Review: Auto Interiors | Let's Agree To Deceive Our Best Friends [MP3]

The name Auto Interiors sounds like the title to a late '80s Rush album or a Gary Numan cover band. But no, it is the moniker of an arresting power-pop quartet operating out of Cambridge, Mass. After being contacted by a friendly Rykodisc rep about the nearly decade-old band and checking them out, we were easily sold by its hooky compositions. Still, it took a while to quantify what we enjoy about the band. Part of it is obvious: the vocals of Eric Waxwood and the chunky guitars are aurally similar to those of another important Boston act -- Buffalo Tom (incidentally, Stereogum has information about the forthcoming Buffalo Tom set and an MP3 here). But there is another element pervading Auto Interior's hummable tunes, and after some consideration we think we can name it: it is a detached, vaudeville tunefulness (check out "Small Death") of the sort prominent in the songwriting of Franklin Bruno, he best known for his work in Nothing Painted Blue. Based on the band's MySpace dojo, we think Auto Interiors would argue its compositions are more Beatles and Kinks homage (check those "ahhhhhs" on "I Suppose," which is available for download at the band's MySpace hizzy) than Tin Pan Alley-tinged.

Either way, we're talking about eminently listenable music -- we're just embarrassed someone had to point out something to us that has been right under our proverbial noses as long as we've lived in Boston. Let's Agree To Deceive Our Best Friends, the band's sophomore set, is packed tightly with catchy tunes, 11 in a mere 34 minutes, so make sure to hit the repeat button on your IPod as it blows by all too quickly. The band will be performing live on Boston radio station WBCN Sunday May 6 at 10PM, for those of you who still quaintly adhere to terrestrial radio. To catch AI live any time soon, your best best is a gig at Piano's in Manhattan May 10. Auto Interiors' Let's Agree... was released by Rykodisc March 13. The set ends big with the uncharacteristically dark and dense strummer "Green Arrow," a bracing psych-rock amalgamation that sounds like equal parts Yo La Tengo and The Cult, which we're posting for a limited time below.

Auto Interiors -- "Green Arrow" -- Let's Agree to Deceive Our Best Friends
[right click and save as]
[buy Auto Interiors music from Newbury Comics here and Rykodisc here]

Auto Interiors: InterWeb | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

Today's Hotness: Photon Band, Dinosaur Jr., Last.FM

>> Remember a couple months ago when we posted here that long-running power-pop concern The Photon Band was about to release a five-song EP called Get Down Here In The Stratosphere? Well, the initial March 8 release date came and went, but a new MySpace bulletin promises the set should be available at unnamed digital storefronts this coming week (perhaps it will even end up in the Philebrity Player?). We'll let you know when we see it pop up. Philly-based Photon Band, fronted by one-time Lilys-member Art DiFuria, also plans to release a full-length set in June called Back Down To Earth. Not up on your Photon Band lore? The act's first release was a very good single on Darla "747 (Don't Worry)," which was issued in 1996. You can learn more here, and you can snag most if not all of the band's catalog from EMusic (incidentally, "747" also appears on the compilation Our Own ESP Driven Scene). If we had to pick a favorite Photon Band cut, we'd be forced to pick two. Here they are, for a limited time:

The Photon Band -- "Jealousy" -- All Young In The Soul
The Photon Band -- "Genius" -- Oh The Sweet, Sweet Changes
[right click and save as]
[buy Photon Band records from Darla here and EMusic here]

>> This simple Q+A at Exclaim! -- probably executed via email -- is one of the more insightful interviews with guitar god J Mascis that we've read. And we're not just saying that because he professes an affinity for the erstwhile teen soap "Dawson's Creek." Mascis discusses his own, shall we say, unique conversational style. He also states that he likes that he hasn't committed suicide yet, he was both pleased and disappointed by an appearance with Tony Bennett, and on and on. There is really interesting information here, and the reason we are fairly certain it was done via email is because any journalist that doesn't pose a follow up question to Mascis' mentions of suicide and Lollapalooza should be fired for not doing their job. Dinosaur Jr. performs on Letterman tomorrow night, and then the trio's excellent new record Beyond will street Tuesday. We reviewed the record here early in the month. It's awesome.

>> We've followed with some interest the rise of Last.FM, so we were especially interested to read here at Digital Music News that preliminary acquisition discussions between it and Viacom have floated a valuation of $450 million on the British company. While current exchange rates make that only 225 million pounds or so, it is still an impressive figure representing a whole lotta scrobbles. In February we speculated here that Last.FM is a likely acquisition target. Our guess for a logical suitor was AOL, and we would be surprised to learn the AOL and Last.FM haven't had any contact. While you ponder the fate of Last.FM, how about checking out our profile?

>> On The Download has the trailer for that documentary of the Silver Jews tour of Israel here. Dig it.

Saturday Night's Alright For Frightened: New FR Live Set

[Greetings music fans. We apologize for the recent pause -- we've been dealing with a robbery at :: clicky clicky :: world headquarters, and we've also been enjoying some weekend guests. And, incidentally, as we write this, we are suffering through some intensely bad smells coming out of one end of our greyhound -- we'll let you guess which end. Anyway, let's talk about rock music. -- Ed.]

This one almost slipped by us: Glaswegian indie rock savants Frightened Rabbit are selling via EMusic MP3s of their performance at South By Southwest last month. Interestingly, the label listed at the EMusic page is Self Starter Foundation -- a hint of things to come, perhaps? Even more interesting is there is a fiery live performance of the trio's newer track "Fast Blood," which is one of a series of demos that found their way into our hands recently via a kind benefactor. The tail end of the recording contains hysterical banter about Bob Dylan and bat poop, and then the band hops into a thumping version of "Music Now." The highlight of the short set is a frantic rendition of the excellent cut "The Greys." Just download the whole thing, it's hot. In case you missed Stylus's recent survey of the band, which includes a few MP3s from the band's excellent 2006 release Sings The Greys (still not released in the states, but we're hearing a release could occur this fall as a set-up for the issuance of Frightened Rabbit's planned sophomore set), you can check it out here. Finally, here is the band's excellent new-ish track "My Backwards Walk," which they've been offering via their MySpace hutch for a few weeks.

Frightened Rabbit -- "My Backwards Walk" -- MySpace
[right click and save as]

[buy Frightened Rabbit music from EMusic here, the only place cool enough to sell it right now]

Today's Hotness: Lilys, Dinosaur Jr., Qui

>> Hot blog Built On A Weak Spot here examines Lilys' stellar 1992 debut In The Presence Of Nothing, and offers up a few MP3s to boot. The record is obscenely out-of-print, but there are used copies out there. In the comments to the post we advised interested parties to track down the Lilys' superlative and even more rare Tone Bender EP, the main selling point of which is the track "Eskimo." The track isn't available on CD anywhere else, so far as we know. We think we've posted "Eskimo" before, but for those of you who haven't heard it, here it is once again for a very limited time. The Tone Bender EP was released by Summershine but we are not sure which year -- likely 1993, but that's just a guess. Anyway, we wrote about the EP previously here. The excitingly rejuvenated Slumberland Records site is hosting MP3s of other tracks from the EP including "February 14th," which we've linked below as well.

Lilys -- "Eskimo" -- Tone Bender EP
Lilys -- "February 14th" -- February 14th b/w Threw A Day 7"
[right click and save as]
[buy Lilys records from Newbury Comics here]

>> Speaking of buying music, we are very excited about the Other Music digital store that is online here. Idolator breaks down the salient whys and wherefores here. Basically, the tracks are encoded at a very nice 320Kbps and retail for about $1.11 a piece. We already ran over to try to buy a digital version of Kompakt's Pop Ambient 2007, which we accidentally purchased on vinyl from Forced Exposure. Anyway, we were all set to punch in our credit card information at Other Music Digital when we glanced at the page URL and noticed the usual HTTP as opposed to the secure HTTPS. The site's FAQ states that it uses SSL to protect transactions, but we weren't about to give our credit card number without double checking. We wrote to the customer service address and we'll let you know if we learn anything interesting.

>> According to the industrious folks over at FreakScene.net, alternative rock behemoth Dinosaur Jr. is slated to perform on The Late Show With David Letterman on April 30. That happens to be the eve of the release of the band's fantastic new set Beyond, which we reviewed here. The FreakScene freakers also tracked down a clip of J Mascis performing on Norwegian television recently. It's a little tricky to access, and in fact we couldn't quite figure it out, but if you've got some time to kill, the details are in this thread.

>> Just a bit of a follow-up on our item from last night: we had no idea today would be the day that Qui news was going to break, but broke it did less than 24 hours after we mentioned them in the intro to yesterday's A Silver Mount Zion review. Anyway, Pitchfork reports here that the band has signed with Touch And Go and will issue the set Love's Miracle Sept. 11. Amazingly, the set will include a cover of Pink Floyd's epic "Echoes." Wild.

>> Pun Canoes just published a lengthy interview here with the filmmakers of the excellent documentary "American Hardcore," which we wrote about previously here and here and here. Worth sitting down and spending some time with, and if you haven't seen the documentary and are a fan of any sort of modern alternative music, well, you have to see this.

That Was The Show That Was: A Silver Mount Zion | Colmar, France

[PHOTO CREDIT | Indie rock vagabond Lars Ro, one of our oldest friends, returns to the electronic pages of :: clicky clicky :: with this performance review of Canadian post-rockers A Silver Mount Zion. Mr. Ro is a veteran of numerous indie acts, the longest-running being Sfu-ma-to, and he recently opened a show for SMZ in Lausanne; Ro also operates Purr Mama Resistor Records. Ro previously reviewed a live performance of David Yow's new endeavour Qui here, months before most publications knew Qui from a Cuisinart. -- Ed.]

Last night, as the septet A Silver Mount Zion took the stage of Le Grillen in the French city of Colmar, Jessica Moss and Sophie Trudeau assumed positions flanking the stage like violin-bearing angels. And then new tune "13 Blues for 13 Moons" commenced apocalyptically, before shifting into a serious Hendrix-esque riff and building into pure, bucking rock. Drummer Eric [sorry, Eric, we don't know your surname -- Ed.] appeared possessed, despite being a relatively new addition to the band. "Mountains Made of Steam" [the inspiration for the so-named fan site] was super-hushed, illuminating how the crowd tonight seemed to be tamer than most on this tour so far. Sweeping, cresting waves of overlapping violins, cello and contrabass gave way to the klezmer-like "Lai lai lai la lai." As was band progenitor Godspeed You! Black Emporer before it, A Silver Mount Zion is a master of shifting dynamics. Ms. Moss even contributed some Sigur Ròs-esque screams into her violin.

The loose and dissonant passages of new composition "Engine Broke" were perfectly suited to Eric's percussive blasts: epic soundscapes which would do Wilhelm Wagner proud. Lyrics like "building trainwrecks in the setting sun" invoke fitting images for our age. "Take These Hands & Throw Them In The River," the only oldie-but-goodie of the set, kicked off with strings that sounded like air-raid sirens. I could literally feel my guts turn, and had a sense of what a young miss in Brussels meant when she characterized SMZ's music "distressing." Onwards to chugging rock, into a feedback fest and finally an avant-garde symphony. The new hit "1 Million Died To Make This Sound" started off in a similarly unsettling manner, navigating experimental waters and then entering medieval plainsong territory. (I found myself wondering if one million notes were being played in the song, being quite exhausted after a near-sleepless night...)

Six songs might sound like a short set, but considering the lengths of SMZ's opuses, think again. The encore consisted of "Blind Blind Blind" [YouTube], with the stated preference "we want punks in the palace" falling on eager, anyone-but-Sarkozy ears (it was election day in France this day). It was a powerhouse of a song, sliding down chutes and up sonic ladders again. I was wondering why I wasn't crying to the refrain of "some hearts are true" as I usually do, and then they suddenly began streaming down. The audience's final applause was quite impressive, so maybe Colmarians aren't as tame as I'd first feared. -- Lars Ro.

You can download A Silver Mount Zion's April 17 performance, the fourth show of its current strand of tour dates, in lossless audio files at Archive.org here. The remaining tour dates are listed below the requisite links. After these dates the band will turn its attention to completing a live record tentatively titled F*ck You Drakulas, which it hopes to finish by mid-summer according to the band's web site. A Silver Mount Zion plans to tour the U.S. and Canada from late July until early September.

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band: InterWeb | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

04/24 -- Nancy, FR -- L'Autre Canal
04/26 -- Brighton, UK -- Komedia
04/27 -- Colchester, UK -- Arts Centre
04/29 -- Somerset, UK -- ATP Festival
04/30 -- London, UK -- Scala
05/02 -- Sheffield, UK -- Corporation
05/03 -- Oxford, UK -- Zodiac
05/05 -- Hasselt, BE -- Zall Belgie
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Today's Hotness: Johnny Foreigner (Again), Morrissey

>> [Yes, we realize this is the third time we mentioned the band this week. Sue us -- Ed.] If you've been a reader for any length of time, you know we will occasionally advise you to drop everything and obtain some music. Most recently we think our recommendation was Ringo Deathstarr. But today we again turn our focus to matchless Birmingham, England-based noise pop trio Johnny Foreigner, which has just posted three new tracks for download at its MySpace manger. The recordings are dramatically cleaner than the band's early demos but still pack a wallop. And the songs are startlingly amazing, particularly "Our Bipolar Friends (Ninja 2)" and "Suicide Pact Yeh," considering the band is sort of due to write a clunker at this point, what with all of the great songs they've been posting lately. We are beginning to worry that if the band keeps giving away all their songs they will never have enough new and unheard for a debut full-length. But anyway, let their potential loss be your definite gain and go download the tracks ASAP. JoFo is awesome and they keep getting better, and with Los Campesinos signed off to Arts + Crafts as of this week, Johnny Foreigner's unsigned days are likely drawing to a close. Maybe we'll have a little fun in the next week or so and tell you what songs we'd pick for a JoFo full-length, which versions and the running order. In the meantime go download these tracks -- they are crucial, spring-finally-comes-to-Boston listening.

Johnny Foreigner -- "Our Bipolar Friends (Ninja 2)"
Johnny Foreigner -- "Cranes And Cranes And Cranes"
Johnny Foreigner -- "Suicide Pact Yeah"
@ MySpace

>> Here's video of living legend Morrissey and band destroying on The Jimmy Kimmel Show in Hollywood Friday night. Two words: trombone solo.
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Today's Hotness: Up Up Down Down, Los Campesinos

>> We had no idea that post-emo superstars Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start were recording a new record, but it's true. The New Jersey-based quintet plans to release a 10-song set next month. No title has been released yet, and no label has been mentioned, so we expect it will be released on the band's own imprint. In the meantime you can help out the Uppers by appearing in a video for one of the forthcoming tunes. According to a MySpace bulletin the band will shoot a video Saturday April 29 at its studio The Gradwell House in Haddon Heights, NJ. The video will be included on the forthcoming record, and the band wants you to know the words if you're going to be in it. You can hear a stream of the new jaunty strummer here -- its got a tricky 11-beat verse and a tumultuous close. And in true UUDDLRLRBAS fashion, it is short and to the point. If you want to hear more from the band, make sure to head over to their MP3 clearinghouse UpUpDownDownloads.com, which we seem to link to every couple months or so whether we need it or not. Here's one of our favorite jams of theirs:

Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start -- "Melanie Flury" -- Girls Names EP
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>> UK-based indie pop septet Los Campesinos have signed with Canadian superlabel Arts + Crafts, according to a MySpace bulletin from the jubilant Brits. The first fruits of the partnership will be an EP released July 3 titled Sticking Fingers Into Sockets, which will be "released in North America and some other places too." Adding more loft to the band's rise is its recent appointment to this year's Lollapalooza line-up. Not sure what all the fuss is about? Well the band has posted a recent single for free download from its web site here -- how about we link to it? And here is a link to a YouTube video of a recent live performance during which the Campies are joined on stage for "You! Me! Dancing!" by folks including our favorite Birmingham noise poppers Johnny Foreigner (well, we think that is what's happening -- the video is small and the people onstage are many).

Los Campesinos -- "You Throw Parties, We Throw Knives"
Los Campesinos -- "Don't Tell Me To Do The Maths"
[these are .zip files; right click and save as]
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