Footage: Poole's "Supermerica"

You know, you think you know everything there is to know about a band (or at least everything you want to know), and then something happens to make you realize that's pretty impossible. Such is the case with D.C.-based (we thought it was Harrisonburg, VA, but we're too lazy to dig out a 7" to check that) indie rock act Poole, which between 1992 and 1999 released a series of albums and singles on the dearly departed Spin-Art label. We were a pretty hardcore Spin-Art devotee in 1993 or 1994, about the time we enountered Poole's amazing -- AMAZING -- "Mary Shakes Her Hair" b/w "Car" and "Meredyth On A Monday" single. The full-length Alaska Days followed, from which the pop confection "Supermerica" is taken, although two of the aforementioned single tracks were re-recorded for the set as well.

But what is interesting -- well, to us, and beside the fact that this isn't the most obvious track to get the video treatment on the record -- is that the version of the track in this video is different from the album version. The video version has a completely new and pleasantly chunky synth line riding the mix, the vocal is boosted, and the guitars sound as if someone took the two-inch tape and ran it back through the mixer with the "grunge radio unit" button depressed. But really, it's that synth line that is the big surprise. You, dear reader, have probably heard neither version, but we recommend you feast your ears and eyes on the power pop bliss out above. It makes us miss the '90s a lot. Buy Alaska Days used and cheap cheap at Amazon right here.

Footage: Yuck's "Weakend"

The saddest video with a hand puppet you will ever see. "Weakend" is the title cut from a forthcoming cassette EP which will be released by Mirror Universe Tapes. As of now there is no release information available at the Mirror Universe site; the label operates out of Charleston, South Carolina, and we're pleased to see the Yuck gospel is reaching elsewhere into the U.S. London-based Yuck has also made the track available for download, but we're saving you the trouble and dropping a SoundCloud embed below.

Yuck's "Weakend"

Today's Hotness: Footnotes, Superman Revenge Squad

>> We were inspecting the pending live engagements of Philly-based emo heroes Everyone Everywhere when we stumbled upon their recommendation that fans might also dig a band called Footnotes. The Clementon, NJ-based duo -- whose members appear astonishingly young -- somehow concocts Kinsella-influenced guitar music from just a single guitar, drum kit and vocal. The songs are necessarily lo-fi a la Japandroids, and the rhythms go wobbly now and again, but the results are still impressive. Footnotes plans to release sometime this summer a new EP charmingly titled Summer Shit; the collection is currently being mastered, according to this recent Tumblr post. The pair completes a short strand of tour dates this evening in Watertown, CT -- a/k/a the hometown of our former housemate Franklin Trench -- playing with Merchant Ships, Prawn and The Guru. Summer Shit will likely be available in a limited physical edition, and Footnotes plans to sell the set -- recorded at Gradwell House in New Jersey, otherwise known as the studio run by some of the Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start guys -- digitally at Bandcamp and elsewhere. What is especially exciting is it appears Footnotes are giving away every single previous recording digitally right here. Here's a hot track from the 2009 collection Everything Last Year to get you started.

Footnotes -- "It Get's Better" -- Everything Last Year
[right click and save as]
[download all that Footnotes goodness right here]

>> Fret not, Ben Parker devotees. Despite apparent quiet, the Superman Revenge Squad fronter reports that the duo has completed work on the planned EP Dead Crow Blues, which is slated for release by Smalltown America date TBD. According to a MySpace bulletin posted here, the final track destined for the EP was finished two weeks ago and now the short set is being mixed. Parker has also begun playing guitar with a surprisingly ace new act called The Jonbarr Hinge, and has contributed one track, "De La Fonte," to the fledgling outfit led by Sam Pluck Feezal. At first blush we'd say that The Jonbarr Hinge is a bit reminiscent of early (i.e. awesome) Built To Spill; check out the new act's MySpace page here. We predict The Jonbarr Hinge will be signed to an indie label by the end of the summer.

Review: Oval | Oh EP [MP3]

You'll be excused for thinking Oh is an engaging album of truncated remixes of Tortoise's 1998 masterwork T.N.T. Something in the live drum sound and generous amount of aural white space -- particularly in the four-minute album opener "Hey" and the clattering vibe-out "Grrr" -- that characterizes Oval's recently issued EP certainly suggests the intricate meditations of the storied Chicago post-rock unit. But, of course, Oh is the somewhat startling and curiously satisfying return of minimal electronic music luminary Markus Popp's Oval project. The EP sold out well before its release date.

The contrast between our favorite Oval track and the material on this teaser for Oval's forthcoming full-length could not be more stark. Oh is crammed with concise song sketches, the longest being "Hey." Most of the 15 tracks, however, are shorter than two minutes, and as such Oh is over almost as soon as it begins. At the other temporal extreme is our favorite Oval composition of all time, the beautiful, 24-minute droner "Do While," which was released on the set 94 Diskont in 1996. "Do While" breathes gently, it establishes its own climate, it sounds like the soundtrack to a movie about blood cells. While Oh seems tightly focused -- and in total is only 58 seconds longer than "Do While" -- it is hard to get a sense of what that focus might be given the brevity. More important, perhaps, is what the contrast between the longer forms and Oh's outbursts signifies in terms of Mr. Popp's artistic vision.

Minimalist music is often describes as being concerned with iterations, repetition and gradual change. Popp's prior Oval efforts were meticulously crafted, heavily analyzed, anchored in technology and Popp's own innovative software and programming. According to the press materials heralding the arrival of Oh, Popp now purposefully utilizes commercially available and relatively outdated hardware and software, and "performs" each track "live" (terms in quotes because the press materials seem to posit that these terms have been rendered obsolete) and even improvised certain of them. None of that may be apparent from just listening to Oh. But one can't help be left with a sense that each composition on Oh itself is an iteration, and that Popp has not abandoned iteration as a tool for composition, but instead emphasizes it even more by parsing each one into its own titled song.

Thrill Jockey intended to release Oh June 15 in a limited vinyl edition of 1,000, but the record sold out in pre-orders; the 70-track (HOLY CRAP! -- ed.) double LP O is slated for release September 7. Thrill Jockey has kindly furnished us with a track from O, "Ah!," which you can download below.

Oval -- "Ah!" -- O
[right click and save as]
[pre-order O from Thrill Jockey right here]

Oval: Internerds | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

Wilco, The Books For Solid Sound Fest in Western Mass

Solid Sound Festival. August 13th through 15th. North Adams, Massachusetts. Complete details here.

Wednesday at The Middle East: Rock Shop #4

That Was The Show That Was: New Pornographers at House of Blues

[The New Pornographers at House of Blues, Boston, MA; Friday, June 18, 2010. Photo by Ric Dube]

When a band piles on as many tracks on a record as the New Pornographers and wants to recreate the records on stage they'll have to pile the musicians on stage proportionally, so it should surprise nobody that up to nine Pornographers took the stage at a time at this show. What are they, E.L.-fucking-O.? I don't want to sound like one of those people who shits all over a band just because they're very popular because they were actually great, but there's something a little creepy about an act that puts this much effort into limiting their live sound to what happened on their records.

The statement that kind of a performance makes is that their recordings are as much a part of the composition as any other part. And that is just as well because this was clearly what the audience who showed up for this show came to hear anyway, who I would put into three weirdly diverse groups: guys in blazers who learned of the band from 30-second clips of songs heard in a profile on NPR; rock geeks who collect both all of their b-sides as well as comic books; and the most interesting fan segment, hoards of teenagers who leaped and danced as the band began each carefully reproduced LP cut. This was arena rock and the audience loved it.

The set represented the act's complete catalog, drawn heavily from the first half of each album, as if frontman Carl Newman is well aware that these are the tracks that fans gravitate toward before a New Pornographers records begins to sound all samey: Sing Me Spanish Techno, Up in the Dark, Myriad Harbour, Use It, Crash Years, Adventures in Solitude, Jackie Dressed in Cobras, All the Old Showstoppers, Sweet Talk Sweet Talk, Go Places, Jackie, Moves, Your Hands, Twin Cinema, My Shepherd, The Laws Have Changed, Silver Jenny Dollar, Mass Romantic, Bleeding Heart Show, Challengers, Slow Descent Into Alcoholism, Testament to Youth in Verse.

Vocalist Neko Case threatened to beat the shit out of an audience member who threw a CD on stage; sideman Daniel Bejar fulfilled his expected role by wandering around like a charmingly eccentric vagrant, pausing occasionally to thumb a guitar with his back to the audience; and a Dixie riddle cup of Jack Daniels costs 8-fucking-50 at the goddamn House of Blues, where Karen commented it's like seeing a show at TGIFridays.

Seattle-based the Dutchess and the Duke opened the show with extremely pleasant melodic folk rock, followed by San Francisco's the Dodos, who were also great and sounded like they probably come across even better on record.

-Ric Dube

Ric Dube is the host of the More Lost Time podcast.

The New Pornographers: Internets | MySpace
Dutchess and the Duke: Internets | MySpace
The Dodos: Internets | MySpace