Bits & Pieces

Final Fantasy is playing at PA's Lounge in Somerville on Friday! I missed Owen when he came through the first time, and I'm not bloody missing out again.

Amy Millan is coming to the Paradise in November. Fancey (Tim Fancey from the New Pornographers) is coming to Bill's Bar in September. Rogue Wave is coming to the Middle East in September. Maybe I won't move to Seattle.

Peter Mulvey, whom I saw at Club Passim, is on All Things Considered. Good for him.

Now that Chan Marshall is dry maybe the MFA shows become a better bet?

tags: [Music], [Live music], [Boston], [Cambridge], [Somerville], [Final Fantasy], [Amy Millan], [Fancey], [Rogue Wave], [Peter Mulvey], [Cat Power]

Bishop Allen @ Middle East (Up)

Full disclosure: I have a considerable, and possibly unfair, affection for Bishop Allen; a dear friend introduced me to Charm School, which came out while I lived abroad; I listened to it in the métro on the way to the pool most mornings, in my tank suit and baggy Homestar hoodie. I found and still find their mix of utter dorkiness, diffident charm, and Modest-Mousey bombast to be addictively . . . well, addictive. I definitely show symptoms of the fankid syndrome with them. Full disclosure, like I said.

Even with that, though, it was a good show last night. The MidEast Up was full (granted it's not the biggest venue in the world, or even the biggest small venue in Boston); interestingly, the crowd seemed less ferociously hip than the crowd at Jens Lekman's show around the corner not too long ago. Younger, more simply dressed, a little more awkward.

They started out playing so softly that it seemed they were going to make the live mistake of gentling everything, in reaction to the other live mistake (Indiscriminate Rock Out With Your Cock Out). Thank goodness they made neither mistake--they started gently and built from there. They played less from Charm School than I'd expected--just Empire City, and possibly one other; I'm sure they're tired of those songs, but inevitably Empire City went over like a house on fire. The Monitor (from the March EP) and Flight 180 (from the April EP) were the best tracks of the evening; Flight 180 was a favorite of mine from beforehand--who can resist that opening?--but I'd neglected The Monitor until now. They did play a couple that I didn't know--one called Rain, and one possibly called Conversation. I fervently hope that Rain is on the August EP.




Their sound was well done, and they played well onstage: none of the muffing and fumbling that often happens in live shows, and thanks to the presence of a couple of multi-instrumentalist friends handling the saxophone, xylophone, oboe, drums, and other various bits, the instrumental funkiness of the studio recordings was maintained. Speaking of studio! One of the many reasons Bishop Allen is so brilliantly cool is that they're making a go of truly independent distribution; they have an EP-a-month project this year, and you can buy them all straight from the band here. They are all top-notch, $4 for the digital-download version and slightly more for a beautifully packaged hardcopy. Go buy all of them and dance around ridiculously like I do.

tags: [Music], [mp3], [Live music], [Bishop Allen]

Bits & Pieces

Thank goodness somebody else is thinking this too! Harp has an article on the proof that supergroups aren't always a good thing.

John Darnielle has done an eMusic Dozen of immersion tank CDs. This is funny because he's also done an Extreme Metal Dozen that, er, only has ten items.

Chan Marshall is doing a couple solo shows at the MFA in September. My respect for them as a music venue continues to grow. She has a pretty spotty performance history, so I hope she pulls it off--but I'm not paying 25$ for a possible meltdown-as-spectator-sport.


tags: [Music], [Music news], [Harp], [supergroups], [Mountain Goats], [eMusic], [Cat Power], [Museum of Fine Arts], [live music], [Boston]

The [Infamous] Stringdusters @ Club Passim

The stage at Club Passim is a bit small; spacious for two and more than adequate for three, it becomes comically tight trying to hold the six guys of The (now infamous) Stringdusters. (It seems they had to change their name--whether because of the rare-book store of the same name I found upon googling them, or some other cause, I couldn't say.) There's Andy on dobro, Jesse on mandolin, Chris on banjo, Travis on bass, another Chris on guitar, and Jeremy on violin--pretty much everybody sings at one time or another.

The upside of crowding this many musicians on a stage is that it seems more like a hangout session in an impossibly musical group of friends than a band. They sidle around eachother, trying not to produce any unintentional hijinks by whacking anybody with guitarnecks; Travis produces an almost audible cartoon-style whpp-zhyrm when he shoots up from the back to do vocals. With that many players onstage, comparing musical mannerisms becomes an inevitable game: Chris-on-guitar can only do certain notes if he's on his tip-toes; Jesse is impossibly fast; Travis watches people like he's trying to read their hand at cards; Chris-on-banjo is the dispassionate one; Jeremy is channelling Colin Meloy in style matters.

In their sound, too, the advantages of so many musicians become obvious: the different timbres weave and complement eachother just as nicely as the musicians. Their CD is coming out on Sugar Hill Records (same label is Nickel Creek), but no word on title or date; below is the best samples I could get--an excerpt of "Dream You Back" and one of "Letters from Prison"--"Dream You Back" showcases the nimble celerity that bluegrass demands, and "Letters from Prison" has some appealing harmony. They're only excerpts, though, so we'll all have to wait for the CD.







tags: [Music], [Bluegrass], [Stringdusters]

Bon Savants/Lake Trout/Editors @ Paradise

It was a good show: consistent, as my companion point out. I don't think I'd been to a show with two openers where both of them were good.

Bon Savants were good, but no better than that. They drew a pretty decent crowd for a first opener, seeing as they're local, and announced that guitarist Kevin is leaving; their sound edged upward in my estimation for the whole set, which is always a good thing.

Lake Trout was the second opener of the night, and the big surprise; the second-opener slot is usually death, if only because at that point everybody's tired of listening to people who aren't the headliners. But they were sharp and engaging; their fondness for cyclical guitarwork reminded me of Tool in its lighter moments, and the wandering construction of some of their songs reminded me of Mogwai. Accidentally bought their next-to-newest CD, and there's a big difference between the two: part of it of course might be production values, but their sound has gotten more layered and focused since then.

Lake Trout - Riddle (from YSI), off of their 2005 CD Not Them, You




And of course, Editors. They're good. Everybody knows they're good. It's clear they're good from the show, and it was probably the most enthusiastic audience I've seen--there was actually a stage dive and brief crowd sufing, before security collared the guy and hauled him off. But . . . it's not my thing. Too much cool rockstar posturing. Tom Smith (the vocalist) looked like he'd either taken too many floppy drugs or was doing the last stage of the peepee dance (which is called "Oh . . . too late")--although I sort of doubt that was the impression he was going for--and the guitarist was such a rock star with his skinny jeans, mini-mullet, and pigeon-toed guitar dances. The bassist was the only one who looked like a normal human being, and thus, my favorite.

I do like the occasional song, like "All Sparks," and Editors'll always get props from me for the brilliant acoustic cover of the Gorillaz' "Feel Good, Inc.," but mostly they're just not a band for me.

Editors - All Sparks (from YSI), off of their debut Back Room




Relevant tags: [Music], [Live music], [Bon Savants], [Lake Trout], [Editors]

Lowell Folk Festival

Had the good luck to get dragged to the Lowell Folk Festival yesterday; I'd never heard of it, not being from around these parts, but apparently it's the largest free folk festival in the US. We only caught a couple of acts, but they were wonderful.

The first we had was Liz Carroll and John Doyle (Irish fiddle and guitar). I don't know enough about Irish music to be able to comment intelligently, so instead I'll say that watching Liz Doyle was great fun. When she played standing up, her whole body was focused on the fiddle, but when she sat down, her legs started dancing! Kept much more complex time than most people aim for when they're using knees. Doyle was behind a pole from my vantage point, so I can't comment on his dancing.


Then there was Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, and they were brilliant. There's not much like zydeco for getting people dancing--even hesitant New Englanders--and as there were a few couples there who really knew how to do it, and a few caution-to-the-winds types who didn't care that they didn't, the aisles were pretty full. As we were right behind an aisle, we had a brilliant view: the hot girl who was almost certainly a bellydancer; the crazy-dancing bearded barefoot dude who tried to pick her up; the couple where the girl taught the ponytailed guy a step, and he would repeat it with tremendous enthusiasm and fair agility; the weathered couple I suspected most of knowing how to do a proper Cajun jitterbug. It was a lovely thing to see, and made the music that much better.

Relevant tags: [Music], [Folk music], [Lowell folk festival], [Irish fiddle], [Zydeco], [Liz Carroll], [John+Doyle], [Mamou Playboys]

Jens Lekman @ TT the Bear's

Can't speak to Frida Hyvönen's set yesterday, as we missed it entirely; I did manage to get a copy of her CD Until Death Comes, which The Concretes' label Sticky Fingers put out originally in 2005 (it's been re-released by Secretly Canadian this year). Her voice is strong and squarely graceful, although her sound is a little too consistently piano-chick to be really interesting.

Frida Hyvönen - I Drive My Friend (from YSI)




Before I get to Jens, a word about the crowd. Central Square cracks me up, and this was the very Centralest of Central crowds: hipster geeks to their eyebrows and earlobes, and it was hipster happy hour. I spent most of the show trying to figure out what about Jens triggers hipster adoration, because it was clear there was a lot of it going on at this show; it was a show obviously composed of ardent fans--when he flubbed the lyrics of "Pocketful of Money," it was the crowd that gave him the reset point. The music of course--the man's got a dreamboat voice with a tinge of Johnny Cash's gravid bass, as well as a knack for songwriting that oscillates between the quirkily peppy and a dreamy backrub. But the answer I ended with was sort of a sideways slant on both: he's undeniably sentimental, but with enough self-conscious ridiculousness (the quirky lyrics, the mannered brass section, the occasional hyperpop trappings that almost, almost remind a listener of ABBA) that the sentiment doesn't ask to be taken seriously. To a hipster's sincerity-allergic palate, this is where the magic is: sentimentality that can be enjoyed, with a side of the ridiculous so that the listener chooses how seriously to take it.

Regardless of all this, it was a good show. Even though Jens only brought off maybe two-thirds of the songs well, the six backing instrumentalists gave him a layered, vibrant background over which to work--and further confirm that wind and non-guitar string instruments are infiltrating the indie scene, all to the better (although Jens' in particular does raise the quesion--six-piece all-girl backing band: fashion statement or coincidence?). Jens' smile is ecstatically sweet and almost weirdly untouched, he still seems a bit surprised by all the fuss like an awkward kid suprised to be asked to join the popular clique for lunch in the cafeteria.

Relevant tags: [Music], [Live Music], [TT the Bear's], [Jens Lekman], [Frida Hyvönen]

Martha Wainwright & Gomez @ Paradise Rock Club

There is a difference, I'm learning, between a good musician and one that puts on a good show. Martha Wainwright seems to be the former but not the latter--her vocal style is mature and nuanced, but her stage presence is oddly unfocused. This is devastating but not uncommon in openers, I guess, since they're not the goal of most of the audience, and since their level of experience is generally a bit lower. Martha did a sharp, full-bodied performance on a song called "Ball and Chain" that was a great demo of her capabilities (although, um, it's kind of a dumb song)--and I'm still pleased with her for the collaboration she did with Snow Patrol, which seems to be better than the usual caliber of either party.


Get it from YouSendIt

Something that I'm thinking about doing more consistently is talking about the influences of the artists I talk about, to try and remedy a bit of the historical disconnect in the musical blogosphere. Martha's particularly easy, since her family history's pretty visible in her music: she grew up with her mom, Kate McGarrigle of The McGarrigle Sisters, and her vocals definitely show their tone, although like most heritage musicians, she's updated, sharpened and darkened, ended up with more of a post-folk sound than her predecessors. Below is "Year of the Dragon," from The McGarrigle Hour.



Get it from YouSendIt

For Gomez, I went in absolutely cold--never heard of 'em, never heard 'em, and damn, these guys are good. Their look is a mix of hipster-skinny (that's Ian, I think) and philosophy-grad, Meloy-glasses-wearing slubby (that'd be Ben and Tom, if I've got the names mapped right); their vocals are nicely mixed, too, with Ian's reedy tenor and Ben's hoarser tone. Both good musicians and good performers; their music was instantly attractive, and the audience responded well, rocking out pretty strongly for a place where the crowd is pretty orthodox indie, and all this despite persistent gremlins taking out various mikes during the show. Despite the occasional missing channel, the sound was good--all the individual lines were distinct and they came together well. Not only are these guys good, they put on a good show (Eels, take note!).

Funny--I ended up having more to say about Martha than about Gomez, even though Gomez definitely did the better show. Gomez is just awesome, but their influences are a little opaque to me I guess.

Smoosh/Eels @ Somerville Theater

Smoosh was pretty good--the young voices are obvious, and the set was kinda uneven, but I guess they're allowed not to have enough material for a solid set at this point. (Regardless, though, somebody should really tell them not to sing that "uh-huh yo" song. Although I guess they have to have one song that they can be utterly mortified about in a few years.) They seem very comfortable onstage, and Chloe already has the inward-focused look that drummers get.

Eels opened with some raucous guitaring and strobe lights, while one of their number (whom I shall call Jeff because he looks like a Jeff to me--big bald bruiser with muttonchops, a black SECURITY t-shirt, and Oakley-type sunglasses) stood onstage with his arms folded and looked impossibly security-esque. The band's uniform appeared to be black, sunglasses, and experimental or extreme facial hair--the drummer in particular was rocking the Confederate General look in a brass-button jacket and Civil War-style hat, plus aviator sunglasses and lots of hair (was it Puddin? hard to tell under all that). E as always was unique in a ski cap, aviator goggles on his head, and singularly goggley sunglasses on his eyes. Muttonchops Jeff made the show interesting by doing weight-lifting routines and boxing practice to the songs--besides making obscure pronouncements very loudly between songs ("I know the deal when I see the deal, and this is the deal!") and hopping up and down with Chloe and Asya during the encore performance of "I Like Birds." He was bewildering, disconnected, and funny.

It was a fun show to be at, but musically weak, I think. "My Beloved Monster" was played so damn fast it was nearly unrecognizable--still enjoyable, but unrecognizable; while "Last Stop, This Town" was done so gently as to take most of the bounce and joy out of it. I suspect, at this show at least, that Eels was trying so hard to rock out that the music didn't get played to its best advantage--the first few songs particularly were just a wall of sound, loud and monolithic.

But I'm not sorry I saw them--it was a good time, even if I don't think they did right by most of their songs.

Christian Scott @ Scullers

Wish I knew enough about jazz to do a proper review, but barring that I enjoyed the show--the band seemed tight--the tenor sax'ist (whose name I have forgotten) and Christian did some nice, unexpected harmonic play, and guitarist Matt Stevens (I think) got some occasional interesting fun, too. The drummer Marcus Gilmore worked well with the band too, particularly given that it was his first gig with them.

Must learn more about jazz.

Mark Kozelek tickets (26 May)

I've got a pair of tickets to the Mark Kozelek show at the MFA I can't use; anybody want 'em? First-noticed note or email takes both.

Mogwai @ Avalon

Was opened for by Torche, who're a bizarrely sucky hardcore metal band more interested in being headbanging badasses than making, y'know, good music. Their drummer reminded me of nothing so much as Animal, and watching bald guys headbang is an experience. Too bad Mogwai didn't bring their own opener--Torche was a total waste of time and molecule vibrations.

The fun thing about a Mogwai show is that you don't have to be on drugs to be on drugs--the music brings its own. Trippy and wandering, slow-moving and abstract, it's like a sensory deprivation tank all by itself, even on the CDs, and in concert it's that much more overwhelming, so that much more trip-inducing. Good show. Glad I saw 'em, even if they didn't play any of my favorites.

a'tris show @ Knitting Factory

Good show--the band must've been happy that the two preceding bands were either uninteresting or more experimental than its members could handle. Mason's vocals were pretty tight except for a new song that everybody seemed kinda sloppy on, and Dave is a hell of a drummer. They play together well, and the relative puny-ness of the preceding bands really showed up their superior level of musicianship; the only weak spot to my ear and eye are Mason's over-the-top theatrical frontman act--I swear he must choreograph his little microphone dances. Nonetheless, they're a damn good band.

a'tris @ Knitting Factory

Friend of mine (husband of a lab-mate, actually) is the producer-cum-manager of a Boston-based band called a'Tris; Saturday they've got a show at Knitting Factory in New York, so we're going down to keep Mike company. The last a'tris show I went to (at Harper's Ferry, may they burn in hell) was a badly-managed disaster on the part of the club, so seeing a real non-arsed-up show should be fun. It's particularly fun because James the Frontman has his rock-star act all down (including eye makeup and an ascot), and that contrasts nicely with the stories I've heard about lack of basic life skills such as, say, grocery shopping. They're a good band, though, so below find "Black Bird's Song," my favorite off of their CD "appeal."

New Buffalo & The Concretes @ Paradise, 10 May

New Buffalo is one of those bands I don't remember finding; I know they're (or she's, apparently) a small-scale Australian thing, but I have no idea how I first found her and I don't think I've ever heard of her in the music press or blogosphere. So I was feeling damn skippy when I found that she was opening for The Concretes at the Paradise yesterday. I felt a bit bad for her--it was the most dead I've ever seen that club, but I guess you don't really expect crowds on a Wednesday night when most of the students are gone. It was an interesting show, though; it seemed pretty clear that most of her work had happened in a recording studio, as she used an iPod for her backing band and seemed oddly unaccustomed to being onstage. Not embarrassed or uncomfortable, just . . . stiff. She could use a band, maybe it'd help her relax and give her some company up there. Her voice is still a treat--virginal without ever being twee--and she's masterful in the real soprano ranges, where most singers would either sharp out or become inaudible. Her EP's got Jens Lekman and Broken Social Scene featuring, which suggests she either has connections or is getting some recognition. Good. Below find the track "Inside" featuring Jens Lekman (as usual, for a limited time and subject to objections).




The Concretes sounded good as a band, but either their sound mix was severely off or their lead needs to work on volume and projecting--I couldn't hear her at all, and for the few minutes I could hear her, she seemed pretty badly flat. A backing band needs a vocalist for a reason: the songs just lacked shape and grab. The band all dresses impeccably Swedish-mod, with the guys' skinny button-down shirts buttoned alllllll the way up, and the frontgirls in boycuts and high-collared artists blouses--do they have a dress code? Twitting aside, though, they seem like they could be cool--I'll have to see if I can find some recorded stuff of theirs. I'm glad I was going for the opener; if I'd gone to see them I'd've been severely disappointed.

Jennifer Kimball @ Club Passim

In an last-minute, broke-down-on-I-90 subsitution, Josh Caress opened instead of Ellery, and he didn't disappoint: a very mellow voice with a good grasp of songwriting and a knack for lyrical turns that stick in your head.

Jennifer Kimball's voice is remarkably lovely. "Is He Or Isn't He," at its heart a fun, gimmicky song, becomes the auditory equivalent of. . . a really good raspberry coulis, maybe, under the influence of her sharp grasp of dynamics and just impossibly pleasing vocal tone. She's done her time in various groups, doing a duo called The Story with Jonatha Brooke and Duke Levine and a bluegrass collaborative called Wandering Spirits, and it shows--she's one of the few performers I've seen extemporize lyrics, and it was fluid and charming. Sometimes she sounds a bit like Mary Chapin Carpenter, who works from a similar musical jazz-folky-country place (which makes sense since I think Duke Levine worked with Chapin as well), but the voice makes her distinctive. She made for a lovely show and a great CD, and I hope she plays live more.

Dresden Dolls doing Such Great Heights

One of the things I lurrrrve seeing The Dresden Dolls live is doing great, unexpected covers. Amanda & Brian did a cover of The Postal Service's Such Great Heights at the Orpheum show--although actually I think they were covering Iron & Wine's version, since it sounded way more like the I&W version. But it's lovely, so I'm posting a recording somebody made of the same cover in Chicago (usual rules apply: it'll be up briefly, and if anybody has objections to it being up, just email me at the address to the right and ask).


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The Dresden Dolls @ The Orpheum, 21 April

Missed the opener Porsches on the Autobahn, but Humanwine was very impressive. Holly's front act is a little too artificed for me, but behind the self-consciousness is a leonine, seductive presence that knows how to dance while singing (and given how many vocalists do this, it's still a bloody rare talent). Humanwine shares many of the same strengths as DD, which made them a particularly effective opener, but they're a strong band on their own.

The intervening theatrics between the openers and Dresden Dolls themselves--the sword swallower, the hula-hoop girl--are key to DD's atmosphere of "Brechtian punk cabaret." I knew this. I expected this. I still don't have any patience for it. The show's already long enough with two openers, and Humanwine (not to mention the block party outside) established the tone well enough not to need any theatrical badges of identity. Skip to the good stuff, already.

And The Dresden Dolls are the good stuff. Their theatrics are mostly (and rightly) limited to Amanda's voice and Brian's mime-drumming; everything else is in the music. Everybody in the audience knows "Coin-Operated Boy," and everybody in the audience knows the lyrics aren't what's sung on the CD. The jerky, powerful swing of songs like "Half Jack" is brilliant, even if bobbing or hopping is the only dancing it allows--there are plenty who take it up on that anyway.

Sia @ Paradise Rock Club, 19 April

The openers were weird. . . one called Dawn who seemed pretty bland, didn't have the voice to carry her songs, and definitely didn't have the performing chops to hold the audience's attention, and by far the weirder--Eagle & Talon. Are they fourteen? The drummer wasn't bad as a drummer, but both of their voices are sorely unmatured--how did they get onstage at Paradise?

Sia's voice, on the other hand, is the same pleasure as it is on her recorded stuff. She indulges in a little too much Vedder-style reverse-enunciation, and her stage presence has got to be on of the most annoying ever--but the music, it is solid. There's no extra energy in her live sets compared to her recorded sets, so it's not the extra-special treat that seeing some artists live is, but she also doesn't ruin her set with kooky theatrics like Feist did.

Peter Mulvey @ Club Passim, 06 April

Peter Mulvey might have the funniest stage presence of anybody I've seen live, and he definitely has the unbelievable charisma of a movie star; and what's even more remarkable, he backs it up with the strength of his musicianship, which is considerable. His guitarwork is deft and complex, more than enough to fill Passim and stand on its own; the one instrumental number he did felt just as substantial as the vocal ones. Might've been a few too many straight political songs for my taste, but that's just my taste, and their lack of pretentiousness and attention to detail carried them even for me. NPR's story says he started as a subway busker, and I believe it; Passim mentioned in the program that he reads ceaselessly, and I believe that too. A better than common act to see live--he's a stronger, more luminous, more present performer when his audience is right in front of him, and it shows.