, and jazz fusion, which is well represented the rest of the month.  Tab Benoit fans, I’m talking to you.

God’s Music is Kind of Crappy

I am a follower
of Jesus Christ.

My devotion is not perfect but, in the Christian parlance, it is relatively mature.  And I cannot tolerate most Contemporary Christian music. 

It is homogenous and pedestrian by almost any creative standard.  By that I don’t mean by “The World’s” standards; I mean as understood by most music lovers with even slightly piquant taste. 

As website Patrolmag.com put it:

“Artist after band after songwriter (presumes) that we listen to music out of a need to hear our theological ideas reiterated endlessly, as opposed to out of affection for creatively plotted melodic intervals.”

Into that space walks Derek Webb.  Mr. Webb is the disaffected former member of Christian crossover band Caedmon’s Call who has recently returned to playing with them.  In September, Webb released the solo album Stockholm Syndrome.  I can’t go so far as Patrolmag to call it a “subversive masterpiece,” but it is a step above the traditional vanilla offerings of Christian radio.

The “explicit” version of Webb’s album…scandalously available by digital download only…is 14 tracks of reasonably engaging indie pop that is probably as subversive as Coldplay.  It is good  songwriting.  But Derek Webb is not Thom Yorke and it is uncomfortable to observe him seemingly parlay his tension with dithering religious labels into a reputation as Christian music’s Bad Boy.  I can recommend Stockholm Syndrome strictly on its own merits, distinct from the silly posturing and religious hand-wringing that accompanies it.

Sometimes the best way to enjoy Christian music is to buy from artists who write great songs and simply happen to be Christian.  Released the same day as Stockholm Syndrome was Curse Your Branches by recovering alcoholic David Bazan.  

This album by the former member of Pedro the Lion didn’t end up on my Must Buy list, but the synthesized song “Bless This Mess” is one of my favorite tunes of the year. 

Listen to it and read about the origin of lyrics like, “God bless the history that doesn’t repeat” at Stereogum.

Wednesday’s Song: I Say Fever

A friend cautioned me when I bought Ramona Falls’ Intuit that the album was hit-or-miss and he was correct.  Brent Knopf’s solo album feels uncentered and lacks the cohesive elegance of Menomena side project Lackthereof, whose 2008 album Your Anchor was criminally overlooked.

However inside the embarassing high school cover art of Intuit is one of the year’s standout songs, “I Say Fever,” with a bristling payoff of layered vocals 3 minutes in. 

You can listen to it on the KEXP blog and the animated video is pretty cool too.

Couple of other strong numbers on the album include “Belly Fulla” and the lunatic syncopations of “Always Right.”  The reviews on Intuit are strikingly mixed but you know where I stand.

A better investment would be last month’s anthology of the home recordings of Lackthereof’s Danny Seim, most of which were never properly released like Your Anchor.  You can buy A Lackthereof Retrospective 1998-2008, or I was a Christian Emo Twentysomething at Parasol.com or directly from Barsuk Records.

A Place to Bury Strangers at the Urban Lounge

No more than 50 people witnessed a true noise virtuoso last Thursday night at Salt Lake City’s Urban Lounge.

Oliver Ackermann and A Place to Bury Strangers would ordinarily exceed my live threshold for distortion and sheer volume.  In fact, I passed on their show here in 2008 with the blithe observation that I was getting too old for that kind of live show.  I think that a lot, ”I’m not 20 anymore, what am I doing here?”  Which is true and I’m not.  But there’s nothing like a little drone that threatens the space-time continuum to keep you feeling young. 

Locals Laserfang opened.  The band showed a few flashes of interest when they played denser arrangements but drifted into a Roger Daltrey RAWK mode by default.  Next up was All the Saints.  Touring on Fire on Corridor X, the Atlanta-based band more than stood their ground before the assault from APTBS.  They are clearly one of the most loyal customers of Ackermann, who owns the petal shop Death by Audio frequented by luminaries like MBV.

The sheer enertainment of watching percussionist Jim Crook pound his drums like a thing possessed was worth the night’s price of admission alone.  Crook prowls the stage like a cornered animal between songs and beats with such inhuman ferocity that it was exhausting just watching him.  All the Saints played for maybe 30 minutes and I don’t think Crook could have continued another minute.

A Place to Bury Strangers frankly started a bit slowly, owing perhaps to the modest crowd and also some power problems.  The amplifier for the drums kept shorting out and was eventually remedied by pulling the smoke machine off the same breaker. 

The band started with ”Gimme Acid,” “Exploding Head,” and “Fix the Gash” before launching into a mildly psychedlic light show.  The lights themselves didn’t accomplish much but in combination with the awesome level of distortion started to put the performance over the top.

Interesting to watch was Ackermann, who I noticed doesn’t wear earplugs, and his growing frustration with his output as the show went along.  He couldn’t create quite enough distortion to arouse the hounds of hell from their slumber or generate enough squawl to render a healthy man infertile. 

He eventually slung a half-beaten guitar over his shoulder, slogged halfway through closer, “Ocean,” and then let the ambience ride for several minutes.  In the interlude…the term hardly seems appropriate for the pain we suffered while he hunkered over his laboratory of circuits…Ackermann, by now completely self-absorbed, had deftly switched enough plugs, wires, knobs and cord runs to blow the Bridge to the River Kwai. 

What followed was a remarkable demonstration of distortion-as-stagecraft.  Ackermann continued searching for the perfect deafening squelch, furiously raised his guitar, broke all but three strings, and was eventually left manipulating the noise by twisting the tuner on his guitar neck until it was ready to burst. 

Bandmates quit behind him while he obliviously worked his pedals and what was left of his guitar to get that certain something that was eluding him.  Finally, Ackermann tossed his guitar from his knees, threw up his hands in resignation.  And it was over.

7 Songs That Made My Summer

I’m not sure what possesses so many people to declare maudlin and interminable songs like “Hellhole Ratrace” the quintessential summer video, but I found a lot of great tunes swirling around during Utah’s dog days.  Here are a few, not necessarily released in the summer, but perfect for listening when the days were sweltering. 

In no particular order:

1. Telekinesis! – “Tokyo” – OK I lied, there is some order here, this was tops.  The archetypal summer powerpop single.  ”Tokyo” could have been ripped straight from the Hoodoo Guru’s Stoneage Romeos.  From the self-titled Telekinesis!

2. Phoenix “1901″ Not trying to be a contrarian I realize “Lisztomania” is the song of choice from the new Phoenix album but I got stuck on “1901.”  I am counting on the band to crunch things up a bit at their Sept 19 Urban Lounge show from the somewhat sterile Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.

UPDATE:  Apparently I am the last person on the planet to learn Phoenix cancelled their date tonight.  They spend the rest of the month heading east and south, and are off to Europe after Austin City Limits October 2.  What a real drag. 

3. Apostle of Hustle “Soul Unwind” – BSS guitarist Andrew Whiteman has this side project which I know nothing about.  Other than they wrote this calypso-influenced hip-shaker that should be listened to with an umbrella drink on a beach I didn’t get to visit this year.  From Eats Darkness.

4. Let’s Wrestle “We are the Men You’ll Grow to Love Soon” – Punk slackers on Stolen Recordings records, who also distribute Pete & the Pirates.  Music by and for unemployed 20-year-olds.  From In the Court of the Wrestling Lets.

5. Delorean “Seasun” – Distinct from Portland’s Dolorean, “Seasun” shines as summertime electronic bubblegum.  Primal Scream revisits 2009.  From Ayrton Senna EP.

And a couple of hardcore numbers:

6. P.O.S. “The Brave and the Snake” – Don’t know what it is with me and rap the last year.  But it’s hard to conjure much more conviction than Stefon Alexander’s penultimate lyrical climax, “And to the great escape!”  Video from Salt Lake’s finest converted garage, Kilby Court.   From Never Better.

7. Future.of.the.Left “Chin Music” – Punishing riff I can’t get enough of.  October 19 at Salt Lake City’s Urban Lounge with …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead.  From Travels with Myself and Another.

Iron & Wine at the Gallivan Center

Just from my singe vantage point last Thursday, I watched two people faint or being led out after swooning from the heat. Including a guy. I didn’t know guys did that. Thousands packed the free downtown venue to see Sam Beam and opener Okkervil River which just made the 95 degree day that much hotter.

Okkervil River, a band that seems to think it is a lot more clever than I do, really only gelled on a couple of numbers. Largely eschewing last year’s The Stand Ins, the band finally seemed to hit their stride on “John Allyn Smith Sails” and “Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe” from The Stage Names. Plenty of other numbers had Will Sheff jumping and exhorting the crowd to clap with the manufactured energy of a Bruce Springsteen Superbowl halftime show.

Compare those antics with the redoubtable stage presence of Sam Beam, who consumed the crowd the moment he took the stage with nothing more than a guitar. Let me say that this was a bit of a letdown since the show was promoted as Iron & Wine, which implies his touring band. I hoped to hear some of the added instumentation of his more recent albums, if not the brass from the Calexico collaboration.

Nevertheless he did not disappoint.

Despite his clear annoyance (and mine) at the half dozen beach balls being bounced around the audience and frequently onto stage, Beam rolled through about 15 songs with a gentle stage banter and mild humor. He looks and acts like Santa Claus on Lexapro.

It seems the entire Iron and Wine canon was represented with the exception of 2003’s The Sea and the Rhythmn EP. Beam lead off…I don’t know why this surprises me but it does…with his cover of the Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights.” Then he walked through several of his own greats like “Woman King” from the EP by the same name, “Sunset Soon Forgotten” from Our Endless Numbered Days, and “Upward Over the Mountain” off of The Creek Drank the Cradle, his original full-length on Subpop.

Then came a couple of Shepherd’s Dog songs, “The Devil Never Sleeps” and “Peace Beneath the City,” although I may have been delirious from the heat because I don’t remember either one. He also concluded the 1.5 hour long set with “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” before a brief encore.

Beam’s voice gets the majority of the attention and it really is a sound to behold. But I was equally taken by his playing skills that night, being able to watch him at length for the first time.

I won’t gripe about free concerts again here but it was a terribly boorish crowd. Actually I guess I did just gripe but only briefly. This may be my last free show. I would rather drop $20 on a band that other music lovers have sacrificed to see. And Iron & Wine is definitely a band to see in a quieter setting.

This Thursday is Salt Lake’s last Twilight Concert.

Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears could be a wild finish to the summer. They ride the same psych-creole train as King Khan and His Shrines. In fact it may be just enough lunacy to help you forget the crowd!