Show That Was Mini: The Swirlies | Johnny Brenda's

Word from our operative MGrooves, who attended last night's kick-off of The Swirlies' mini-not-reunion tour at Johnny Brenda's in Philadelphia, is that the show was awesome. The band opened with "Bell," and The Swirlies apparently were in such fine form that there was no noticable rustiness beyond some tuning and fussing -- and, really, depending on what year you've seen The Swirlies last, that's a good show -- despite it being five years since their last shows. They played for 90 minutes! The set leans heavily toward Blonder Tongue Audio Baton and They Spent Their Wild..., but there were some tracks from Cats Of The Wild in the mix as well. The Swirlies closed with a seven-minute version of "Sunn" that was captured to video, and we're hoping to post that video clip atop this item as soon as it is online. MGrooves reports the following tunes made the set, although not in this order:

Bell
Vigilant Always
Jeremy Parker
Wrong Tube
Sound of Sebring
Two Girls Kissing
San Cristobal de las Casas
Sunn
Le Bag
One Light Flashing I Love You

Today's Hotness: Swirlies, Screaming Maldini, Bricolage

>> We're getting excited for chimp-rock standard bearers The Swirlies' show Saturday night at the Middle East, and it would seem the Internet is also in the grips of a minor bout of Swirlies-a-mania. No fewer than three outlets previewed the upcoming shows Thursday, including Philebrity and Boston's Weekly Dig and Bostonist publications. We have an operative based in San Francisco who flew east to catch two of the shows, last night's set at Johnny Brenda's in Philly -- apparently The Swirlies' first show in five years -- and the show Saturday. We're hopeful that said operative will file a review with us that we'll try to get online Friday night. Saturday will not be our first time seeing the band -- we think it will be the third. The first time was at the Indie 500 festival in South Jersey in 1993, and then we saw them in a West Philly basement sometime between then and 1996. Even so, if our recollection is correct, we've never seen The Swirlies get through an entire performance, so anticipation runs high. As Philebrity points out, a large portion of the band's catalogue, including the indispensible Taaang! releases, are available for free download at the band's site here. To get you started, here are a couple of our favorite tracks from the excellent What To Do About Them, which was released in 1992.

Swirlies -- "Chris R." -- What To Do About Them
Swirlies -- "Upstairs" -- What To Do About Them
[right click and save as]
[a whole lotta free Swirlies here]

>> It's been a month since we first got an email from Nick of the Sheffield, England-based maximalist pop trio Screaming Maldini, and we're somewhat surprised that it has taken so long for us to make mention of the band's orchestral tunes. Not completely surprised, however: Screaming Maldini is doing something fairly singular by mixing the widescreen ADD tendencies of Scritti Politti and electropop savant Max Tundra with the vintage soundtrack work collected on that The Sound Gallery comp -- and then there's a bit of Frank Zappa thrown in as well. It's quite difficult to peg. But we think you will be completely sold, as we were, by the wondrous tune "The Extraordinary," which we're posting below. There's not a lot of information about Screaming Maldini out there, but the other blogs [ploing! bonk!] that have picked up on the band note the trio are students and certain of them are former members of an act called Situationists; they spent a lot of the summer of 2008 in a Sheffield recording studio; the act is currently unsigned and prepping a touring unit for live dates. Highly recommended. Download away!

Screaming Maldini -- "The Extraordinary"
[right click and save as]
[stream more amazing cuts at Screaming Maldini's MySpace here]

>> And one more from the U.K., Glasgow specifically, to round out the week. We are thrilled by the scritchy, post-punk sounds of Bricolage, one of the most recent signings to resurgent indie label Slumberland. A label, we might add, that has one of the best rosters going right now. Bricolage, a quartet, has released four singles since forming in late 2005, and Slumberland will issue the band's self-titled full-length April 14. The obligatory promo MP3 is "Turn U Over," an arresting up-tempo slab of indie pop that was released as a single in November. The tune may not be as strong as the fireball "Footsteps," the band's debut single released by Creeping Bent which reminds us of The English Beat and Haircut 100. You can watch the video for "Footsteps" right here, and as it turns out there is a fair amount of Bricolage videos at YouTube, so fix yourself a drink and settle in.

Bricolage -- "Turn U Over" -- Bricolage
[right click and save as]
[watch Slumberland's web site for pre-order information]

That Was The Show That Was: Ben Kweller | Somerville Theater

[PHOTO CREDIT: Eytonz @ Flickr | We are pleased to once again present to you the work of friend and former editor The Good Doctor. While he does not contribute often enough, The Good Doctor has previously graced these pages with reviews of a couple Yo La Tengo shows. He is a direct and opinionated writer in the best sense: below he deems a large group of strangers to be surprisingly homely, much to our amusement. -- Ed.]

I’m 41 and don’t do much of anything in part because I have a house and a little boy and a long-hours desk job, but mostly because I’ve done enough. I've seen a zillion bands and now I really just don’t care, except about a few artists -- and Ben Kweller is one of them.

So has my perspective been poisoned by Hollywood because now I stay home and watch attractive people in TV shows and movies –- or is the health of today’s modern show-goer in horrible distress? Or was it a phenomenon of this particular artist’s audience? Allow me to be blunt: are Ben Kweller fans hideous or what? If you were casting that scene in a movie where someone is accidentally drugged and everything they see gets all wiggly and everyone around them gets in their face, but it’s in slow motion, and the sound gets all slowed down, and they look a little bit like evil clowns but without make-up or hats –- that’s what the lobby at this show looked like. I couldn’t believe it. It was terrifying.

That aside, Mr. Kweller -- who hails from Austin, Texas, and got his start fronting a relatively inspired trio called Radish -- has so many great songs it’s ridiculous. He played tons of them Tuesday night, many newly arranged in the style of his fine new country-flavored release, Changing Horses, released Feb. 3. Kweller worked all of the evening’s guitar chores on an acoustic instrument, achieving heavy sounds when necessary aided by appropriate gear. A highlight of the 90-plus minute set was the new record’s “Gypsy Rose,” a deceptively simple folk number performed with a false ending before tearing into a throbbing coda during which I may have seen God. The set took a quiet and personal turn on “Thirteen,” during a brief but beautiful solo set at the piano. Kweller kept chatter between songs to a minimum, though an explanation as to why he felt a need to re-arrange “Sundress” to ruin what is arguably his finest hook would have been welcomed. -- The Good Doctor

Kweller's tour of the U.S. continues through March 7; in April he travels to Australia and in May he takes the show to Europe. All the dates are here.

Ben Kweller -- Hurtin' You -- Changing Horses
[right click and save as, with a hat tip to Stereogum, who first offered the tune in November]
[buy Ben Kweller records from Newbury Comics right here]

Ben Kweller: Internerds | MySpace | YouTubes | Flickr

Introducing KeepingSomeDarkSecrets.com

Well, we've been toying with the idea since July 2007, and today we finally have done it: we're launching with our English colleague Luke Cotton a new outlet called KeepingSomeDarkSecrets.com, the international Johnny Foreigner fan site. In retrospect we're glad we didn't call it "A+ No. 1 Super Fun Time Johnny Foreigner Fan Club USA Blog," as we had originally joked two years ago. KSDS, as we've already taken to abbreviating it, will provide all the microscopic Johnny Foreigner coverage you've come to expect here, but it will be better: Mr. Cotton and we envision exclusives, live show reviews, an active fan forum, and so on. The sky is the limit really. As an aside -- hey Europeans? Why haven't you posted any video clips of the current tour to YouTube yet? Get on that.

So the obvious question is "will you still cover Johnny Foreigner here?" And the answer to that is a resounding yes. We plan to cross-post all our KSDS items here, although the posts will go online at KeepingSomeDarkSecrets earlier in the calendar day on UK time, while Clicky Clicky will continue to go online first thing in the morning U.S. East Coast time. When you click over to KeepingSomeDarkSecrets you'll notice we've already cross-posted there all the relevant Clicky Clicky historic posts -- some 60 of them! Anyway, we've got a nice surprise for the official launch of KSDS today in the form of a recently surfaced demo of Johnny Foreigner's "This Trapeze Ball Thought Out," which curiously came tagged with a different title, "rhapsody (rough)." So head on over and check out what we're doing, listen to the music like The Doobie Brothers, and add KSDS to your RSS reader. And now, here is the track that set us and our partner Mr. Cotton down this road in the first place last November, the old demo for "KickKickKick."

Johnny Foreigner -- "KickKickKick" -- I Like You Mostly Late At Never
[right click and save as]
[buy Johnny Foreigner music from Emusic right here]
[Well, would you look at that? Now Emusic has more JoFo stuff!]

Review: Calories | Adventuring

Brevity: Birmingham, England-based power trio Calories has it. The act's music is so tightly compacted that even the verses play like choruses, and its entire debut set Adventuring is done almost as soon as it begins. On Adventuring, due March 9, Calories delivers a brisk, exuberant collection of 10 tunes that clocks in at a breathless 23 minutes. All the songs are singalong-able, everything is anthemic and everything rocks.

Calories has been streaming new tracks at its MySpace garage for months, namely the lead track "A Bear, A Bison," "To Encounter A Deer" and the title cut. Spirited fist-bangers all, driven by bassist Pete Dixon's affecting bark, but the trio has kept some cards up its six sleeves. The punishing push and pull of "Caught In The In-Between" -- which recalls the finer early work of '90s D.C. post-hardcore standard bearers Jawbox -- is the most exciting track on Adventuring. The Jawbox reference may not be terribly off the mark, considering the slate of influences at Calories' MySpace reads like a who's who of the American underground of the last 20 years, including Jawbox contemporaries Shudder To Think (whose Get Your Goat album is exceptional), as well as Blonde Redhead, Polvo and Don Caballero. "(See You On The Expedition)," another highlight, rocks very convincingly in 3/4 time.

Adventuring is available for pre-order now right here; fans who pre-order the collection will also receive a bonus handmade CDR containing 26 tracks (!!!) of demos and extras, as well as a digital sampler from the label. All of which makes the 8 pounds sterling sticker price well worth it in our opinion. Calories embark on a short tour supporting Glaswegian indie phenoms Dananananaykroyd March 26, and you can inspect the trio's full itinerary at its aforementioned MySpace. There's no preview MP3 to be had for Adventuring, which is a shame, but we think you'll enjoy the non-album track "Drink The Potion," a live video of which is linked below. Word from the Calories camp is that the tune was written about a month or so after Adventuring was recorded, and it is likely going to be on the trio's next record, which could be tracked later this year. As a sidenote, we'll point out that only recently have we gotten our hands on Calories-predecessor Distophia's absurdly good but never released masterwork Beat Dyslexia. If you do not have this record you should hunt it down with extreme prejudice. It's exceptional, and we're posting the amazing cut "Children Know The Score" below with the hopes that some day the set might get a proper commercial release. Finally, you may recall Calories helped us relaunch our Show Us Yours feature a month ago; here's a link to that.

Calories -- "Drink The Potion" [YouTube]
Distophia -- "Children Know The Score [.m4a]" -- Beat Dyslexia
[right click and save as]
[buy Distophia records at MusicStack here]

Calories: Internerds | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

Johnny Foreigner Is Aces -- New Demos Online For A Limited Time

Well, fans, your favorite Birmingham, England-based noise pop trio this evening put online for two weeks only something called Johnny Foreigner Is Aces (a sentiment we certainly won't argue). Johnny Foreigner Is Aces is not a proper release, but rather a .zip file with two tracks (pure .wav files! awesome!) and two desktop wallpaper images that the band is offering, as we said, for a limited time only. The first track is "Ghost The Festivals," which the band has been playing live for months and months. We think we prefer the live version (we're thinking of the one from New Slang last Nov., or the performance for Manchester's Channel M, specifically), but even so it is really solid -- the chorus in the demo is orchestrated slightly differently, but we expect it will grow on us. The more exciting cut is the second, "Ohai, Sentinels," which is apparently another of the band's catchy rants against the development and gentrification of their beloved hometown.

The two tunes were recorded and mixed by Sunset Cinema Club's Dom James at Bridge Studios Annex 2 and in Dom's new bedroom last month. According to the liners that came in the .zip the tunes are on a tour-only CD-R Johnny Foreigner will be selling at its shows for the foreseeable future, that apparently also contains three additional tracks "taken from our bootleg archive." Which brings us to a request -- if you get to a show on the band's upcoming tours with Sky Larkin and 100 Reasons and are flush with enough cash, please Please PLEASE buy two extra copies and then email us at the address in the sidebar. We've a mate in the UK who will receive shipment of same on our behalf, we'll totally pay you back, and we'll potentially set you up with some exclusive stuff in return related to a new super secret (for another week or so, anyway) Johnny Foreigner-related endeavor we've undertaken. Make it worth your while, yeh? Tour dates here.

Johnny Foreigner -- Johnny Foreigner Is Aces [zip file]
[right click and save as]

Today's Hotness: Postulat, The Answering Machine (Again)

>> We've received a lot of emails lately about two of our favorite '90s acts, Kam Fong (really, two emails recently) and Small Factory. As we quipped to one of our correspondents, we are ready for the Small Factory reunion. Just sitting here waiting for it. Ready. Waiting. Pretending it's sunny, even... Anyway, while a reunion of the Providence, RI-spawned trio seems unlikely, we were excited to see action at SF bassist and singer Alex Kemp's MySpace dojo. Mr. Kemp, now the creative director of a music production company and based in Los Angeles, reports in a bulletin that he has formed a new project that goes by the name Postulat with Norwegian singer/songwriter Kristin Øhrn Dyrud. The band name sounds kinda European techno or darkwave hip-hop or math-rocky, right? It turns out Postulat is none of these things. Instead, the duo offers densely arranged, somewhat reserved rockers and uptempo pop ("Magic World," "Say You Will"). The production is pretty glossy, sometimes clever. Kemp's vocals are evenly weighted with Ms. Dyrud's, and otherwise largely stick in the background, although he gets a verse in the bouncy "Say You Will." The pick of the six songs posted at Postulat's MySpace lean-to may be the quiet, bleep ballad "Gift," which we recommend you go stream straightaway.

>> If you couldn't tell from all our recent posting and Twittering about Manchester, England-based indie pop phenoms The Answering Machine that we are excited about their debut record, well, you just haven't been paying attention. We were bantering with a fellow from their label today, who was cool enough to extend to us permission to post the title track of the quartet's forthcoming full-length Another City, Another Sorry. You'll recall we pointed here to RockSellout's post with that very MP3 in it early this month; if you didn't heed our exhortation to go download the track then, we insist you do it now below. Another City, Another Sorry will be released by Heist Or Hit Records in the U.K. in May. As we reiterated Wednesday, the album is preceded by the exceedingly excellent single "Cliffer" Feb. 9, which can already be purchased in the U.S. at Rhapsody.com.

The Answering Machine -- "Another City, Another Sorry" -- Another City, Another Sorry
[right click and save as]
[watch the Heist Or Hit site for pre-order information]

>> While it seems patently obvious to those of you paying attention to such things, we thought we'd point out this week had the first new release day of the year we were very excited about. We've been too busy to get out and buy records, but when we do we'll definitely be picking up Morrissey's Years Of Refusal and Psapp's The Camel's Back. Psapp's next single will be for the album track "I Want That," and the duo is currently working on a video to promote the tune. The single will be released in the UK on March 30. You can get The Camel's Back at EMusic right now.