YouTube Rodeo: Thunder Power's "Home Office"

Our confidence that Omaha-based Thunder Power would finally write another song we really like has finally been rewarded. Two years ago the quintet popped onto our radar with the superlative, Belle & Sebastian-esque strummer "Take A Hike" [video here]."Home Office" touts the same winning formula which pairs Kacynna Tompsett's affecting voice and able indie pop backing, and the track is from a split 10" the collective is promoting called Hearts Intersect. You can buy the EP from distributor Saddle Creek right here; the split -- which carries three songs from The 1959 Hat Company on the b-side -- was released in May by Slumber Party Records. In case you missed "Take A Hike" when it was all the rage in 2008, here's a stream scraped from SoundCloud. Thunder Power is currently on tour in the midwest and you can see the dates at the band's MySpace wigwam right here.

Thunder Power's "Take A Hike"

Today's Hotness: Johnny Foreigner, Mobius Band, Yuck

Oh, the things we haven't had a chance to report during our very busy last several weeks. Let's catch up together, shall we?

>> Birmingham, England-based noise pop titans Johnny Foreigner are presently in the midst of their first full tour of North America (mostly the U.S.), where they've been supporting the truly terrific Los Campesinos! But the big news is the announcement of two releases on new label Alcopop! The first is an EP confoundingly titled You Thought You Saw A Shooting Star But Yr Eyes Were Blurred With Tears And That Lighthouse Can Be Pretty Deceiving With The Sky So Clear And Sea So Calm, and it contains six songs: "The Wind And The Weathervanes," "Who Needs Comment Boxes When You've Got Knives," "Elegy For Post Teenage Living (Parts 1 and 2)," "Robert Scargill Takes The Prize," "Harriet By Proxy" and "Yr Loved." Alcopop! will issue the EP in November in physicial and digital editions, but the EP is already available to North American ITunes shoppers [LINK] as a way to harness the hype the band hopes to generate during the current tour. The physical release of You Thought You Saw... will feature unique art for each unit shifted, which art is being crowdsourced from actual photos being submitted by fans. More deets about that right here. The second release Johnny Foreigner will do with Alcopop is a split single with new labelmates Stagecoach. The split, limited to 500 copies and carrying a Nov. 15 release date, features each band performing one of their own songs as well as one song by the other act. Johnny Foreigner's contributions are the new track "Tru Punx" and Stagecoach's "Good Luck With Your 45;" Stagecoach turn in what is apparently an amazing acoustic version of Johnny Foreigner's "Salt, Peppa and Spinderella" and the new track "Not Even Giles (... Would Say We'll Be OK)." The two bands tour the UK from 18 November through 11 December, and you can see all the tour dates here at ThisIsFakeDIY. Pre-orders for the Johnny Foreigner EP will be taken imminently; the JoFo/Stagecoach split will be sold on the bands' tour, but we have it on good authority there will be some copies stocked in the Alcopop! store and Banquet Records is already doing pre-orders as well.

>> Reformed post-rockers/electropop geniuses Mobius Band officially announced its hiatus. This is sad, in a rented hatchback. The very fine trio has released to date two excellent full length recordings and a seemingly endless number of EPs, and we're sad to see the band taking an indefinite break, although that break has been going on for what seems like a couple years at this point, so it is not exactly a shock. Each band member continues pursuing musical interests. Guitarist Ben Sterling's Cookies project already has a 10" record on offer with the tracks "Summer Jam" b/w "Throw A Parade." The a-side sounds very much of a piece with the Heaven-era Mobius Band stuff, and features a very solid female vocalist whose identity we don't know. Both tracks can be downloaded or streamed at the Cookies web hacienda right here. Ah, what the hell, here's the link to the .zip file, have at it, music aficionadoes. Cookies will make its live debut Nov. 5 in Manhattan at Mercury Lounge. Mobius Band drummer Noam Schatz -- seriously, the drummingest mofo you will ever meet, by the way -- has a new project LOLFM and an album of electropop gems titled We Are Its Waves freely downloadable from Bandcamp right here. Bassist Peter Sax also has free rock on offer under the nom de rock Ladies And Gentlemen; check out "Up To Us" here and "What You Could" here. All of these new musics have their charms, but we certainly harbor hopes the trio will be reconstituted at some later date. Mobius Band, we salute you.

>> Superlative upstart indie rockers Yuck, who make their US debut in Boston at Paradise Rock Club next Wednesday who recently cancelled their planned US dates (see comment), have signed with Fat Possum. The label will release the London-based act's full-length debut -- as-yet untitled -- in early 2011; the set will be issued in Europe by The Pharmacy Recording Company around the same time. Preceding the full-length will be a US single on Fat Possum for Yuck's "Georgia" b/w "The Base Of A Dream Is Empty." The single will be issued Nov. 23; fans, of course, know that "Georgia" was previously issued as a single in the U.K. in March. U.K. fans have a new, 12" Yuck single to look forward to as well: "Rubber" b/w "The Base Of A Dream Is Empty" and "Dark Magnet" will be released Nov. 1 on The Pharmacy Recording Company. If you haven't yet heard "Georgia" in all of its Yo La Tengo-esque deliciousness, feast your ears on this.

Yuck -- "Georgia" -- "Georgia" b/w "The Base Of A Dream Is Empty"
[right click and save as]
[pre-order the single from Fat Possum right here]

YouTube Rodeo: Sun Airway's "Put The Days Away"

This clip, directed by Ricardo Rivera of Klip Collective, makes us miss Philadelphia. The song is from rising electropop duo Sun Airway, whose debut Nocturne of Exploded Crystal Chandelier will be released on Dead Oceans Oct. 26 [as we reported here in August]. The song and the video are slow burners, with a big payoff at the end. You can pre-order Nocturne of Exploded Crystal Chandelier from Dead Oceans on CD and LP right here. That's something you should do. After the requisite CMJ performances, Sun Airway is mounting a thorough U.S. tour from Oct. 26, and you can review all of those tour dates at the band's web dojo right here. The duo performs locally at the Middle East Downstairs Nov. 18 with Bear In Heaven and Twin Shadow.

Put the Days Away by Sun Airway

Review: Soars | Self-titled [MP3]

Something that may be more surprising than how many excellent records from up-and-comers have hit racks in 2010 is how many excellent shoegaze and dreampop records have been released during the same period of time (Tears Run Rings, The Hush Now, Wild Nothing, that new Yuck jam, and on and on and on). And even more surprising than that is the variety of solutions we're hearing to the shoegaze equation. Time was the Choc/Van/Straw of shoegaze influences (that is, My Bloody Valentine/Slowdive/Ride) were so pervasive that the output of those acts' musical disciples did not stray far from familiar stylistic medians. Fewer still saw fit to map new territories in shoegaze. Which is all the more reason why Soars' self-titled debut, released tomorrow on La Société Expéditionnaire, is so thrilling.

The Lehigh Valley, PA-based quartet (augmented by two samplers) incorporates into its eight-song debut the breathy ambience of Cocteau Twins and, occasionally, the aggressively stunned energy of hugely under-rated Slumberland act Whorl. Canned percussion, Brianna Edwards' vocals drowning in reverb, and echoey guitars are certainly nothing new, but Soars sets itself apart by tinting its music with gothic overtones -- we're thinking specifically here of the trudging chant "Escape On High" that anchors the center of the record -- which we expect only remain in fashion with committed goth or darkwave aficionadoes. It's not quite the sound of depthless (albeit devotedly melodic) dread, but it ain't exactly "Shiny Happy People" either. The juxtaposition of the emotive singing and melodies against fairly minimal programmed beats in the standout song "The Sun Breaks Every Way But One" communicates a feeling of spiritual drift. The verse of the wonderfully narcotic "Ditches" channels Joy Division's towering "Transmission," but Soars lives up to its name with its songs surging, hazy chorus. In all, the foursome's debut is a beautiful, formidable statement of purpose.

Soars has several appearances booked over the next month, including two appearances at the annual CMJ music confabulation in New York; full dates are posted below. While Soars was issued domestically earlier this month, the record will not see release in the U.K. and Europe until December.

Soars - Throw Yourself Apart

Soars - Figurehead
[Buy Soars from La Société Expéditionnaire right here]

10.22 -- Bar Matchless (CMJ) -- Brooklyn, NY
10.23 -- Cake Shop (CMJ) -- New York, NY
11.03 -- Garfield Artworks -- Pittsburgh, PA
11.27 -- Johnny Brenda's -- Philadelphia, PA

Soars: Internerds | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

YouTube Rodeo: Ringo Deathstarr's "Imagine Hearts"

Song from the mighty Ringo Deathstarr's forthcoming debut full-length Colour Trip, which (as we reported here in May) is slated for release this fall now slated for release in Feb. 2011 on Club AC30 out of the UK. Vinyl Junkie will release the record in Japan.

And Then This Happened: The Hush Now's Shiver Me Starships EP Release Party at Mad Oak Studios, Allston, MA | 2 Oct.

Rock Over Boston: Roger Waters' The Wall | The Gahden | 9.30.2010

I could not betray my suburban classic rock upbringing by turning down a freebie for this one. Budding music nerds and other social outcasts of multiple generations have spent their afternoons with headphones on thinking Pink Floyd gets it, man - they think the world is as fucked up as I do! Though that really only explains a subset of the people that has given The Wall the staying power to fill arenas again 30 years later. Some people just like getting high, hearing big guitar solos, and having a night out.

The nostalgia factor is an inescapable part of this whole exercise, and it has the rather profound effect of undermining the larger messages that Roger Waters claims to be trying to get across. The part of the story about the division between him and his audience takes a bit of a back seat (he seems to be having too much fun, actually, to really get into that) so the anti-war message is front and center in this year's tour. And there are some truly moving moments of the show where fan-submitted pictures of loved ones lost in conflicts all over the world and throughout history were projected on the screen and on the wall, as well as the well-known viral clips of the daughter being surprised in class of her father's return home from Iraq and the leaked footage of the US helicopter attacks on innocents on the ground there. But that latter clip was shown at the end of a song (er, maybe it was "Goodbye Blue Sky?"), so it meant that it coincided with rousing cheers. "Mother," of course, has the leading line "Mother should I trust the government?" which probably didn't need the line "no fucking way" projected on the wall to get the cheers/jeers it got (in fall 2010, it was also not at all clear who people are jeering. Are they booing Obama? Are they tea partiers? Or just old-school anti-establishment hippies?).

But this is all taking place in an arena named for a bank and covered in corporate logos that people are paying upwards of hundreds of dollars to see. This Dwight D. Eisenhower quote got big play on the wall late in the show:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

...which is great and everything, but how about when water's four bucks a bottle and t-shirts are $60? This is the part where I try to resist saying "welcome to the machine, indeed." (oops.)

That aside (sorta), how was the show? A recent Rolling Stone cover story about the tour was headlined "Waters Reinvents The Wall." Well, not really. In fact, I was looking through the inserts in the live album released in 2000 of the original 1980-81 Wall shows, and was surprised at how closely the production seems to follow the original shows. Presumably the technology now allows for a somewhat easier execution of it, with better quality projections (and one wonders how much easier it is to get away with pre-recorded music as well).

So, you know the deal - if ever there was a genius ready-made arena rock concept, The Wall is certainly it. It was all there: the schoolmaster puppet (photo above), the Gerald Scarfe animations, the pig. They built the wall up in front of the band in the first half, the band played behind, above, and in front of it in the second half. Then it came tumbling down. It does make for neat and ambitious arena rock theater spectacle. That was more than enough for most people. There were soaring guitar solos and the occasional solid groove as the wall went up. The show's only misfire was when Waters addressed the crowd to introduce "Mother." With a show meant to be immersive, this sucked you right out.

So, yes, there were moments where I was able to forget all of the above and be the kid with headphones on again and appreciate the experience. Though that brings up another point: The Wall, for me at least, was always sort of an insular, claustrophobic/agoraphobic experience to some extent. So, while it lends itself so easily to the big stage, it is somewhat at odds with this too.

Cynical? Sure, but I'm judging it on its own terms and giving Waters the benefit of the doubt that he means it when he says this all still means something to him. Does it? Does it mean anything to the audience anymore?

-Michael Piantigini

Roger Waters: Intertubes