Be Prepared: Lubec | Nothing Is Enough EP Teaser "Cherry Adair"

If you harbored some concern that the nascent Virginia noise-pop scene we chronicled last year with these features on Cinemasophia and Lubec had fallen fallow, fear not. Cinemasophia is no more, but band principal Landis Wine has been hard at work churning out compelling music with his White Laces project (more on that soon). And now we have word that self-professed Lilys disciples Lubec will return this fall with a new, self-produced record and new label.

The label, The Acme Thunderer, is slated to launch Oct. 9, and it will release that day Lubec's very promising, six-song Nothing Is Enough! EP. The short stack of songs will be available on CD, vinyl and digital download, and the collection is one of a half-dozen or so The Acme Thunderer is slated to issue. Other releases in the pipeline include collections from the aforementioned White Laces and Ghost Lotion. Those acts and Lubec play a launch party for the label Oct. 9 at Gallery5 in Richmond, VA. Lubec aims to begin recording for a planned full-length release that it hopes will see the light of day in early 2011, in time for some spring touring and a trip to the annual SXSW music confabulation.

Lubec's Eddie Charlton got in touch and gave us the go-ahead to post Nothing Is Enough!'s brilliant "Cherry Adair," whose stream or download you can grab below. Based on the metadata with the file, the song is slated to sit in the center of the EP, but it is certainly strong enough to be a lead cut. The production is a bit remote (think Black Tambourine), but that is solved by cranking the volume, something you'll be compelled to do about a minute in when the first pre-chorus explodes. What first pushes the song deep into genius territory is the little melodic hook in the chorus, "I don't know why everybody seems to know your name." And then there is a transporting guitar solo. Is this what Lilys would sound like covering Silver Jews? We think it is, and we can't wait to hear more.

Lubec's "Cherry Adair"
[stalk the The Acme Thunderer site for pre-order information for Nothing Is Enough!]

That Was The Show That Was: Phantom Buffalo | Empire Dine And Dance

Venues without a backstage area usually take some of the mystique out of the rock experience. The band has to walk through the crowd on the way to the stage, and something of the veil of performance is eliminated before a band gets a chance to start. At Empire Dine and Dance in Portland, Maine, the green room is two floors down in the basement and the stairs from there to the stage are the same ones that the audience walks up to get to the venue.

Phantom Buffalo found a way to stir up excitement, running through the crowd in newly tailored silver spacesuits before jumping on stage and diving headlong into their set Saturday night. The Maine-based quintet was celebrating the release of their third album, A Cement Postcard With Owl Colors, and leaned on that material for the bulk of their show. Phantom Buffalo has been around for ages; their debut landed on Mojo magazine’s top 50 back in 2005 when Rough Trade re-released it after they changed their name from the Ponys (some Chicago band on Matador threatened to sue them for it). A sophomore LP, Take To The Trees, was released in 2008.

Saturday's set marked the formal return to the fold of Phantom Buffalo drummer Joe Domrad. Although the "VH1 Behind The Music"-worthy drama that kept drummers filtering in and out of the band may have been amusing, this is a very welcome sight. Domrad has a preternaturally dynamic touch that somehow can vary within the beats of a drum roll, and he helps bring the music to life in consistently unexpected ways.

While Jonathan Balzano-Brookes is front and center with his chiming guitar and clean vocals -- both of which draw dotted lines to The Shins -- it’s the way the band takes those songs into other-worldly places that is what makes Phantom Buffalo special. Lead guitarist Tim Burns is a model of restraint even when his riffs break through and knock things sideways. Phillip Willey’s accordion crunching and Sean Newton’s bass playing provide not only foundational bedrocks for the Phantom Buffalo sound, but the elements provide a vehicle for the players' melodic creativity. In addition, the pair take the songs through turns that keep the dance floor moving. It’s the fact that the night ends with half of the crowd dancing around like that scene from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" that cements this evening as one of the best in ages. When an indie rock band can get feet moving, that is indeed an honorable [Ahem. -- Ed.] feat. -- Jeff Breeze

Phantom Buffalo -- "Be The Boss" -- Take To The Trees
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[buy Phantom Buffalo records from the band right here]

Phantom Buffalo: Internerds | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

Stuyvesant, Varsity Drag | Maxwell's, Hoboken | 26 August

Review: Sam Prekop | Old Punch Card [MP3]

Indie pop veteran Sam Prekop is not known for throwing curveballs (figuratively, anyway -- we have no knowledge of his pitching proclivities). His has been a two-decade career marked by consistency; fortunately for the guitarist and singer and his fans, what Mr. Prekop delivers consistently is gorgeous, mannered indie rock and indie pop. Sure, The Sea And Cake -- which Prekop has fronted since about 1994, following the dissolution of Shrimp Boat -- went through its excellent electropop phase in the mid'90s. And, sure, Prekop's eponymous solo debut produced amazing chamber pop such as the piano-led "A Cloud To The Back." But little of this (beyond, as Prekop helpfully reminds us in the press materials, the opening salvo of The Sea And Cake's 2002 cover of Bowie's "Sound And Vision") has prepared listeners for Old Punch Card, Prekop's third solo set.

"The most significant difference, is that I've left the confines of 'song' structure," he states here. Old Punch Card commences with its title track, whose first two minutes comprise an electrical cacaphony that (dis-)orients listeners to Prekop's new sonic realm. Thereafter Prekop's true blue melodic sense offers its warm -- albeit here bleepy -- embrace. Indeed, the deeper one gets into Old Punch Card, the more melodic it becomes. The often skeletal collection -- released five years after Prekop's sophomore solo effort and 11 years after his first -- is devoid of vocals and percussion and contains only one guitar track. Indeed, Prekop has composed nearly exclusively on modular synthesizers an incredibly engaging collection of electronic music/musique concrete that nods affirmatively in the direction of pioneering composer Raymond Scott, Keith Fullerton Whitman's Multiples [review] and even Moikai rarity Nuno Canavarro. Small electronic arpeggios undulate throughout "A Places," breaking through crashing waves of white noise that pound and then recede into space before the song's stirring, elegiac close. Prekop's characteristic restraint is also evident, as his compositions -- particularly the spartan "November September" and "Array Wicket" -- use few elements that hum along within tidy curtains of nearly palpable reverb.

Finally, Old Punch Card is as much about texture, something attributed to his recording the collection entirely in his home studio while wearing headphones. Prekop, who recorded these songs at various times between February 2009 and March of this year, will finally be getting out of the house: the composer will spend Sept. 13 through Oct. 19 touring with The Sea And Cake alongside indie titans Broken Social Scene. We're posting the complete tour dates below. Thrill Jockey Records issues Old Punch Card Sept. 7

Sam Prekop -- "The Silhouettes" -- Old Punch Card
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[pre-order Old Punch Card from Thrill Jockey right here]

Sam Prekop: Internerds | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

09.13 -- Washington, DC -- Warner Theatre
09.14 -- Philadelphia, PA -- Theater of Living Arts
09.17 -- Boston, MA -- House of Blues
09.18 -- New York, NY -- Rumsey Playfield
09.20 -- New Haven, CT -- Toads Place
09.21 -- Northampton, MA -- Calvin Theatre
09.22 -- South Burlington, VT -- Higher Ground
09.24 -- Ithaca, NY -- Historic Ithaca State Theatre
09.25 -- Buffalo, NY -- Town Ballroom
10.02 -- Chicago, IL -- Riviera Theatre
10.03 -- Milwaukee, WI -- Pabst Theatre
10.04 -- Minneapolis, MN -- First Avenue
10.06 -- Winnipeg, MB -- Burton Cummings Theatre
10.07 -- Saskatoon, SK -- The Odeon Events Centre
10.08 -- Calgary, AB -- Macewan Hall
10.09 -- Edmonton, AB -- Winspear Centre
10.10 -- Kelowna, BC -- Kelowna Community Theatre
10.12 -- Victoria, BC -- Element Nightclub
10.13 -- Vancouver, BC -- Commodore Ballroom
10.14 -- Vancouver, BC -- Commodore Ballroom
10.15 -- Seattle, WA -- Paramount Ballroom
10.16 -- Portland, OR -- Crystal Ballroom
10.17 -- San Francisco, CA -- Treasure Islands Music Festival
10.19 -- Los Angeles, CA -- Wiltern Theatre

Rock Over Boston Montague | Roderick/Hodgman/Rees | 8.20.2010

[John Roderick at the Montague Book Mill, August 20, 2010. Photo by Michael Piantigini. More photos of the night here.]
On paper, I'm not sure how John Roderick's songs even work. He may describe his songs somewhat dismissively as being about "men and women, and how they just can't seem to get along," but these short stories with odd, complex melodies, and lyrics sometimes so literal, sometimes so obscure, connect with a potent punch to the heart. How to explain the heft of a song like "The Commander Thinks Aloud," a song about spacecraft disaster? To push the boxing metaphor, "as we feel our weight return" sets you up, and "the crew compartment's breaking up" lays you out (this particular performance is particularly devastating).

This is all true enough when you're listening to or watching Roderick's band The Long Winters play, but it turns out it's even more potent in a stripped down solo set like the one he played for - we were told - TV's John Hodgman's personal amusement this past Friday night at the Montague Book Mill. This is one spectacular bookstore set on a river (the building was once a grist mill) with nooks and crannies, creaky floorboards, stacks of books, and the most bucolic, idyllic, and peaceful setting one could imagine for browsing through stacks of books all on the edge of a quaint Western Massachusetts town that you might see a movie make a mockery of (it was even Old Home Days in the town center!), but they'd be all wrong. Their slogan is "books you don't need in a place you can't find," but it is definitely worth seeking out.

Hodgman, seasonal area resident, writer and "Famous Minor Television Personality," apparently tiring of live-tweeted Scrabble matches (as I write this, he's just announced the results of two concurrent games between the guests of this show), was the funny and gracious host of this night headlined by Roderick, who nearly had the show stolen from him by a pencil sharpening demonstration.

David Rees, author of hilarious comics My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable, My New Filing Technique Is Unstoppable, and most recently, the Rolling Stone-syndicated Get Your War On, found himself casting about for something to do after ending the latter at the end of the Bush presidency and decided to become a craftsman. Finding that the URL for ArtisanalPencilSharpening.com was available, his path was chosen. Friday night we got a rare glimpse of a skilled craftsman at work. For $12.50, Rees will "sharpen the shit" out of your pencil and will ship it back to you in a complex tip-protecting package, along with the shavings (they're yours, after all), and a Certificate of Sharpening. Is this a joke, you might ask? "If you think it's a joke, why don't you poke yourself with your newly sharpened pencil? Better yet, don't, because it'll really fucking hurt," he explained. (It was hilarious anyway).

Oh, and he only sharpens #2s. He's a specialist (and, apparently, a master Scrabbler who scored 149 points on one word during the above mentioned game).

This was the perfect set-up for Roderick, who presided over the next hour with charm and wit befitting the night. The requests that got the show going were meager enough that it didn't seem like the small, sold out crowd knew him, but the flurry that came as the set was winding down betrayed a timid reserve. No matter - we got a good cross-section of the Long Winters' catalog, from The Worst You Can Do Is Harm's "Scent of Lime," to Putting The Days To Bed's "Fire Island, AK." This was the first acoustic performance of the latter, Roderick explained, though there was an acoustic version of an entirely different arrangement that appeared on 2005's Ultimatum EP (and there's a particularly great performance of that song, as well one of that EP's title track in the KEXP archives here - I am, apparently, a completist).

Hard to believe that it has been four years since Putting The Days To Bed, but the new Long Winters album isn't yet ready (though some of it's progress is tracked here in a YouTube series). Roderick says that the music is there, but he's still working on lyrics. As such, we heard only one new track "Not Moving To Portland," which appeared on a Seattle-area charity compilation last year. It was a highlight, as was an impressively remembered-as-it-went-along version of "Solitary Man" was prompted by a Neil Diamond fakebook on display nearby. One of the early requests was for "The Commander Thinks Aloud," but Roderick patiently explained that, as a professional musician, he needed the set to build up to something. After an hour of laughs and by-proxy heartbreak, Roderick finally dealt this masterpiece.

How do songs like this always work, no matter how much you anticipate it? Gives me chills every time.

-Michael Piantigini

John Hodgman: Internets | Twitter
John Roderick / The Long Winters: Internets | MySpace | Facebook | Twitter
David Rees: Internets | Artisanal Pencil Sharpening | Twitter
Montague Book Mill: Internets

YouTube Rodeo: The Answering Machine "Lifeline" Album Promo

A first taste of the lead single from The Answering Machine's forthcoming sophomore set. Lifeline is due worldwide in early 2011.

And Then Some Days We Get Awesome Mail 6

This is actually Monday's mail, but hey, we're busy. And it was only last night that we finally cracked open the thick cardboard mailer that contained these kings among indie rock records, two wonderful vinyl reissues purchased from our friends at Merge. We are sure that there are those who feel strongly about the band's debut full-length, but when we explain to people how awesome Superchunk is, we are usually thinking of these two records: 1991's Albini-produced No Pocky For Kitty [full album stream] and 1993's towering, brilliant On The Mouth [full album stream]; both were re-released Tuesday here in the U.S. We spent virtually the entire summer of 1993 listening to On The Mouth's "Package Thief" and drinking beer out of cans, and that, friends, is a hell of a way to spend a summer.

Superchunk's ninth album of original material is titled Majesty Shredding, it's the North Carolina-based quartet's first in nine years, and it will be released by Merge on Sept. 14. It is not too late to pre-order that thing right here, and we're posting the promo track "Digging For Something" below on the off-chance you have yet to hear it. But you are living a spiritually destitute life if you don't own and cherish these two reissues. You don't want to be spiritually destitute, do you?

Superchunk's "Digging For Something"

Superchunk: Internerds | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr