That Was The Show That Was: Ben Kweller | Somerville Theater

[PHOTO CREDIT: Eytonz @ Flickr | We are pleased to once again present to you the work of friend and former editor The Good Doctor. While he does not contribute often enough, The Good Doctor has previously graced these pages with reviews of a couple Yo La Tengo shows. He is a direct and opinionated writer in the best sense: below he deems a large group of strangers to be surprisingly homely, much to our amusement. -- Ed.]

I’m 41 and don’t do much of anything in part because I have a house and a little boy and a long-hours desk job, but mostly because I’ve done enough. I've seen a zillion bands and now I really just don’t care, except about a few artists -- and Ben Kweller is one of them.

So has my perspective been poisoned by Hollywood because now I stay home and watch attractive people in TV shows and movies –- or is the health of today’s modern show-goer in horrible distress? Or was it a phenomenon of this particular artist’s audience? Allow me to be blunt: are Ben Kweller fans hideous or what? If you were casting that scene in a movie where someone is accidentally drugged and everything they see gets all wiggly and everyone around them gets in their face, but it’s in slow motion, and the sound gets all slowed down, and they look a little bit like evil clowns but without make-up or hats –- that’s what the lobby at this show looked like. I couldn’t believe it. It was terrifying.

That aside, Mr. Kweller -- who hails from Austin, Texas, and got his start fronting a relatively inspired trio called Radish -- has so many great songs it’s ridiculous. He played tons of them Tuesday night, many newly arranged in the style of his fine new country-flavored release, Changing Horses, released Feb. 3. Kweller worked all of the evening’s guitar chores on an acoustic instrument, achieving heavy sounds when necessary aided by appropriate gear. A highlight of the 90-plus minute set was the new record’s “Gypsy Rose,” a deceptively simple folk number performed with a false ending before tearing into a throbbing coda during which I may have seen God. The set took a quiet and personal turn on “Thirteen,” during a brief but beautiful solo set at the piano. Kweller kept chatter between songs to a minimum, though an explanation as to why he felt a need to re-arrange “Sundress” to ruin what is arguably his finest hook would have been welcomed. -- The Good Doctor

Kweller's tour of the U.S. continues through March 7; in April he travels to Australia and in May he takes the show to Europe. All the dates are here.

Ben Kweller -- Hurtin' You -- Changing Horses
[right click and save as, with a hat tip to Stereogum, who first offered the tune in November]
[buy Ben Kweller records from Newbury Comics right here]

Ben Kweller: Internerds | MySpace | YouTubes | Flickr

Introducing KeepingSomeDarkSecrets.com

Well, we've been toying with the idea since July 2007, and today we finally have done it: we're launching with our English colleague Luke Cotton a new outlet called KeepingSomeDarkSecrets.com, the international Johnny Foreigner fan site. In retrospect we're glad we didn't call it "A+ No. 1 Super Fun Time Johnny Foreigner Fan Club USA Blog," as we had originally joked two years ago. KSDS, as we've already taken to abbreviating it, will provide all the microscopic Johnny Foreigner coverage you've come to expect here, but it will be better: Mr. Cotton and we envision exclusives, live show reviews, an active fan forum, and so on. The sky is the limit really. As an aside -- hey Europeans? Why haven't you posted any video clips of the current tour to YouTube yet? Get on that.

So the obvious question is "will you still cover Johnny Foreigner here?" And the answer to that is a resounding yes. We plan to cross-post all our KSDS items here, although the posts will go online at KeepingSomeDarkSecrets earlier in the calendar day on UK time, while Clicky Clicky will continue to go online first thing in the morning U.S. East Coast time. When you click over to KeepingSomeDarkSecrets you'll notice we've already cross-posted there all the relevant Clicky Clicky historic posts -- some 60 of them! Anyway, we've got a nice surprise for the official launch of KSDS today in the form of a recently surfaced demo of Johnny Foreigner's "This Trapeze Ball Thought Out," which curiously came tagged with a different title, "rhapsody (rough)." So head on over and check out what we're doing, listen to the music like The Doobie Brothers, and add KSDS to your RSS reader. And now, here is the track that set us and our partner Mr. Cotton down this road in the first place last November, the old demo for "KickKickKick."

Johnny Foreigner -- "KickKickKick" -- I Like You Mostly Late At Never
[right click and save as]
[buy Johnny Foreigner music from Emusic right here]
[Well, would you look at that? Now Emusic has more JoFo stuff!]

Review: Calories | Adventuring

Brevity: Birmingham, England-based power trio Calories has it. The act's music is so tightly compacted that even the verses play like choruses, and its entire debut set Adventuring is done almost as soon as it begins. On Adventuring, due March 9, Calories delivers a brisk, exuberant collection of 10 tunes that clocks in at a breathless 23 minutes. All the songs are singalong-able, everything is anthemic and everything rocks.

Calories has been streaming new tracks at its MySpace garage for months, namely the lead track "A Bear, A Bison," "To Encounter A Deer" and the title cut. Spirited fist-bangers all, driven by bassist Pete Dixon's affecting bark, but the trio has kept some cards up its six sleeves. The punishing push and pull of "Caught In The In-Between" -- which recalls the finer early work of '90s D.C. post-hardcore standard bearers Jawbox -- is the most exciting track on Adventuring. The Jawbox reference may not be terribly off the mark, considering the slate of influences at Calories' MySpace reads like a who's who of the American underground of the last 20 years, including Jawbox contemporaries Shudder To Think (whose Get Your Goat album is exceptional), as well as Blonde Redhead, Polvo and Don Caballero. "(See You On The Expedition)," another highlight, rocks very convincingly in 3/4 time.

Adventuring is available for pre-order now right here; fans who pre-order the collection will also receive a bonus handmade CDR containing 26 tracks (!!!) of demos and extras, as well as a digital sampler from the label. All of which makes the 8 pounds sterling sticker price well worth it in our opinion. Calories embark on a short tour supporting Glaswegian indie phenoms Dananananaykroyd March 26, and you can inspect the trio's full itinerary at its aforementioned MySpace. There's no preview MP3 to be had for Adventuring, which is a shame, but we think you'll enjoy the non-album track "Drink The Potion," a live video of which is linked below. Word from the Calories camp is that the tune was written about a month or so after Adventuring was recorded, and it is likely going to be on the trio's next record, which could be tracked later this year. As a sidenote, we'll point out that only recently have we gotten our hands on Calories-predecessor Distophia's absurdly good but never released masterwork Beat Dyslexia. If you do not have this record you should hunt it down with extreme prejudice. It's exceptional, and we're posting the amazing cut "Children Know The Score" below with the hopes that some day the set might get a proper commercial release. Finally, you may recall Calories helped us relaunch our Show Us Yours feature a month ago; here's a link to that.

Calories -- "Drink The Potion" [YouTube]
Distophia -- "Children Know The Score [.m4a]" -- Beat Dyslexia
[right click and save as]
[buy Distophia records at MusicStack here]

Calories: Internerds | MySpace | YouTube | Flickr

Johnny Foreigner Is Aces -- New Demos Online For A Limited Time

Well, fans, your favorite Birmingham, England-based noise pop trio this evening put online for two weeks only something called Johnny Foreigner Is Aces (a sentiment we certainly won't argue). Johnny Foreigner Is Aces is not a proper release, but rather a .zip file with two tracks (pure .wav files! awesome!) and two desktop wallpaper images that the band is offering, as we said, for a limited time only. The first track is "Ghost The Festivals," which the band has been playing live for months and months. We think we prefer the live version (we're thinking of the one from New Slang last Nov., or the performance for Manchester's Channel M, specifically), but even so it is really solid -- the chorus in the demo is orchestrated slightly differently, but we expect it will grow on us. The more exciting cut is the second, "Ohai, Sentinels," which is apparently another of the band's catchy rants against the development and gentrification of their beloved hometown.

The two tunes were recorded and mixed by Sunset Cinema Club's Dom James at Bridge Studios Annex 2 and in Dom's new bedroom last month. According to the liners that came in the .zip the tunes are on a tour-only CD-R Johnny Foreigner will be selling at its shows for the foreseeable future, that apparently also contains three additional tracks "taken from our bootleg archive." Which brings us to a request -- if you get to a show on the band's upcoming tours with Sky Larkin and 100 Reasons and are flush with enough cash, please Please PLEASE buy two extra copies and then email us at the address in the sidebar. We've a mate in the UK who will receive shipment of same on our behalf, we'll totally pay you back, and we'll potentially set you up with some exclusive stuff in return related to a new super secret (for another week or so, anyway) Johnny Foreigner-related endeavor we've undertaken. Make it worth your while, yeh? Tour dates here.

Johnny Foreigner -- Johnny Foreigner Is Aces [zip file]
[right click and save as]

Today's Hotness: Postulat, The Answering Machine (Again)

>> We've received a lot of emails lately about two of our favorite '90s acts, Kam Fong (really, two emails recently) and Small Factory. As we quipped to one of our correspondents, we are ready for the Small Factory reunion. Just sitting here waiting for it. Ready. Waiting. Pretending it's sunny, even... Anyway, while a reunion of the Providence, RI-spawned trio seems unlikely, we were excited to see action at SF bassist and singer Alex Kemp's MySpace dojo. Mr. Kemp, now the creative director of a music production company and based in Los Angeles, reports in a bulletin that he has formed a new project that goes by the name Postulat with Norwegian singer/songwriter Kristin Øhrn Dyrud. The band name sounds kinda European techno or darkwave hip-hop or math-rocky, right? It turns out Postulat is none of these things. Instead, the duo offers densely arranged, somewhat reserved rockers and uptempo pop ("Magic World," "Say You Will"). The production is pretty glossy, sometimes clever. Kemp's vocals are evenly weighted with Ms. Dyrud's, and otherwise largely stick in the background, although he gets a verse in the bouncy "Say You Will." The pick of the six songs posted at Postulat's MySpace lean-to may be the quiet, bleep ballad "Gift," which we recommend you go stream straightaway.

>> If you couldn't tell from all our recent posting and Twittering about Manchester, England-based indie pop phenoms The Answering Machine that we are excited about their debut record, well, you just haven't been paying attention. We were bantering with a fellow from their label today, who was cool enough to extend to us permission to post the title track of the quartet's forthcoming full-length Another City, Another Sorry. You'll recall we pointed here to RockSellout's post with that very MP3 in it early this month; if you didn't heed our exhortation to go download the track then, we insist you do it now below. Another City, Another Sorry will be released by Heist Or Hit Records in the U.K. in May. As we reiterated Wednesday, the album is preceded by the exceedingly excellent single "Cliffer" Feb. 9, which can already be purchased in the U.S. at Rhapsody.com.

The Answering Machine -- "Another City, Another Sorry" -- Another City, Another Sorry
[right click and save as]
[watch the Heist Or Hit site for pre-order information]

>> While it seems patently obvious to those of you paying attention to such things, we thought we'd point out this week had the first new release day of the year we were very excited about. We've been too busy to get out and buy records, but when we do we'll definitely be picking up Morrissey's Years Of Refusal and Psapp's The Camel's Back. Psapp's next single will be for the album track "I Want That," and the duo is currently working on a video to promote the tune. The single will be released in the UK on March 30. You can get The Camel's Back at EMusic right now.

Today's Hotness: The Answering Machine, Superchunk, Stone Roses

>> For those of you who don't read something called Record Of The Day magazine, which we freely admit we don't, you may have missed this Feb. 5 issue of its weekly magazine (we know, a weekly version of a daily, we're confused too) in which our humble blog was profiled. We endeavored to be interesting, and are not sure we succeeded, although we don't think our case was helped by how our remarks were edited to fit in the news hole. But the most important takeaway from the interview is our answer to question three, in which we name The Answering Machine's debut full-length Another City, Another Sorry the most likely thing to break big in 2009. The video for the track "Cliffer" -- which will be released March 9 as the first single from the full-length, and which will probably sell out in no time -- is embedded atop this item. We heard from our man MGrooves Monday night that folks in the U.S. can already purchase the digital version of the Manchester, England quartet's single via Rhapsody.com right here, right now. We downloaded it last night and it is massive: gigantic guitars, big hooks, it's the whole package. The b-side "Your Home Address," a demo of which we've been digging for months and months, is also really enjoyable, although its more mid-tempo attack is eclipsed somewhat by the energy of "Cliffer" (not to mention the energy of the title track to the full-length). Anyway, our point is this track is awesome, the full-length is going to be huge, and enjoy the video.

>> We really feel the music zeitgeist is tipping back toward our tastes in indie rock. One sign of this is news Tuesday from Pantsfork that legendary indie rock foursome Superchunk will issue a new EP April 7 called Leaves In The Gutter. Will it be as good as the "Mower" b/w "On The Mouth" single from 1993? Probably not. But maybe, just maybe, it will be. What we do know, according to the Pantsfork item, is that the EP will have five tracks, including two version of "Learned To Surf" and one cut ("Misfits & Mistakes") that was previously issued on vinyl in 2007. Speaking of "Mower," did you know the band offers that track for free download at its site right here, along with a handful of other excellent tracks? Well now you do. Here's "Mower" and "Watery Hands," because, you know, why not?

Superchunk -- "Mower" -- On The Mouth
Superchunk -- "Watery Hands" -- Indoor Living
[right click and save as]
[buy Superchunk records from Newbury Comics right here]

>> Since we've already fallen down the rabbit hole of oldies, we thought we'd throw out there that we're pleased that The Stone Roses' superlative '89 self-titled debut will be remastered and reissued some time this year as a box set. This according to the NME here. We can't imagine what if any rarities could be packaged with the box that haven't already made the rounds of fans several times over, but that is no matter. What is important is that the record gains currency with new fans who may not have discovered it yet. It is truly a wonderful record.

Today's Hotness: The Hush Now, Cinemasophia

>> We were very impressed by The Hush Now's record release show last Thursday night, and only work and a trip over the weekend kept us from offering something more like a proper review. There are a couple important things to note that underline the fact that The Hush Now is a band to watch. First, this was technically the band's live debut. And we don't just mean this particular line-up of the band, we mean it was their first gig, and The Hush Now was very convincing: no muffed cues, no noticeable botching of anything, just big guitars and big anthems. Second, bandleader Noel Kelly told us prior to the show that the quintet had only rehearsed four times. Third, despite it being the band's live debut (we don't think a radio session with Pipeline! earlier in the week counts), the room in front of the stage at TT's was filled -- a bit shy of packed. We've been in that room a lot of nights with bigger bands drawing fewer people, so the turnout -- for a band whose players describe themselves as hermits -- speaks to a level of interest that we expect even surprises Mr. Kelly. The Hush Now played rockers including "Sadie Hawkins Dance," "Pining," a new and unfinished tune "Constellations" and debut album highlight "Traditions" (the last track featured a vocal cameo from very cool original Hush Now bassist Mike DiMinno). In lieu of further discussion we offer this link to a Flickr slideshow of snapshots we took during the set. The Hush Now's next gig is May 1 at TT's, as part of a fine evening curated by Bradley's Almanac.

>> If you read yesterday's feature about Lubec and were intrigued by the idea of the band having a more established, sonically similar scene peer in Cinemasophia, you are not alone. We spent a fair amount of time Monday night listening to the tracks at the latter act's MySpace outpost and we like what we heard. Cinemasophia is a five-year-old quintet. Unlike Lubec, the act has a couple releases under its collective belt, and Cinemasophia will release a long-labored-on (the band was mid-way through recording it 13 months ago) new collection, Fits & Cycles, April 7 on Little Black Cloud. Fits & Cycles was recorded by Richmond engineering mainstay John Morand at Sound Of Music and mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side. Cinemasophia intends to digitally reissue its two prior full-length efforts, Dialectic and Whole Ghosts, sometime in 2009. Currently floating about is a tour-only EP with some of the new material already on it (the track listing is posted at the Little Black Cloud MySpace wigwam right here, as is a stream of the new track "Detailed Night" -- stick around and listen to the tremelo-tastic beauty by Ringfinger, "Four Misused Letters"). Tour? Why yes, Cinemasophia have a handful of dates booked over the next two months, including a couple at the end of this week in New York. We're posting all of the band's dates below some free downloads we found at Last.FM. We particularly dig "Humming & Entropy," which explodes after about ninety seconds into a big crescendo of distorted guitar, and generally sounds a fair amount like Lorelei. Dig it.

Cinemasophia -- "Humming & Entropy" -- Dialectic
Cinemasophia -- "Buried In Blooms" -- Whole Ghosts
[right click and save as]
[buy the Cinemasophia CD EP from Little Black Cloud here]

02/19 -- The Cake Shop -- New York, NY
02/20 -- Secret Show in Brooklyn -- Brooklyn, NY
02/22 -- The Reservoir -- Chapel Hill, NC
03/26 -- Johnny Brenda’s -- Philadephia, PA
03/27 -- The Czar -- Richmond, VA

>> Superman Revenge Squad's second full-length will be recorded live next month during an appearance in April and be titled We're Here For Duration, We Hope if all goes as planned. Squad mastermind Ben Parker also reports here that he intends to begin playing with a drummer and cellist, which conjures some interesting, perhaps even exciting, possibilities. Superman Revenge Squad's This Is My Own Personal Way Of Dealing With It All was one of our favorite records of 2008. We interviewed Parker here in October.