[Alejandro Escovedo at the Middle East, 7/19/2010. Photo by Michael Piantigini]
Aging rockers of all stripes: you're on notice.
At nearly 60 years old, Alejandro Escovedo puts his more successful contemporaries - the kind of bands that fill (or don't) much bigger venues named after banks and cable companies - to shame. Still turning out songs and albums that are still vital, still rocking, and most importantly, still hungry, Escovedo hit the Middle East last night in support of his back-to-basics rocker of a new album, Street Songs of Love.
The man spins classics - and even the new ones are classics. Escovedo's the kind of songwriter who pulls songs out of the air that surely have always been there. Set opener "Always A Friend" must be from the 70's, right? And that raging closer, "Real Animal" must have been from his Stooges-era punk days? No - amazingly, they're both just from 2008's Real Animal. And, yeah - that randy, suggestive pop number "Anchor" is from the new one. All this is no last gasp, either; I regret even be taking this angle here, because his age is incidental, and last night's energetic set gave no indication that we should expect anything less than this sort of thing for a long while still.
Dedicating the new album's ode to a now-romantic punk era "Down In The Bowery" to his punk-rocker son, Escovedo talked of his son's assertion that his father's music is old music for old people. Maybe so, but if we're all half as hungry for life at that point, we'll be doing all right. -Michael Piantigini
While it doesn't sound the way we had guessed it would, experimental folk copy-pasters The Books' latest surreal set The Way Out is the act's most emotionally direct work yet. It has been five years since the itinerant duo released its beautiful third full length Lost And Safe, but the career caesura does not appear to have affected its approach to creating captivating, inscrutable music. This despite the fact that the poignant, spine-tingling and almost sample-free closing cut on Lost And Safe was a relatively conventional ballad, which we had assumed was a harbinger of things to come from the band. We were wrong. Instead, The Way Out finds The Books retrenched in its familiar mesh of absurd found sounds, field recordings, acoustic instruments, beats and occasionally spiritual lyrics.
It took seeing The Books live (in 2005, as referenced in our review of Lost And Safehere) for us to realize how central humor is to its music. We had previously recognized the quirk, but the visuals the augmented duo used to accompany its mesmerizing, extended musical koans in a live setting made plain that The Books are as much amused by life as they are amazed by it. Perhaps because of that experience we find The Way Out to be the most humorous of The Books' four iconoclastic full lengths; one listen to the hilarious amalgamation of kids goofin' called "A Cold Freezin' Night" bears this out. But it's not just the humor that is more potent: "I Am Who I Am" is stunning in its cold aggression (well, relative aggression). While we recognize that The Books are satirizing the quasi-dictatorial/actually kind of pathetic declarations that are sampled, the song is uncharacteristically dark, but thrillingly so. "I Am Who I Am" features a male voice emphatically ranting over a jungle-ish rhythm track and something like electric bassoon drones; the result sounds like something created by Pailhead, the amazing '80s collaboration between Fugazi fronter Ian Mackaye and Ministry's Al Jourgenson.
We found a record store/label that has posted samples from each song on The Way Out to Soundcloud, and so we've embedded the series of samples below. Please support The Books and pick up this very special record July 20 (tomorrow) when it is released. Or, of course, you can buy the thing from the duo's new label, Temporary Residence, right here. The Books have booked an uncharacteristically long (we think) strand of tour dates to support the release of The Way Out, and all the dates we are aware of as of this writing are posted below. Boston-area readers should make special note of The Books' appearances at Wilco's Solid Sound Festival next month and at The Somerville Theater in October.
[pre-order The Way Out from Temporary Residence Ltd. right here]
08.13 -- Solid Sound Festival -- North Adams, MA 09.04 -- ATP Music Festival -- Monticello, NY 09.29 -- The Trocadero -- Philadelphia, PA 09.30 -- 9:30 Club -- Washington, DC 10.01 -- Sheafer Theater -- Durham, NC 10.03 -- Variety Playhouse -- Atlanta, GA 10.04 -- Square Room -- Knoxville, TN 10.05 -- Jefferson Theater -- Charlottesville, VA 10.21 -- Somerville Theater -- Somerville, MA 10.22 -- Pearl Street -- Northampton, MA 10.23 -- Cabaret Mile End -- Montreal, QC 10.24 -- Capitol Music Hall -- Ottawa, ON 10.25 -- The Mod Club -- Toronto, ON 10.26 -- Crofoot Ballroom -- Pontiac, MI 10.27 -- Ladies Literary Club -- Grand Rapids, MI 10.29 -- Vic Theater -- Chicago, IL 10.30 -- Cedar Cultural Center -- Minneapolis, MN 10.30 -- Cedar Cultural Center -- Minneapolis, MN 11.13 -- Zankel Hall -- New York, NY 11.30 -- Palace of Fine Arts -- San Francisco, CA 12.03 -- Aladdin Theater -- Portland, OR 12.04 -- Moore Theatre -- Seattle, WA 12.05 -- Vogue Theater -- Vancouver, BC
Oh like we weren't going to re-post this here. The video is a little blurrier than we typically like to post, but otherwise the quality is quite good: the sound actually remarkably listenablem the camera work as steady as events likely allowed. And then, of course, there's Gareth Campesinos! killing it alongside our heroes Alexei, Junior and Kelly. "Criminals" was a single from Johnny Foreigner's, ahem, criminally under-rated sophomore set Grace And The Bigger Picture. Both Johnny Foreigner and Los Campesinos! played Thursday night as part of Wichita Recordings' multi-night 10th anniversary celebration. And while we understand Los Campesinos!' performance was top-notch, after seeing this video we are actually sort of kicking ourselves for not dropping a portion of our life savings to get to England to see this. It's that good. Anyway, fingers crossed that the proposed Johnny Foreigner tour of the United States this fall actually comes together. And, of course, for those of you feeling a bit of deja vu, you are correct, this is not the first video you've seen with Gareth joining Johnny Foreigner. This is.
>> Chances are if you are of a certain age, say, mid-30s or younger, you know The Vaselines because they were covered notably by alt-rock tent-raisers Nirvana. As the Glaswegian indie pop legends were originally together for fewer than four years during its original voyage and issued only two EPs and a full length (and those four years were more than 20 years ago), it's understandable that many don't actually know the genuine article. But as with many by-gone acts, the idea of playing together again became too big to ignore for the duo (later a quartet). After reforming and performing a small number of shows over the last three years, The Vaselines have recorded and will release a long-awaited second full-length, Sex With An X. Sub Pop will do the honors and the set streets Sept. 14. We were minding our own business late last week listening to WMBR and we were struck by a perky and undeniable pop number that turned out to be The Vaselines' new gem "I Hate The '80s." The contrarian in us loves the fact that the band refuses to romanticize the '80s ("you want the truth, well this is it... the '80s were shit."). While we wouldn't agree that the decade was shit as The Vaselines assert, we do loathe contemporary acts who weren't alive in the decade in question affecting what they perceive to be an '80s sound and thinking that such window-dressing excuses said acts from writing good songs. But we digress. Check out the stream below.
>> We've got your first taste of the forthcoming Shiver Me Starships EP from Boston dream-pop upstarts The Hush Now. The current iteration of the quintet has established itself as the most formidable yet fielded by founding member Noel Kelly. And on the new EP, recorded throughout June and July in a suburban Boston studio, The Hush Now articulates a denser guitar attack and increasingly accessible pop hooks. "Big Awesome" in particular pulses behind enticing curtains of melodic guitar (do we need to bring up the Kitchens Of Distinction comparisons again?) and then memorably transitions into a huge bridge at the end of the third minute. But "The Other Ones," is being singled out for promo purposes and it is easy to hear why: alternating scritchy and then orchestral guitars, roller rink keys, and a bouncy and upbeat rhythm. We think we've already seen this one live, and as the band's confidence has grown, its ability to imagine and then convey grand musical gestures has grown with it. The soaring conclusion of "The Other Ones" is ample evidence. Boston-area music fans can see The Hush Now at an RSL Blog-curated show at Great Scott Boston Aug. 2. Shiver Me Starships is slated for release in late summer.
>> According to a post on the band's revamped web site, The Answering Machine's hotly anticipated sophomre set is completed and titled Lifeline; it is tentatively schedule for worldwide release in January. The Manchester, England-based indie pop luminaries recorded the set themselves with fronter Martin Colclough in the produder's chair. The band reports songs on the new record include a title track, "Anything Anything," "My Little Navy," "Hospital Lungs" and another titled "3 Miles;" another new track, "Winter Without You," is apparently Sonic Youth influenced and may or may not have made the final cut, according to this interview given to Live4Ever. Writing "3 Miles" apparently touched off a streak of songwriting that helped the act complete the record. "there’s a noticable 'dance' element to the songs, in the vein of The Whitest Boy Alive," Colclough told Live4Ever. The Answering Machine's bracing debut Another City, Another Sorry remains widely available, including at Bandcamp here. We reviewed Another City, Another Sorryhere; it was one of our favorite records of 2009.
Yeah, we know we've shown you this art before, or at least some of you, but our copy of Johnny Foreigner's hotly anticipated, long-awaited Every Cloakroom Ever 10" finally arrived in our mail today. You may recall the art features the name of every person who pre-ordered the record, which is pretty awesome, and our name is situated right at the center in the left margin on the front cover. Aces. According to this blog post which surfaced on the Interlosers earlier this evening, there are actually some copies of the 10" left and the Birmingham, England-based noise-pop titans will likely throw what little was not pre-ordered into its online merch shop sometime soon, which merch shop is right here. So if you haven't gotten a copy of the disc yet, there is still some hope.
Johnny Foreigner played Wichita Recordings' Wichiten 10-year anniversary celebration last night with Los Campesinos! and Frankie & The Heartstrings, and according to the buzz online the night was a raving success. Johnny Foreigner has four more festival dates booked this summer, which we hope leaves them with plenty of time to work on Album No. 3 and a planned U.S. tour which we hope will occur this fall. Haven't yet heard the band's most recent, freely distributed piece of genius, "With Who, Who And What I've Got?" Catch the stream below.
Sophomore full-length from the other greatest trio out of Birmingham, England. The 15-track Basic Nature will be issued by Tough Love Records in the U.K. Sept. 13. Pre-order the set here. The exciting, surprisingly groovy (in the motorik sense, that) new song "The Brink," presumably taken from the forthcoming collection, has recently begun streaming at Calories' MySpace dojo right here. We've never learned exactly what happened, but the three-piece's sophomore set was initially to be called Habitations and was expected to be released on Smalltown America in March of this year; that never happened. Tough Love released a Calories/William split earlier this year containing the Calories track "The Mortal Boys."
Fans of Boston-based indie punk pace-setters Varsity Drag have been tantalized for months with the prospect of the release of the trio's take on "White Cat In A Snowstorm." The song was originally released by defunct U.K.-based Drag labelmates Ipanema, whose fronter Darren "Wiz" Brown died suddenly in late 2006. The song made its way into Varsity Drag's live sets as far back as April, when we saw the band deliver a thrilling headline set at P.A.'s Lounge in which the song was an electrifying highlight [review here]. Varsity Drag finally released the track today to its Bandcamp domicile and you can download "White Cat In A Snowstorm" right here for free or a fee, depending on how altruistic you're feeling at the mo'. We've embedded a stream below.
We won't say the song is surprisingly heavy, because really, the band's live shows have been bringing more and more energy every time we've seen them over the last year or so. But it is, in fact, heavy (and we suppose it is a bit surprising, since the song was tracked in fronter Ben Deily's home studio). Mr. Deily's guitar tone has a crunchy metal edge that he doesn't often indulge, and certain sections with precise dynamics (particularly drummer Josh Pickering's cymbal grabs at 1:20 or so) complement well the aggressive edge. Varsity Drag's "White Cat In A Snowstorm" is slated to be released on a long-planned compilation being put together by the threesome's U.K. label Boss Tunage, and Varsity Drag has toyed with the idea of releasing the tune later as part of an EP that would also include outtakes from the sessions for its most recent full-length Night Owls, which was released in late 2009 [review here]. The band's only current live commitment is a show at Maxwell's in Hoboken, NJ, Aug. 26.
[Alejandro Escovedo at the Middle East, 7/19/2010. Photo by Michael Piantigini]
