Spill Me Out On To The Floor

The Oohlas “Small Parts” – If you can imagine The Breeders, Veruca Salt, Lush, Dressy Bessy, and Throwing Muses as gigantic, brightly colored mechanical lions, the Oohlas would be like the Voltron that they would form when…um, assembled by little boys with generous parents in the mid-80s. I’m sorry, but this is just a horrible simile. Anyway, the band’s first record, and this song in particular, sounds like the revenge of a 90s alt-rock subgenre that is well-loved by many, given serious critical thought by very few, and cruely, has no name. If The Killers’ shtick was to revitalize glammy early 80s synthpop by beefing it up and writing choruses that demanded full-stadium singalongs, The Oohlas do the same for the likes of Belly, Letters to Cleo, and That Dog. Most of those bands never had a problem writing hooks or rocking out, but if only some of them had dropped a chorus as huge and heart-breaking as the one in “Small Parts” when they most needed a good follow-up hit back in the day. (Click here for the official Oohlas site.)

This Circuitry Is New To Me

Goldfrapp @ Irving Plaza 5/15/2006
Utopia / Lovely Head / Tip Toe / Train / Koko / Slide In / U Never Know / Deer Stop / Fly Me Away / Satin Chic / Beautiful / Ride A White Horse / Ooh La La // Black Cherry / Number 1 /// Strict Machine

Aside from two additional songs from Felt Mountain and a slightly shuffled running order, this was essentially the same show that I saw a few months ago. Of course, that exactly what I wanted – Goldfrapp obviously put quite a bit of thought into their spectacle, and to see them do anything less would be a shame. I had a very real fear that the dancers wouldn’t show up since they put off “Train” until the fourth song into the setlist! As with the visual representation, the band have honed their performance to the point of scary precision. They nail everything from the softest bits to the most intense vamps, and keep things consisently theatrical without veering into tedium or cheesiness. After seeing a show like this, it just makes most everyone else seem like such amateurs.

Goldfrapp “Satin Chic (Bombay Mix by The Shortwave Set)” – When I first read about this, I had hoped for something over the top and Bollywood, but The Shortwave Set go off in the other direction, slowing it down a bit and emphasizing the song’s cabaret roots. It’s quite good as a companion to the original version, though I do prefer the pep and skip of the album mix. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

Carbon Dating Service “Lazerbear” – Layers of warm, gentle instrumentation piled on like blankets; a pretty tune with a pace in no hurry to get anywhere – this song sounds more or less exactly like what I would expect from a ten piece band of twentysomethings from Saskatoon. I’ve generally soured on indie’s trend toward sprawling over-arranged collectivism and quiet coziness, but this is the exception that proves the rule. For a composition with so many instruments, the song actually feels quite sparse and understated, nicely avoiding the clumsy bombast of Bright Eyes or the “HEY EVERYONE LOOK A STRING SECTION A STRING SECTION I’VE GOT HORNS AND A STRING SECTION!!! C’MON C’MON C’MON LOOOOOOOOOK!” vibe of Sufjan Stevens. (Click here for the Carbon Dating Service’s MySpace page.)

I Can’t Feed My Culture No Fallacy

Cam’ron “I.B.S.” – Stuck in the middle of an album otherwise concerned with his typical lyrical tropes (not exactly a complaint, mind you), Cam’ron Giles throws down the guantlet of “realness” hard on this track, which documents his struggles with Irrital Bowel Syndrome. Thankfully, the song generally avoids TMI territory and sticks to discussing the embarassment, stress, and paranoia brought on by his illness, and his efforts to lose weight and get healthy. Aside from the surprisingly private and vulnerable lyrical subject matter, the track is fantastic, an early RZA-ish composition built around a clinky piano figure played on either the highest notes on the far right of the keys, or pitched up significantly. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Mecca Normal “I’m Not Into Being the Woman You’re With While You’re Looking for the Woman You Want” – Alternately evoking sympathy and discomfort, the new Mecca Normal album mostly documents singer Jean Smith’s experiences with online dating as a woman in her 40s. Her lyrics are dry and matter of fact, so the awkward situations and most self-involved moments related in the songs are especially cringe-inducing, mainly because they are so mundane and depressing that you’re bound to either recognize them from your own life, or the lives of people you might know. Worst of all, you can get the gnawing fear that you might end up living some of this later on if you’re not lucky. (Click here to buy it from Buy Olympia.)

Any Day Or Three

Tender Trap “6 Billion People” – Wow, this is tuneful and fun and great, but most of all, it would make for an absolutely perfect jingle for an online dating service for hipsters. (The chorus goes “six billion people in the world / three billion boys, three billion girls / how to find the perfect one for you”) TweeHarmony.com, all the way! Someone out there, get that hooked up and get these people sorted out with their rent for a year or three. (Click here to buy it from Ear Rational.)

As you can tell from the previous few entries, my Mac account is maxed out once again and my other account will not be working properly until later on today. This is massively frustrating for me, so please do not pester me about it. The most recent tracks will be reposted, but not this evening. Today’s song will work, as will a few of the older tracks below. If you haven’t already, check out my ASAP column for this week. Those mp3s will be working just fine.

When The Sun Shines In Between The Blinds

My second Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site. This week’s column includes a Gene Serene & John Downfall song that will be familiar to regular readers of this site, and very good songs by The Coup and Bishop Allen that have never been featured here.

Irving @ The Knitting Factory 5/10/2006
Situation / I Want To Love You In My Room / She’s Not Shy / If You Say Jump, I Will Say No / I Can’t Fall In Love / Care, I Don’t Care / Jen, Nothing Matters To Me / Did I Ever Tell You I’m In Love With Your Girlfriend? / L-O-V-E / The Curious Thing About Leather

Irving “I Want To Love You In My Room” – I don’t know why I was even a little bit surprised to have so much fun at this show. Though Irving will not be winning any awards for pureness and originality of vision any time soon, they are a remarkably gifted indie pop band with a knack for stealing the best bits from classic (and not so classic) acts of the mid-60s, late 80s, and early 90s and filtering out the annoying or obvious tics that tend to be emulated most often by lesser bands. I knew all of that coming into the show, and yet they still impressed me, playing an extremely well planned and utterly dud-free setlist with an energy and charm that I hadn’t been anticipating. Strangely, I had not realized that there were actually three lead singers in the band until seeing them perform in person. This united front only makes me appreciate their commitment to writing lyrics that come off like episodes of a tongue-in-cheek indie soap opera that much more. (Click here to buy it from Insound.)

Bardo Pond “Moonshine” – Bardo Pond love the jams, and indeed, the jams run free once again on their forthcoming Ticket Crystals. Though the band had fallen into a textural rut on previous releases, this album is a revelation with its mix of shroomy psychedelic jammery and acoustic tunefulness. The album’s twin highlights are a woozy but gorgeous cover of The Beatles’ “Cry Baby Cry” and “Moonshine,” a pastoral epic with overdubbed layers of vocals from Isobel Sollenberger that fall out of phase for a lovely effect, and eventually disappear into a backmasked haze. (Click here to pre-order it from Ear Rational.)

The End Is Always Near

The Knife “We Share Our Mother’s Health (Trentemoller Remix)” – I must say that I was a bit nervous about the prospects of “We Share Our Mother’s Health” remixes. Though the album version is just about perfect (it’s my second favorite Knife song after “Heartbeats,” which is saying a lot), it did need at least an edit to make it work better in DJ set. There’s a tendency toward abstraction in a lot of dance remixes, and my fear was that we would end up with loads of nondescript mixes that would erase most of the song’s appeal. Thankfully, Trentemoller aims for function, embracing the song’s formidable hooks and amping everything up until it’s sort of ridiculous. It starts off a little slow, but stick with it – it seems as though it was designed so that people who already know and love the song would go bananas with every new dynamic shift. It’s pretty damn exciting, especially when he pitch-shifts the vocals even more on the breakdown, and then builds it to this ecstatic climax of snare hits before dropping back into the track’s signature groove. (Click here for The Knife’s official site.)

Paul Oakenfold featuring Brittany Murphy “Faster Kill Pussycat” – Yes, that Brittany Murphy. It turns out that she is actually a pretty solid vocalist, and a fairly distinct one at that. I mean, there’s a few songs from that last Lindsay Lohan album that I like a lot (I’ll link to something I wrote about them a few weeks ago when it finally comes online in a week or so), but Lohan has almost nothing to do with why those songs work – her persona as both an actress and as a celebrity is conspicuously absent from every vocal performance on that record. Murphy, however, sings exactly as you might imagine based on her trashed-up performances in movies like 8 Mile, Spun, and Sin City. She’s definitely going for the damaged sex kitten thing and she pulls it off rather well. Of course, most of the appeal here comes from Oakenfold’s track, which is a relentless Jaxx-ish dance-pop-rock beast that nearly outdoes the best songs from Cish Cash. (Click here to buy it from Juno.)

Happy Ending Or A Broken Heart

The Futureheads “Skip To The End” – The Futureheads still sound as though they’ve never heard any music written after 1982, but this time around they’re emulating The Clash rather than some other much less tuneful punk bands, and unsurprisingly, they’ve come up with a winner. As far as songs expressing indecision and caution go, this is quite fun, and is actually a strong contender in the stakes for the title of Summer Jam ’06 in the alt-rock bracket. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

Oneida “History’s Great Navigators” – Much of Oneida’s forthcoming album admirably embraces the joys of burbling and bleeping electronic textures, but this track goes in more of a mid-period Can direction. Ordinarily a rapid one-note keyboard attack would seem quite anxious, but the calm vocals and mesmerizing beat transform it into more of a soothing drone. (Click here for Oneida’s official site.)

I Just Want You To Pop

Christopher and Raphael Just (featuring Fox N Wolf) “Popper” – The girl from Fox N Wolf has such a strange voice. The sound of it is almost cartoonishly childlike, but she’s always communicating sexuality and/or aggression in a way that seems to deliberately invite cognitive dissonance. In this collaboration with electro duo Christopher and Raphael Just, she practically throws a tantrum on the dancefloor between sweet Scissor Sisters-does-the-Beegees disco choruses and cut-up vocal fragments. The track is a relentless machine, building towards an intense peak so great that even a little bit of bad white rapping is excusable. (Click here to buy it from Rough Trade.)

Temposhark (featuring Imogen Heap) “Not That Big (Metronomy NotThatRemix)” – The best sort of minimalist pop accompaniment does not call attention to its starkness, but rather creates a musical illusion of fullness and depth. This track is a fine example, built mainly around a snakey keyboard part, simple percussion, sparing lead, and a stuttered vocal sample. The most exciting moment comes when the tempo of the keyboard part on the break suddenly speeds up for moment before settling into the second verse. Is this what it means to “temposhark”? (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

It’s A Cruel Joke, A Cosmic Hoax

Gorillaz “Kids With Guns (Hot Chip Remix)” – I’m not sure if I’ve ever gone into it on this site, but back around the late 90s, I was a pretty hardcore Blur fan. I mean, technically, that has not changed – I still rate those albums very highly even if the only songs I’ve revisited with any frequency in the past few years have been my top favorites from the self-titled album. So, as you might imagine, the massive success of the Gorillaz in America is especially weird to me, since I think that Demon Days (though a pretty decent record on its own terms) is the second worst album of Damon Albarn’s career, following Liesure. (Let’s just ignore the soundtrack and that Democrazy thing.) Though the Gorillaz can knock out a gem as good as most any Blur classic (“19-2000,” “Dirty Harry,” “Dare,” “Every Planet We Reach Is Dead,” “Feel Good Inc.,” “Rehash,” “5/4,” “Slow Country”), both albums are largely comprised of tossed-off filler by a songwriter who definitely can do much better.

“Kids With Guns” falls on the line separating the hits from the misses – on the album, it’s a bit too leaden and directionless, but gets by on some clever production and some decent rhythmic hooks. Hot Chip improve on the track significantly, immediately dropping the claustrophobic quality of the original in favor of a spacious arrangement built around a simple melancholy keyboard figure that wouldn’t sound out of place on a post-Kid A Radiohead album. The vocal hooks don’t seem nearly as overbearing, and Neneh Cherry’s vocals are given some room to move and supply some degree of catharsis as the beat picks up in the second half of the track. (Click here to buy it from Juno.)

The Netherlands “Teenage Sun” – If you’re going to be a band that insists on putting all of its rock moves in aesthetic scare quotes, it’s absolutely necessary to bring some strong hooks to the table. The Netherlands tackle their big cheesy riffs with Weezer tactics, offering them up unapologetically while doing absolutely nothing to hide their dorky indie nature. Keyboards are prominent, the vocal melody sounds like it could have come off of a Folk Implosion record, and their sense of menace is closer to that of a Transformers cartoon than anything remotely macho or Satanic. This is about as close to metal as a bag of bbq potato chips tastes like a plate of ribs, but that’s not really a problem, is it? (Click here for the Netherlands’ MySpace page.)

Elsewhere:

Three great EMP papers: No Fat Chicks?: Weight and Rebellion During A Hard-Rock Adolescence by Maura Johnston, Lost In Translation: Musical Selection In Figure Skating by Maria Tessa Sciarrino, and A Double History of the Supremes’ “Love Child” by Michaelangelo Matos.

Can anyone comment on the soundtrack to United 93?

The Smartest Place You Can Get Naked

Jake & Jackie “Naked Girl” – Up until last week, Jake Fogelnest and Jackie Clarke had a radio show on the NYC station formerly known as K-Rock. Since Howard Stern left terrestrial radio for Sirius, the station dropped its rock format, went all talk, changed its call letters, and became Free FM. It seems rather counterintuitive to switch to all-talk after Stern left the station. It only serves to emphasize the lack of their former star player, and wouldn’t it have made more sense to be all-talk with Stern on board in order keep talk radio fans in one place rather than abruptly shifting into a generic rock format as soon as he left the airwaves every day?

Anyway, Jake and Jackie somehow scored a late night show on Free FM. I came to the show fairly late, but most recently, it could best be described as a couple of UCB comedy hipsters co-opting the style and rhythms of loudmouth talk radio without indulging in its creepiest impulses. Fogelnest is barely older than I am, but at this point, he’s a broadcasting veteran of over ten years, and it shows. He embraces his role as a radio crank so fully that he often seems about twenty years older on the air, sometimes even channeling the prickly, charmingly abrasive sensibilities of Bob Grant and Bob Lassiter. What comes through in Fogelnest’s show is a genuine love of talk radio’s energy and off-the-cuff candor, but also an obvious ambivalence about its lowest-common-denominator tendencies. The resulting program is an acquired taste for sure, but it is a gift to a person like me who has always enjoyed the banter of the Stern show but cannot tolerate its casual misogyny and homophobia.

In this clip from last month, Fogelnest and Clarke wrestle with the post-Stern cliche of bringing in a girl to get naked on the radio. After a cute Williamsburg girl offers to take her top off on the air, Jake attempts to rationalize going through with it because he thinks the fact that she is attractive in a way unlike that of the standard radio bimbo is enough to make it interesting. (Let’s call it the “Suicide Girl defense.”) Clarke, however, is not having it. She berates Fogelnest and several callers who attempt to justify what she considers to be an act of degradation. Rather than immediately discredit her feminist point of view, the show embraces that conflict and milks it for comedic effect while also facillitating a fairly thoughtful debate on the topic. Clarke ultimately gets her way, and successfully subverts her role as the sassy yet accomodating female sidekick.

From what I know now, the show has been cancelled by Free FM, and will return shortly, most likely on satellite radio. (Fogelnest and Clarke have made some very strong hints about their destination on their website, but have yet to make a formal announcement.) Archived clips are still available via their podcast on iTunes, and will be apparently be hosted on their website before too long.

(Click here for the Jake and Jackie MySpace page.)

Off White Is Now The New White

My new column for the asap debuts today. The first column is here, and includes a couple audio snippets of an interview with me as well as reviews and mp3s of songs by The Fiery Furnaces, A Frames, and Nouveau Riche.

The Coup featuring Silk E “BabyLet’sHaveABabyBeforeBushDoSomethin’Crazy” – In as much as it lacks rapping entirely, this is a very atypical track for The Coup, but in spite of some pretty solid hip hop tracks (I’ll be covering one of them in the next AP column, actually), it’s the most impressive and revealing song on their new album. It’s basically a paranoid slow jam, and though I can imagine a dozen ways a track like this could have gone wrong, Boots Riley basically came up with a dozen ways to make it exactly right. A lot of the quality comes down to the detail in the arrangement, especially the understated lead string melody that tugs at the heart like a nagging doubt, and the subtle woodwind notes that pop up momentarily when the lyrics shift into cautious optimism. This is a top drawer modern soul song that remains totally focused on the present tense and nearly devoid of musical nostalgia in spite of borrowing liberally from the past. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Joan of Arc “Many Time I’ve Mistaken” – Despite what some haters may believe, Joan of Arc are not strangers to musical prettiness. Granted, their sprawling catalog contains far more than a few clunkers, but at their finest, Tim Kinsella and his collaborators are capable of some truly gorgeous high concept folk ballads. Live In Chicago 1999 has the highest hit to miss ratio, featuring the meandering “When The Parish School Dismisses And The Children Running Sing,” the vaguely jazzy “If It Feels Good/Do It,” and the moody identity crisis “Me (Plural),” but the grandest peaks tend to come on their most inconsistent albums. How Can Anything So Little Be Any More is virtually unlistenable aside from the stately, heartbreaking “Ne Mosquitos Pass,” and The Gap is redeemed by “As Black Pants Make Cat Hairs Appear” and “Me and America,” both of which seem to stumble drunkenly into, respectively, an anthemic rock chorus and an extended, breathtaking string coda. “Many Times I’ve Mistaken,” like most of the songs from the forthcoming Everything, All At Once is surprisingly straightforward for the band. There’s simply no catch here – it’s just Tim singing one of the best melodies of his career over a graceful arrangement of acoustic guitars and cello. (Click here for Record Label’s Joan of Arc page.)

The Vows That Went Up In The Air

Marit Larsen “Only A Fool” – After having already posted the obvious single “Don’t Save Me” a few months ago, trying to pick another song from Marit Larsen’s Under The Surface for your consideration proved to be a very difficult task. Lord, I don’t even know if I could pick a single favorite from the album at this point, it’s become some kind of brutal six-way tie. It’s just sort of aggravating to me to hear this record, knowing that there’s probably literally millions of people in America who would love it, and at the rate things are going, will not ever hear it. This isn’t some kind of quirky, indie, obscure thing – it’s an elegantly composed and immaculately produced middle-of-the-road pop album with sweeping fairytale power ballads and a highly ingratiating Scandinavian version of bluegrass, country, and general “Americana.” This is a record for everybody, but especially moms and little sisters. But please don’t let that put you off! (Click here to buy it from CDON.)

Catlow “Kiss The World (Cadence Weapon ‘Good Looks’ Remix)” – Catlow’s original mix was fine enough, but Cadence Weapon does a good job of roughing it up and upping the oomph level across the board. On Catlow’s intinerary in this song: Discos, rock shows, driving into the shadows. Godspeed! (Click here for Boompa’s Catlow site.)

She’s A Frozen Fire

Buffalo Daughter “Elephante Marinos” – The new Buffalo Daughter album finds the band trying on a number of grooves, from art-disco and hippie funk to stoned shoegazing and Red Hot Chili Peppers-esque bass slapping, but nothing suits them quite as well as this keyboard-centric neon-lit strut. As the singers discuss some super hot “beauty queen,” the music seems to either react or pretend not to react to this woman (represented in the arrangement as the drum beat) as she nonchalantly walks down a city street. Guitars wink, a high pitched tone whistles, an overheated keyboard does its best to look away, and the girl even stops traffic on the instrumental break. (Click here to buy it from Amazon Japan.)

Shapes and Sizes “Weekends At A Time” – Generally, I do not pay close attention to lyrics the first few times that I hear a song, and so I often find myself in a position where my initial impression of a song’s lyrical content is revealed to be hilariously off the mark. Until I actually paid full attention to the words, I’d somehow gotten the idea that this song was about this woman imagining weekend vacations as a sort of heroic expedition, and trying to convince her companion that going hiking in the mountains, exploring quaint towns, or renting out a beach house is some kind of noble calling. But no, that’s not it at all, and now my apparent desire for an art rock version of the New York Times travel section is revealed to you all. (Click here for Asthmatic Kitty’s official Shapes and Sizes page.)

Get Your Damn Pause Off Of Me

Due to technical problems, medical issues, and a backlog of work that I need to complete by the end of the day, Fluxblog is still on hiatus, possibly through the end of the week. I might get back into it tomorrow, but it’s more likely that things will be back to normal on Monday. I’m sorry about the interruption – I take a certain pride in keeping this site daily on weekdays, so this sort of thing probably bugs me a lot more than it does you, who have a choice of, I don’t know, five thousand other music blogs these days. In the meantime, I suggest these posts in particular.

Eppy discusses modern pop’s roots in novelty in this Stylus “The Aesthetics of Pop” podcast.

Marathon Packs has very early Talking Heads demos from 1975.

Green Pea-ness revisits Dexy’s Midnight Runners.

Ghostface meets Eugene Mirman at the Riff Market.

Sasha Frere-Jones offers astrological advice to pop stars, and gets me very worried about that next Walkmen album.

Get Ready To Become Ultra-Fuckable

Eugene Mirman “Revolve” – I’m still slogging through an obnoxious combination of aggravating tooth pain, the daze of medication, and poorly-timed technical issues, so please forgive me for not doing more with the site today. In the meantime, please enjoy Eugene Mirman’s very funny riff about Revolve, an ill-advised repackaging of the Bible’s New Testament in the form of a magazine for teenage girls. (Click here to pre-order it from Sub Pop.)

Please note that the mp3s for yesterday’s post are still unavailable, but will be soon. Or soon-ish.

My Arts Is Crafty Darts

Please be patient with me. I am having problems with the new mp3 server, and it may take a day or so for things to be exactly right. I understand that there is a problem and I do not need to be reminded of this.

Scissor Sisters @ Bowery Ballroom 4/23/2006
Take Your Mama / I Can’t Decide / Tits on the Radio / She’s My Man / Laura / Paul McCartney / Everybody Wants The Same Thing / Kiss You Off / Mary / The Other Side / I Don’t Feel Like Dancing / Comfortably Numb / Music Is The Victim / Land of a Thousand Words // Filthy/Gorgeous

Scissor Sisters “I Can’t Decide (Live @ Mercury Lounge 2005)” – The Scissor Sisters are such a fun and dependably entertaining live band that even though I came into this show with a raging toothache and stoned on vicodin, I was still able to have a pretty great time. Compared to previous Scissor Sisters shows that I’ve seen in NYC, this was a slightly mellower crowd than usual, but those last two shows that I saw were basically two of the most energetic audiences that I’ve ever been in, full stop. As you can see, the band is focusing on material from their forthcoming album, and I’m pleased to tell you that it’s going to be a pretty great record. Most of the new songs are holdovers from last summer’s gigs, but three of the selections were brand new to me. “I Don’t Feel Like Dancing” is like the ultimate Scissor Sisters song, maintaining an ideal balance of disco and Elton-ish pop. It’s a pretty obvious single, as is the rather Richard X-ish Ana Matronic showcase “Kiss You Off.” My favorite of the new songs is still “I Can’t Decide,” which has a melody so instantly ingratiating and comfortable that it feels like I’ve known it all my life. The live version that I’ve posted here is rather rough in terms of sound quality, but you should be able to the get the idea. Unfortunately it is just an audio track, and so you can’t see the adorable little jig that Jake Shears and Del Marquis perform at the end! (Click here for the official Scissor Sisters website.)

Ghostface Killah @ Nokia Theatre 4/22/2006
This is not in order, and incomplete: Be Easy, Back Like That, Ice Cream, Nutmeg, Apollo Kids, One, Child’s Play, We Made It, Mighty Healthy, Stay True, Cherchez La Ghost, Iron Man’s Theme, Wildflower, Fish, Biscuits, Run, Holla, Metal Lungies, Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthin To Fuck Wit, Triumph, C.R.E.A.M., Shimmy Shimmy Ya, I Want Pussy

Ghostface Killah “The Champ” – Though there were some changes in the setlist, this was more or less the same show that I saw at the Fader tent at SXSW in terms of flow and performance. All of the cool little things that seemed spontaneous to me in that show is now revealed to me as shtick, though it’s a damn good one. My main frustration with this set is that it only contained two songs from Fishscale, and neither of them would make my top ten on that album. My guess is that the DJ simply did not have the instrumentals for anything but the singles, but man, all I know is that if I wrote a song as ideally suited to opening a show as “The Champ,” I’d do everything in my power to make sure that it was in the set whether the vinyl was available or not. The same goes for “Shakey Dog” and “Kilo.” (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Papoose “Alphabetical Slaughter” – This was quite a bill, with performances going pretty much nonstop from 9 PM up til they cut out the power on Ghostface around 12:30. Non-Phixion started the show with a single song before making way for a harmonica-playing rapper whose name I can’t recall. After that, M-1 from Dead Prez came out to do a set focusing on his new solo record, most of which were heavy on R&B choruses and sounded like him trying to get on the radio circa 1997. Unsurprisingly, the highlights of his set were “Hell Yeah” and “Hip Hop.” After that, DJ Premier played a crowd pleasing set with a guest spot from Jeru The Damaja, who was pretty damn amazing. I would have much rather have seen fifteen minutes of Jeru than that harmonica guy. Mix tape star Papoose followed that up with a somewhat uneven set, but kinda wowed me with the opening “Alphabetical Slaughter,” an epic of alliteration that is like the hip hop cousin of The Fiery Furnaces’ “Sullivan’s Social Slub.” Slick Rick was the last of the opening acts, and was predictably charismatic and entertaining, though his hit-heavy set was a bit too brief. (Click here for Papoose’s MySpace page.)

Tom Breihan has a much better write-up of the show on Status Ain’t Hood.

When Every Fake-It Decides To Make It

Robert Pollard @ Irving Plaza, 4/20/2006
Gold / I Surround You Naked / Blessed In An Open Head / Get A Faceful / Light Show / Dancing Girls and Dancing Men / Supernatural Car Lover / Mute Superstar / Flowering Orphan / The Right Thing / Make Use / Hammer In Your Eyes / Kick Me and Cancel / U.S. Mustard Company / Dolphins of Color / Boxing About / Maggie Turns To Flies / The Numbered Head / Serious Birdwoman (You Turn Me On) / I’m A Strong Lion / 50 Year Old Baby / Fresh Threats, Salad Shooters and Zip Guns / Conquerer of the Moon / I Feel Gone Again / Choking Tara (Creamy Version) / I’m A Widow / A Boy In Motion / Love Is Stronger Than Witchcraft / Look At Your Life / 7th Level Shutdown / Get Under It / Kingdom Without / Recovering // Girls of Wild Strawberries / Game of Pricks / Sad If I Lost It / Gold Star For Robot Boy / Little Lines / My Valuable Hunting Knife / My Kind of Soldier / Don’t Stop Now

Robert Pollard “Love Is Stronger Than Witchcraft” – In most ways, this was not very different from seeing a Guided By Voices show. Unlike a GBV show, this set was relatively light on oldies and beer-fueled singalongs. Also unlike a GBV show, the band was tight from start to finish, and the sound mix wasn’t murky and Bob’s vocals were crystal clear. Jon Wurster is by far the best drummer to ever play with Bob, and his performance over the course of two and a half hours was consistently heavy-hitting, energetic, and dynamic. He does wonders for the material, especially on tunes like “Dancing Girls and Dancing Men,” “The Numbered Head,” “Maggie Turns To Flies,” and “The Right Thing.” The latter was almost certainly the single best live performance I’ve ever seen by a Pollard-fronted band, both for the inspired performance, and the band’s low-key theatrics. Tommy Keene’s presence is very positive as well, especially for his contributions as a keyboard player, something I think Pollard’s desperately needed for quite some time. Though I don’t have anything against Doug Gillard or Tobin Sprout, Keene seems to be a much better influence on Bob in terms of trying to broaden the range of sounds in the show.

After six years of pining, I finally got to see Pollard play “Choking Tara,” and with the full-band arrangement no less! I suppose that’s what I get for being very patient. I was quite glad to see them do “Sad If I Lost It,” “Little Lines,” and “Mute Superstar” as well, though it does make me wonder why he’s all of sudden playing so much from the Mag Earwhig album after ignoring it for so long on GBV tours. (Click here to buy it from Merge Records.)

Aren’t You Curious? I Think You’re Curious

The Fiery Furnaces @ Bowery Ballroom 4/19/2006
Chris Michaels / Crystal Clear / Straight Street / Police Sweater Blood Vow / Benton Harbor Blues / Slavin’ Away / Rehearsing My Choir / In My Little Thatched Hut / I’m In No Mood / Black Hearted Boy / Bitter Tea / Teach Me Sweetheart / Waiting To Know You / My Dog Was Lost… / Evergreen / Single Again // Asthma Attack / Bow Wow / Blueberry Boat

The Fiery Furnaces “Bitter Tea” – They’re still playing without keyboards. They really, really, really, really, realllllllllllllllllllllllllllly need to bring the keyboards back. Some observations, comments, complaints:

* Though the heavy rock band thing works very, very well for “Chris Michaels,” and the current live arrangements for “Slavin’ Away,” “Police Sweater Blood Vow,” and “Benton Harbor Blues” are quite excellent, for the most part it results in the band utterly demolishing the nuances of their songs. This is just as well for the up tempo rock songs, but it makes a brilliantly composed gem like “Bitter Tea” seem like a garbled mess.

* “Teach Me Sweetheart” was totally butchered. Rather than go with the simple, amiable acoustic version from the KEXP session, or make an attempt to recreate the meditative beauty of the studio recording, they just plowed through it with Eleanor singing over riffs that didn’t quite match the vocal melody. They seriously should rethink this, especially since it has clearly become one of the most popular songs in their catalog.

* However, “Police Sweater Blood Vow” is fabulous in its new arrangement, and I can only hope that a) a high quality live recording of it surfaces soon or b) they do the right thing and release this version as a single. Everything wonderful about the song remains intact, but the guitars are bolder, the drums are groovier, and Jason Loewenstein’s bassline is very Motown-esque.

* “I’m In No Mood” comes off much better live, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to love that song. It’s good, but it just sorta bugs me.

* Even in a messy live version and transposed to guitar, that main pizzicato-ish keyboard motif on the verses of “Bitter Tea” gets me excited like few other bits of music in 2006.

(Click here to buy it from Insound.)

A Boy Who Plays House And A Girl Who Plays Dead

Persephone’s Bees “Way To Your Heart” – As the spring kicks in and most everyone’s hormones are on full blast, it’s good to have a song that captures the upside of a crush as well as this, with its arrangement flip-flopping between light-hearted cabaret piano and melodramatic rock guitar, and its coy lyrics about the singer’s scheme for seducing the objection of her affections. She’s clearly having fun with the infatuation, but she wouldn’t mind taking a shortcut, and so she pleads – show me the way to your heart! (Click here for the official Persephone’s Bees site.)

Pony Up “Only Feelgood” – Lyrics about mixed feelings and quiet paranoia are a perfect match for these rainy day chords and bittersweet leads, especially when they throw in that droning accordion keyboard setting, which may as well be the official musical shorthand for ambivalence. Most interestingly, the fear in this song is of miserable domesticity, as stories and scenarios play out in the singer’s head, forcing her to confront whether she’s actually unhappy with her relationship, or if she’s just afraid of it limiting her options later on. (Click here to pre-order it from Dim Mak.)

Elsewhere:

Marathon Packs has an mp3 of the Village People’s painfully catchy “Sex Over The Phone,” as well as a YouTube embed of its brilliant, incredibly hilarious video.

Who Needs Radio has a very pretty song from Italy’s Tanakh.

Rip Through The Curtains And There I Am

The Passionistas “Going Gay” – Normally, I’m not very fond of getting large folders full of artwork and papers along with cds that I get in the mail, but there was something very intriguing about the spiral-bound book full of abstract marker drawings scanned out of another spiral-bound book that came with The Passionista’s cdr. It also came with a note describing how they came to reject rock and roll only to realize that rock and roll had rejected them, and that they have embraced pop and hip hop, and have become a “free band.” So as you can imagine, this set up some very strange expectations, and so I was quite surprised to find out that the cd was full of catchy, silly, weird songs that were most certainly rooted in old school rock and roll. It was as though they had rejected the culture of nostalgia around rock only to tap directly into the spirit of that music. “Going Gay” is a highlight, a sorta Alex Chilton-ish tune that seems to be about a guy who is apparently becoming gay because…well, gay guys sing better? It’s not very clear, but you’ll probably be singing “the girls they sing in just one key / but the boys they sing in harmony” for the rest of the day. (Click here to buy it from the Passionistas’ MySpace page.)

The Peachwaves “Too Much Shit” – When I first encountered the Peachwaves on Shirley Braha‘s New York Noise show, their music did not make as much of an impression on me as their video, which looks like a low budget indie rock clip made with the aesthetics of an American Apparel ad. It’s….distracting. And not just in the sense that I spent half the video thinking “Oh no, did American Apparel start a record label?!?” The good news, however, is that outside of the context of that video, the song stands up very well as a lo-fi pop tune about initiating a relationship to alleviate boredom. The music echoes the sentiment of the lyrics nicely, with its grey, gloomy tones contrasting with moments of very forced enthusiasm. It sounds a little bit like the moody, self-destructive little sister of Tegan & Sara’s excellent “Speak Slow.” (Click here for the Peachwaves’ MySpace page.)

Elsewhere: At long last, my cartoonist pal John Cei Douglas has finished his website. Point your peepers at SHOT FOR MEAT! Hire this guy!