First Listen: The Cure | The Head On The Door [Reissue]

First listen, second use of that graphic in two days. We spent a thrilling late morning and afternoon listening to The Cure reissues that were released yesterday. This item summarizes our first impressions of the Rarities (1984-1985) disc that accompanies the remastered version of the 1985 classic The Head On The Door. And a one, and a two: Band leader Robert Smith's home demos for the set are like a dream about the studio record: softer, less focused but with an internal watery logic that lets the music go where it must as deemed by the gravity of Smith's unconsciousness. The demo for "Push" is particularly surprising, because it exists on such an understated scale in the early conceptualization, in pointed contrast to the dynamic and vast guitar anthem that is the album version.

The more-polished studio demos also offer interesting insight into the Cure material of that era. The biggest surprise? It sounds like Smith originally worked up some of the lyrics ("yesterday I got so old...") for "Inbetween Days" for the demo "Lime Time," which is a pretty infectious cut of dreamy synth pop despite a melody that ends on the wrong foot. The studio demo for "A Few Hours After This" is notably well developed, but, as elsewhere, Smith is still working out the lyrics as the tape is rolling. It is interesting to hear the main marching horns riff from the album version delivered as a simple, insistent bass line. It's almost more romantic, which we admit doesn't make a lot of sense considering the overblown romanticism of the album version. We'll file further First Listen items about the other Cure reissues if we make any other discoveries of note therein.

Today's Hotness: Portastatic, Lemonheads, Pants Yell!!

>> Yesterday Billboard here previewed the forthcoming Portastatic set Be Still Please, which will street on Merge Oct. 10. The record sounds like something of a return to the one-man band format the project was at its inception. In more recent years Portastatic, a musical vehicle of Superchunk fronter Mac McCaughan, had become a full-fledged band, but this go 'round McCaughan once again wore most of the musical hats. Portastatic will play Boston's Great Scott rock club Oct. 12, according to the friendly folks over at Mark Kates' Fenway Recordings. Finally, there is a brief mention in the Billboard piece about progress on Superchunk's first new set since 2001. It'd be really nice to see the storied indie rock quartet come back with a real kick-ass rock record.

>> PantsFork reported today that Sub Pop has pushed the release of the planned third record from The Shins back to 2007. More details, including the band gushing about how great the record is, right here.

>> The rabid Lemonheads fans over at EvanDando.Co.UK have pointed out that a new Lemonheads web site has gone online at Lemonheads.net. There's not a lot to look at there just yet. And we're not really sure why they aren't using TheLemonheads.com. Odd.

>> And finally, You Ain't No Picasso has some European tour dates for Boston indie pop concern Pants Yell!! right here.

Rack And Opinion: Release Date 8.08.06

We maintained a solemn vigil throughout the day, monitoring the hourly mail rounds at the office, hoping for the arrival of a package from Amazon containing our four pre-orders for today's release date: the deluxe reissues of The Cure's The Top, The Head On The Door and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me and The Glove's Blue Sunshine. The Cure was pretty much the end-all, be-all for us in the late '80s, so the prospect of owning these reissues (of releases we'd mostly only owned on cassette before) is akin to as many Christmases in a single day. Sadly, the package did not arrive, so we'll have to wait another day.

As far as new releases go, this isn't the hugest release date, but if you factor in those Cure reissues and the super reissue of Sebadoh's III, today starts to look like a pretty big day. The brand-new stuff isn't too shabby either, and includes the Matthew Friedberger double album and the Kaki King joint we talked about yesterday, as well as Philadelphia nu-gazer Relay's Type/Void EP on Bubble Core. Those releases and the rest of our picks for the best new (well, "new") stuff of the week are listed below. Links go to relative commercial opportunities with our former pizza delivery guys over at Insound.

The Cure -- The Top [Deluxe Ed.] -- Rhino
The Cure -- The Head On The Door [Deluxe Ed.] -- Rhino
The Cure -- Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me [Deluxe Ed.] -- Rhino
Dirty Pretty Things -- Waterloo to Anywhere -- Interscope
Matthew Friedberger -- Winter Women/Holy Ghost Language School -- 859 Recordings
The Glove -- Blue Sunshine [Deluxe Ed.] -- Rhino
Kaki King -- ... Until We Felt Red -- Velour Recordings
Relay -- Type/Void EP -- Bubble Core Records
Sebadoh -- III -- Domino

Coming To Your Local Bandstand: Meneguar

Pittsburgh, tonight is your lucky night. Starting this very evening the chaps behind one of our very favorite records of 2005 are hitting the road for a few dates, and then a half-dozen more in early September. Stop one: the Steel City. The act we're talking about is Brooklyn-based feel-bad indie rockers Meneguar, whose 2005 release I Was Born At Night was reissued in June by Troubleman Unlimited, and reviewed here by :: clicky clicky ::. I Was Born At Night is chock full of big rock hits, and we recommend having a copy or two around the house. According to a MySpace bulletin the Meneguar guys are also working on a long-talked-about second full length at Emandee studios in Brooklyn. We're looking forward to it. Tour dates below.

08/08 -- ON -- Pittsburgh, PA
08/09 -- Rocketstar Cafe -- Kalamazoo, MI
08/10 -- The Note -- Chicago, IL
09/06 -- University of Delaware -- DE
09/07 -- Wham City -- Baltimore, MD
09/08 -- Bull City Records -- Durham, NC
09/09 -- Drunken Unicorn -- Atlanta, GA
09/10 -- The Garage -- Columbia, SC
09/11 -- The Spazzatorium -- Greenville, NC

Free Range Music: Kaki King, Matthew Friedberger

>> While the AOL Music pre-release album streams this week were pretty anemic as far as hot indie content goes, we were very favorably impressed by the new Kaki King record. We'd seen Ms. King perform on Letterman earlier this year [YouTube link] and had read with great interest John Darnielle's accolades at Last Plane To Jakarta and we were eager to hear what was sure to be another excellent John McEntire album production. But we just weren't certain if King's third long-player would be too "jazzy" or too "NPR-y" for us. There are shades of both of those things, and we'd be particularly worried if we were Bill Frisell, because King has proven herself a player to be reckoned with. But at the same time ...Until We Felt Red mines the more experimental, hypnotic and electronic territory worked by Argentinian electro-acoustic star Juana Molina. You need to hear this record. And you know what would be awesome -- Kaki King playing with The Books.

Kaki King -- ...Until We Felt Red -- Velour Recordings

>> BBC's Collective has a feature up right here about former Dambuilders and current Antony and The Johnsons violinist Joan Wasser's Joan As Policewoman project. In one interview segment Ms. Wasser notes an affinity for Bad Brains and soul music and says both has had an effect on her music. Check out two live cuts and three tracks from her current set Real Life, released this week on Reveal (at least in the U.K.). We're not as crazy about Joan As Policewoman as we are about The Dambuilders, but then that's true of most things.

>> If you aren't certain the new Matthew Freidberger records are for you, check out the streams of the Fiery Furnaces co-fronter's new sets right here. Winter Women is full of orchestrated pop that sounds pretty Pet Sounds-ish and Abbey Road-ish, in a good way. We actually weren't thinking we'd be into this, but we have to say we are. Good on ye, Friedberger. Holy Ghost Language School, as has been widely reported, seems more willfully odd, but it does have its charms. We particularly like the rough production and big beat of "Seventh Loop Highway." Definitely check these records out; they are no Blueberry Boat (thank God).

That Was The Show That Was: Scissormen

Imagine our surprise to be attending a wedding in rural New Hampshire this past Saturday when a rock show broke out. Unbeknownst to us Boston-based (for a little while longer anyway) blooze-rockers the Scissormen had been booked in to rock the coctail hour, and the duo hit the makeshift, floor-level, tent-covered stage at our friends' wedding and blasted through about an hour of liquor-charged, Mississippi-fied electric stompers. We'd seen the band two or three years back at a short-lived incarnation of the Cantab Lounge basement, so we know their sound, but we have to admit ignorance as far as most of their catalog goes. We are certain the band played "Whiskey And Maryjane" and "Death Letter," both of which are at the band's web site here. Needless to say, a good time was had by all the unwitting wedding guests/show-goers, many of whom had their tables stood on, beers used as guitar slides or chairs used for that same purpose. We'll post a link to a Flickr set of the band's performance at a later date, but in the meantime enjoy these pictures of Scissormen Ted and Rob rocking out, wedding-style.

Scissormen | web site
Scissormen | MySpace

[Note: The picture of drummer Rob Hulsman was messing with our page layout. Look for it in the Flickr set when that goes up]

Review: Icy Demons | Tears Of A Clone

Off-kilter Chicago and Philadelphia-based post-rockers Icy Demons embrace an exciting variety of sounds utilizing jazz apparatus (vibes, overdriven organ) and modalities. A casual listen to the quintet's forthcoming set Tears Of A Clone inspires comparisons to older-model Aloha, back when that act's work could call to mind the Peter Gabriel-ified version of Genesis. But Icy Demons casts its sonic net (not its SonicNet) even more widely, pulling together strings, reeds, acoustic guitars, electronic beats and vocal harmonies into a smart and beguiling amalgamation that borders on singular. Even Eastern Developments label boss Scott Herren professes confusion at Icy Demon's curious sum total.

The five-year-old act, which features one-time/sometime members of Man Man, Bablicon and Need New Body, began as a more improvisational unit drawing from sounds as disparate as African music, Tropicalia and ambient compositions. Tears Of A Clone exhibits some reverence for all of these, and its songs lie somewhere on an axis between the aforementioned Genesis ("Golden Coin") and Herbie Hancock's electric jazz work ("Jump Off"). The record streets Sept. 12 on Eastern Developments; it was issued in Japan in May. The label also plans to reissue Icy Demons' 2004 set Fight Back by the end of the year, and you can stream tracks from both records at the band's MySpace drive thru here. The band's weird web site appears prepared to offer the reggae-fied jam "As It Comes" at some point, we guess just keep checking back if you get tired of streaming it at the MySpace joint. Icy Demons executed 10 days worth of shows in mid-July and will hopefully be touring more extensively before the end of 2006.