Primitive Blast From the Past!

Some of my old friends my might think I’m making an obvious reference to The Primitives, a band we dug in the late 80s.  They were most famous for their song “Crash” from 1988.  They were kind of a poppy, female vocal lead version of the Jesus & Mary Chain.  Kinda.  Anyways, their contemporaries were Transvision Vamp and The Darling Buds.  We listened to all of them way back when.  I know my buddy Kevin Freedman remembers ‘em fondly.

Album with "Standing Outside...." on it

Well, that’s not really what I wanted to talk about.  I was messing with my AppleTV and finally found WOXY and WOXY Vintage on there under Alternative Rock.  What’s WOXY?  Its a great internet radio station, formerly based out of Cincinnati, that is newly based out of Austin.  They have some pretty darned good taste in music.  When I  look at their best albums of the year and the decade, it is amazingly similar to what I consider the best.  So, I was happy to find it on the radio stations available on my AppleTV.  Anyways, the Vintage station played Primitive Radio Gods – “Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in My Hand”, a song I had completely forgotten from my college days.  How many songs have longer names than that one? They were kind of a one-hit wonder.  But this was a great little song from 1996 that strangely appeared on the soundtrack to The Cable Guy, a disturbing little gem of a movie.  Can someone please dig up that Jim Carrey…and the one from the Truman Show?  But I digress.  The song samples a B.B. King track and features piano over a hip-hop backbeat.  It starts with the sound of inserting a cassette tape and then the bluesy sampled, “I’ve been downhearted baby…ever since the day you left”. It just works.  Great track. Here’s the video (YouTube is so cool):

Volunteer for SXSW, Get Free Pass

After years of stupidly ignoring SXSW, Kelle and Eric and I have finally thrown ourselves into attending the music part of the festival every year.  We get wristbands, go to day parties and a bunch of showcases.  We’ve done this for the last five years or so.  Unfortunately, we don’t have the energy to attend the after-hours parties that SXSW is so famous for.  Nor do we attend the the film or interactive (I did check out interactive briefly once).  I’ve always been interested in those parts, but never found the time to attend.

This year I’m doing something different.  No, no.  I’m still attending the music part of SXSW.  And I’m still NOT attending the film or interactive.  What I’m doing instead is volunteering to work the film & interactive conference!  I submitted my application today.  I’ve always wanted to do it, you know, to get more involved with SXSW from the inside.  Should be a lot of work and hopefully some fun.  The real goal is getting the perks that come after you put in 40 hours. 30 hours gets you a t-shirt.  40 hours gets you a music wristband or film pass.  I can’t see myself working more than that this year, but in the future I could go for the full on music badge.

What would I be stuck doing?  Actually, there seems to be some pretty cool stuff. The conference crews have about 30 different options.  I’m sure that if you wanted to work the music festival crews there are a similar options available.  Only problem is that I’m gonna have trouble coordinating all of the day parties working this many hours immediately before the the music starts.  We’ll see how it goes.

Stay tuned for updates on both my volunteering experience and SXSW bands to check out at parties & showcases.

Spoon – Transference

Spoon's Latest

Spoon, a band most everyone knows has its origins in Austin, was formed as about 17 years ago.  I never knew they took their name from an avant-garde band Can from the 70’s that I vaguely remember.  We can all be sure that Spoon and Can don’t sound much alike, and that’s probably a good thing. My old neighbor, and good friend Jerry Bellian (a wicked good drummer himself) is friends with Spoon’s illustrious drummer Jim Eno.  I’ve seen his phone number on Jerry’s phone – how cool is that?  Anyway, I wonder what kind of inside story we could get from Jim about the band’s history and his take on their new album.

Spoon’s recent radio success with hits “I Turn My Camera On”,  “The Way We Get By”, “Don’t You Evah” and “The Underdog” has exposed them to a much wider audience than they once garnered.  And that’s a great thing.  I’ve loved Girls Can Tell, Kill the Moonlight, Gimme Fiction and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, their last four albums. Transference is an entirely different animal .

They’ve released a tellingly small number  of albums (7) and EPs (7) given their 17 year history.  They don’t rush out anything, and they certainly don’t pander to the fickle tastes of American pop music fans.

Sparse, but not simple, this album is a departure from their poppier, hookier releases. It will be critically acclaimed but won’t make much of a dent on the radio or in TV shows. Not that I care. It will take more than a couple of listens to really get the gist of what they are doing here. Pitchfork rates it 7.8/10 and uses words like ‘cerebral’, ‘unorthodox’ and ‘meticulously crafted’ to describe it. I agree. (Remember, there’s a Lala widget there that will let you stream the whole album.)  So don’t take my word for it.  Give a spin.  See if you hear anything reminiscent of cutting edge German rock from the 70s.  Now that I think of it, maybe there is something to that.  It is just different enough to feel like it comes out of left field.  I’m pretty sure Can sounded like it came out of left field too.

Identify the pic, win a prize

I updated my banner with a pic today.  If you can guess the artist or venue, I’ll burn you a mixtape (which of course means mix CD now).  I’ll give you a hint.  The year is 2008 and the photo was taken by me in Austin.  I’m going to start putting up reviews of some of the live shows I’ve seen.  I need to update my band list again too.

Today's album recommendation

Listening to Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix at the moment.  If y’all haven’t listened to it, you are really missing out.  Phoenix pours out groovy tunes with ease.  They may be the most polished band I can think of. You can hardly tell that they are Parisians. I suppose you have to call it pop music, but if only all pop music was so good.  And yes, you’ve heard their songs on Cadillac commercials.  Can’t blame a band for making irresistibly catchy tunes that ad agencies can’t resist.  Enjoy!

Pitchfork Review of Owen Pallett

Owen Pallett

If any of y’all have never gone to Pitchfork.com for album reviews, you are missing out.  They are extraordinarily thorough in their reviews.  Caveat: They do have very esoteric taste in music.  They review some more mainstream stuff, but they definitely lean toward the cutting edge of what can actually still be called “alternative” music.  What is also cool is that they have a Lala widget on their reviews that lets you stream the ENTIRE album being reviewed.  You can do this at Lala.com as well, but I think only once.  You have to sign up for a free account at Lala, but not if you listen via the Pitchfork page. Definitely a great way to preview something before buying it. iTunes, eMusic, Amazon, etc. only give you the 30 second snippets which may or may not be enough to entice you to buy something.  It is definitely hard with albums full of lengthy electronic pieces that don’t really get going in 30 seconds.

So, the album linked here is Owen Pallett’s Heartland.  He used to release music as Final Fantasy (yes, an homage to the game).  His music is a unique amalgamation of Phillip Glass type mathematical, orchestral compositions and Andrew Bird type musical styling and vocals.  It is elegant, complex, and well worth a listen.  After streaming the whole thing today, I plan on buying it.  Thanks, Pitchfork, for helping me discover even more music to love.

Love Comes Close by Cold Cave

I can’t get this song out of my head today.  It’s a perfect reminder (re-appropriation) of the Joy Division/New Order sound that I have loved for so long.  James Ledoux hates it, but there’s no rapping in it, so he can’t sing along.  Hope y’all like it.

SXSW Poll

SXSW 2010 Quick Bands of Interest List

Neat SXSW Logo

A Sunny Day in Glasgow
Alberta Cross
Alpha Rev
Attack Attack!
Attack! Attack!
Azure Ray
Basia Bulat
Blue Roses
Broken Records
Casiokids
Choir of Young Believers
Cymbals Eat Guitars
Danielson
Deer Tick
Efterklang
Electric President
Elizabeth & the Catapult
Fanfarlo
Floating Action
Fool’s Gold
Frightened Rabbit
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly
Glint
Ha Ha Tonka
Hauschka
HEARTSREVOLUTION
Hot Panda
Imaad Wasif
Japandroids
Jason Lytle
Jookabox
Lawrence Arabia
LoveLikeFire
Low Line Caller
Mayer Hawthorne & The County
Midlake
Miniature Tigers
Miss Li
Morning Benders
Muck and the Mires
Neon Indian
One Night Only
Ozomatli
Pong
Radio Radio
Smoosh
So Many Dynamos
Tape Deck Mountain
The Band of Heathens
The Brunettes
The Crystal Method
The Dollyrots
The Golden Filter
The Heavenly States
The Intelligence
The Low Anthem
The Magic Numbers
The Russian Futurists
The Steps
The Uglysuit
The Veils
The View
The xx
Trembling Bells
We Are Scientists
We Were Promised Jetpacks
White Ghost Shivers
White Rose Movement
Woodhands
Wye Oak

iPhone blogging

Let’s try this again. Blogging from your phone. Gonna try it on for size.

Here’s my first tiny post: Is it just me or us there an inordinate amount of time, money, effort and media devoted to developing and marketing of goods and services for the supremely wealthy? I know some ads we see are just to keep a brand in our mind. For example, I know you don’t have to be “wealthy” to buy a Lexus, but it sure seems like you would to buy one for someone’s Xmas gift. Just thumb through Architectural Digest and tell me who can afford to buy most of this stuff! I know people keep up with the Joneses, but really, how much do people make & spend?!?

It’s the MOG Man!

So I found a new music blogging site that really takes the work out of it.  Here’s my page.  Yeah, I should have used a better name for my page.  Be warned that, once you’ve picked it, you can’t change your user name, and thus the name of your blog.

It has this little component that you download that links directly to your iTunes to update your MOG.  It is really cool.  Obviously, my new page needs work,  as does this old one.  I promise I’ll post the ACL lineup as soon as it is available this week.  I’ll also post a SXSW recap, which will only be three months old by the time I get it up here.

Talk to y’all soon.  -Bruiser