YouTube Rodeo: Sunny Day Real Estate Perform "Seven" On Jimmy Fallon

As we've said elsewhere, we listened to Diary just about every day in 1994 after the set was released in May of that year.

Today's Hotness: Arc In Round, Evening Magazine, Superchunk

>> This is our final post of the year. See you in 2009.

>> For those of you not monitoring our Twitter feed last week, Philly based shoegaze quartet Relay has been reborn as Arc In Round. The re-christened act will likely make a big splash with its new material during a brief jaunt around the country in January with the fiery Scottish four Frightened Rabbit. As if that supporting slot wasn't auspicious enough, Arc In Round will also play one of the planned Swirlies reunion dates in late February (we've posted all the Arc In Round dates below). As far as the new music goes, get thee over to the band's MySpace casa forthwith and stream "2" and "Sounder." We're pleased with the former in particular, as its bending guitar chords and generally ethereal awesomeness reminds us very much of Lorelei's shuddering "Mimesis" (from the groundbreaking Spin-Art comp ...One Last Kiss). Arc In Round recorded its new tracks at Strange Weather in Brooklyn, and we're hoping there is a new EP or full-length in the offing; Relay's last two releases were issued on Bubble Core (whose own comp The First Bubble Core Records Label Sampler is also quite good, incidentally). We featured Relay and its practice space in our occasion series Show Us Yours here in Aug. 2006; we reviewed the band's Feb. 2007 show at TT The Bear's right here.

01/16 -- Johnny Brenda’s -- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
01/19 -- Rock and Roll Hotel -- Washington, DC
01/20 -- Talking Head -- Baltimore, Maryland
01/22 -- Courtyard Cafe -- Urbana, Illinois
01/23 -- Maintenance Shop -- Ames, Iowa
01/24 -- Empty Bottle -- Chicago, Illinois
01/26 -- Carnegie Mellon University -- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
02/26 -- Johnny Brenda’s -- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

>> Nine-piece chamber pop upstarts Evening Magazine -- also out of Philadelphia -- are slated to issue a debut EP The Ride Across Lake Constance Jan. 27 on Ohso Records. The collective is helmed by former BC Camplight guitarist David Disbrow, who along with recording engineer Kevin Francis and others has created a multifaceted, widescreen and technicolor collection. The desperate tone of lead track "Apple Eye" is more reminiscent of Funeral-era Arcade Fire than most everything else that has been compared to the highly regarded Canadians in recent memory -- but it is slightly more delicate, too: the foundation is acoustic guitar and snare, but horns and burbling space synths provide surprising inflections. Evening Magazine is recording a full-length set in the same North Philadelphia shed in which the EP -- a very strong calling card, the totality of which can be streamed at the act's MySpace wigwam -- was crafted. We'll keep an eye out for release information on that.

Evening Magazine -- "Apple Eye" -- The Ride Across Lake Constance EP
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[stalk the band's MySpace to see when the EP goes on sale]

>> Rock Sellout here was the first to indicate to us that clicky clicky faves Superchunk will issue something called Sur La Bouch -- Live In Montreal on Jan. 13. The set -- the fourth volume in the band's Clambakes series -- contains a live bootleg of the band performing live on March 22 of that year, when the indie rockers were out supporting their amazing release On The Mouth. The performance was at the club Backstreet, and it was recorded by a chap named Howard Billerman, who apparently played drums on Arcade Fire's aforementioned Funeral and currently owns and engineers recordings at Hotel 2 Tango Studios in Montreal. On The Mouth was one of those records that spurred our ever-expanding interest in indie rock, so we're excited to hear a recording from this period. We saw Superchunk for the first time in the summer of '93 or '94, perhaps headlining over Velocity Girl and Sunny Day Real Estate. Or perhaps not -- sometimes our memories get all mixed up.

>> We just got turned on to the site Bandstand Busking via an email from New York dream pop duo Asobi Seksu, who recently were featured on the site here doing stripped-down bet very affecting versions of "Gliss," "Merry Christmas, I Don't Want To Fight Tonight" and "Walking On The Moon." The site currently features about a dozen other sessions from various bands recorded around the greater London area, but the ones you definitely need to look at are these three clips of Frightened Rabbit fronter Scott Hutchison doing acoustic versions of "My Backwards Walk," "Poke" and "I Feel Better" right here. Hot stuff.

Today's Hotness: Sunny Day Real Estate, Max Tundra

>> In some ways, this song was pretty much the end of music. The video above is fabled second-wave emo foursome Sunny Day Real Estate captured live on MTV's "120 Minutes" in 1994. The clip was alluded to by MTV's Subterranean Blog, which recently has been going a long way toward making us not loathe the network. We'll, we expect we'll continue to loathe the network, but at least the online piece has been wiping away some of the tarnish. It appears that the embed code they offer is not a true embed, so if you click on the video above be prepared for a little trip over to MTV.com. It is well worth it, fortunately. Although fronter Jeremy Enigk's voice doesn't seem up to the challenge during this performance. But, even so, this song is amazing. Not quite as amazing as the devastating closer of Diary, "Sometimes," but pretty damn close. If you are one of those odd people that don't own Diary, you need to really take a hard look at your priorities.

>> We were thrilled to read at trusty DrownedInSound that plunderphonic-laptronic-electro-whosey-whatsis act Max Tundra will finally release a new record later this year. Max Tundra is a pseudonym for London-based electronic pop supergenius Ben Jacobs, who has titled his third full-length Parallax Error Beheads You. Mr. Jacobs has been promising a new record for more than two years. Parallax Error Beheads You will be issued by Domino in the U.K. Oct. 13. A single for the track "Will Get Fooled Again" will be issued Sept. 29. A quick spin around the Internets produced no release information for North America, but we'll keep you posted. The most recent Max Tundra longplayer, the sublime Mastered By Guy At The Exchange, was issued eons ago in 2002. However, it was simply the provocative title to 2000's Some Best Friend You Turned Out To Be that first lured us into Jacobs' world. He is giving away the synthy banger "Cabasa" at the Max Tundra MySpace hacienda, but we'll save you the trip and post it below. Max Tundra will tour the UK with Hot Chip from mid-October.

Max Tundra -- "Cabasa" -- Mastered By Guy At The Exchange
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[buy Max Tundra records from Insound here]

>> A new School Of Seven Bells track premiered at Stereogum Thursday, and it is a wonderful piece of beat-driven dream pop. The track, "Half Asleep," will be released as a single (backed with the subdued electro-folk number "Caldo") Sept. 16; those who pre-order through the Ghostly Store or Insound will receive codes for free downloads on the day of the release. The songs will also appear on the full length Alpinisms. The full length and the single will be released by Ghostly. School Of Seven Bells is fronted by Alejandra and Claudia Deheza; the latter woman was formerly with the exemplary dream-pop act Daylight's For The Birds. School Of Seven Bells performs at The Middle East in Cambridge Nov. 18 with M83, making the bill easily the dreamiest of the year in Boston. You'd best buy tickets now, as M83 already sold out the club earlier this year.

Today's Hotness: Superman Revenge Squad, The Diggs

>> Superman Revenge Squad recently recorded a radio session for Earwax Radio and Wax-Music has posted here a stream of the show. Even better the site has posted an MP3 of a solid take on the Croydon, England-based band's -- well, Ben Parker's, as he is the sole member of his Squad -- track "Idiot Food." This performance is particularly notable because Mr. Parker -- usually the best kind of dark and cynical pessimist -- here sounds almost optimistic. This is nowhere more true than when he intones the final words "we're both doing fine / and this song means nothing." The recording isn't as sharp, production-wise, as the version released earlier this year as a digital single by the God Is In The TV 'zine, but that's to be expected from a live recording. Even so, we remain steadfast in our conviction that Parker is one of the biggest talents in contemporary music in the U.K.

Superman Revenge Squad -- "Idiot Food (Live)" -- Earwax Radio Session
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>> Brooklyn-based trio The Diggs recently recorded a session as one of WOXY's Lounge Acts and you can stream the whole session right here. We reviewed the band's record Ctrl-Alt-Del here in March (we first wrote about the act here in February) and found the set to be an arresting revisitation of the desperate second-wave emo sounds of Mineral and Sunny Day Real Estate. WOXY has posted two MP3s of songs that were album highlights and both exhibit a band that swings, performing with a little looser in vibe than the some nearly overwrought recordings on Ctrl-Alt-Del. "Careen" is almost jaunty, breezy, at least until the song strides into its denouement, during which singer Timothy Lannen becomes almost frenzied as he recites "there are thoughts that seldom survive." Download it and the track "Brigante" at the link above.

>> We want to briefly note the end of the blog The Dead Part Of You, which we started reading about year ago. We will especially miss the show reviews, and here is hoping Mr. Dead Part finds inspiration to blog in the future.

Review: The Diggs | Ctrl-Alt-Del [MP3s]

What else is left to say about The Diggs' sophomore set that we didn't say already? First, there is the matter of fronter Timothy Lannen's earnest vocal delivery. We sort of bullet-pointed his style as akin to that of Sunny Day Real Estate's Jeremy Enigk and Mineral's Chris Simpson here last month, but that was admittedly a bit lazy. While Messrs. Enigk and Simpson's singing to us conveys a vertiginous desperation, Lannen can communicate calm and confidence (the songs "Careen" and "Brigante" come to mind) that the latter singers were many times (this must be past-tense, as their styles have since evolved) too unstrung to attain. Of course, in other places -- including "You Really Used To Light Up The Room" and the title track to Ctrl-Alt-Del -- Mr. Lannen approaches commensurate levels of unhingedness as the aforementioned gentlemen, but we wouldn't call it his hallmark.

The defining characteristics of The Diggs' music are big dense melodies and measured dynamics. Rich bass anchors layers of guitars that we expect are difficult for the trio to duplicate live (we regularly call this "the Kitchens Of Distinction conundrum" during some of our nerdier music nerd conversations over pints) and propulsive drumming (with some really pleasing shell resonance on the snare) drives the compositions. It's not a new formula, as our belabored comparisons above attest, but The Diggs imbue their songs with ample energy and raw emotion that render formula sort of irrelevant. Sugarspun released Ctrl-Alt-Del March 11. The band performs two dates later this month in Brooklyn, including a record release show March 28. Both dates are detailed below.

[Nagging questions: How is it that there is no video of the Sunny Day Real Estate heartstopper "Sometimes" on YouTube? How is it that right now if you search YouTube the only recognizable band covering Sunny Day is Paramore? Oh yeah, here is the awesome.]

The Diggs -- "Careen" -- Ctrl-Alt-Del
The Diggs -- "Recovery Forever" -- Ctrl-Alt-Del
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[buy Ctrl-Alt-Del from Amazon here]

The Diggs: Internets | Myspace | YouTube | Flickr

03.21 -- Soundfix -- Brooklyn, NY
03.28 -- Union Hall -- Brooklyn, NY