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Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

CD Review: Dan Auerbach, “Keep It Hid”

As the frontman for blues rock duo the Black Keys, Dan Auerbach is known for his raw, powerful rock ‘n’ roll songwriting and guitar playing. But on his first solo effort, Keep It Hid, it’s the simple, tender moments that stand out.

The album opens with one of those moments — “Trouble Weighs A Ton,” featuring Auerbach singing over a strummed acoustic guitar, with James Quine providing backing vocals as Auerbach attempts to soothe family members’ concerns.

But the strongest stuff lies right in the middle. Straightforward but not sparse, Auerbach sings over a piercing organ and electric guitar combo on “Real Desire.” The lyrics are just as biting, as he confronts an elusive lover, “You wanna set the world on fire / and a little man will never do / the things you think are real desire / oh darlin’, I see right through,” he accuses, before laying the hardest blow, “If you say you never meant to hurt me / oh, you would be a liar.”

Dan Auerbach, “Real Desire” (download)

Auerbach is back to playing the nice guy on the next track, “When The Night Comes.” Returning to acoustic guitar, a pleasant folk melody and airy, sustained keyboards sway together as he assures us, “Don’t be afraid / you’re only dreaming.”

The punchy, guitar-thumping tunes “I Want Some More,” “Heartbroken, In Disrepair” and “My Last Mistake” are solid efforts in their own right, but are so similar to Auerbach’s work with the Black Keys that their presence on a solo effort feels redundant.

But Auerbach can do more than play both ends of the spectrum – he falls happily in between sentiment and sensation just as well. The sexually charged “The Prowl” would be “tame” on a Black Keys record, but is a good second-half pick-up on Keep It Hid – same goes for the title track, which especially showcases Auerbach’s old bluesy howling and wailing.

Dan Auerbach, “Keep It Hid” (download)

Keep It Hid closes with the twangy, peppy, “Goin’ Home.” Auerbach laments, “I’ve spent too long away from home / did all the things I could have done,” but it seems he still has a few surprises left to show.

Tags: black keys, CD Review, Dan Auerbach, Taylor Long
Posted in CD Reviews, Music | Comments

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

New Music: Dirty Projectors, “The Stillness Is the Move”

by Taylor Long

The album art for Bitte Orca, the Dirty Projectors’ upcoming fifth album, shows band members Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian, their faces painted over in connecting red and blue circles. It harks back to the cover of Slaves’ Graves & Ballads, the band’s 2004 release, which some consider to be their strongest to date. But it also seems to hint at the enhanced prominence of the band’s female members, who joined the Dave Longstreth founded and fronted group around late 2006, early 2007. Longstreth, oft portrayed as the eccentric genius type, has been the driving force of the Dirty Projectors — but is notedly absent, vocally, on Bitte Orca’s first single, “The Stillness Is the Move.”

Coffman and Deradoorian handle all the vocal duties, stretching their voices in similar ways to Longstreth, though they steer clear of the screeching, wailing, almost painful emoting that he would push. Putting the ladies in the spotlight has a softening quality, furthering the Dirty Projectors’ gradual movement away from heavy bass and drum tracks, which they became rather known for earlier on in their career. The band also continues to explore different song stylings, with “The Stillness is the Move” feeling strangely connected to soul or R&B.

Lyrically, “The Stillness is the Move” is as much an argument for accepting the natural flow of things as it arises questions of purpose. “There is nothing we can’t do,” Coffman and Deradoorian sing in the chorus, though it’s hard to decide if this is more from a perspective of being able to handle whatever comes one’s way, purposefully seeking out challenges or both. In the opening verse, they ponder, “Maybe I will get a job / get a job as waitress / maybe waiting tables in a diner / in some remote city,” suggesting an ease with a simpler life, then arise images of achievement and growth in the second verse with, “On top of every mountain / there was a great longing / for another even higher mountain / for each city longing / for a bigger city.”

It’s not all easy going, though, as the music strips down to a shaker and tin-can-type blip, as the women beg bigger questions – “Isn’t life under the sun just a crazy, crazy, crazy dream?” “Why am I here and not over, over, over there?” “Where do you and I begin?” But the existential crisis doesn’t last long, as the guitar kicks back in, the empowering chorus returns, and the song sees the addition of strings and synths for its last portion, fading out the song to its soothing finish. (more…)

Tags: Amber Coffman, Angel Deradoorian, Dave Longstreth, David Byrne, Dirty Projectors, Music, Slaves' Graves & Ballads, South by Southwest, Taylor Long
Posted in Music | Comments

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

Live Music: Glasvegas @ Webster Hall, 3/30/09

by Taylor Long

They may only have an album and a Christmas EP behind them, but Glasgow’s Glasvegas are already performing like a big-time rock band.

Grabbing the attention of the US late last year with the release of their debut, self-titled album, Glasvegas have packed New York City venues of increasing sizes, including their most recent stop at Webster Hall last Monday.

Entering the stage amid blue strobe lights and fog machines, they opened with their hit, “Geraldine,” about a social worker, “I’ll be the angel on your shoulder / my name is Geraldine, I’m your social worker.”

Glasvegas, “Geraldine” (download)

The drenched guitars of their dream pop meets ’60s pop fell on the ears of a crowd that skewed older and more predominantly male than the average New York City indie rock audience. Both anthemic and cathartic, songs like “Fuck You It’s Over” and “Go Square Go” saw many fists (and beers) in the air. The band was equally enthusiastic, throwing themselves around the entire stage, and keeping in-between song banter to short appreciative statements, like “Thank you so fucking much” and “What can I say, man, I fucking love you.”

In a live setting, front man James Allan’s lyrics were particularly difficult to decipher through his thick accent, but this may have worked to the band’s advantage, since the lyrics tend to be the stuff of teenage LiveJournal entries. “I’m feeling so guilty about the things I said to my mum when I was ten years old,” he laments in mope jam, “It’s My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry.”

The set was short – they don’t have much material to choose from yet — but they managed an encore, and walked off stage with handshakes and gifts from fans. It’d be a safe bet that the next time Glasvegas come to New York City, the venue will be even bigger. (more…)

Tags: Glasvegas, It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry, Live Music, New York, Taylor Long, Webster Hall
Posted in Live Music, Music | Comments

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Live Music: Morrissey @ Webster Hall; the Grates and Micachu & the Shapes @ Pianos, 3/25/09

by Taylor Long

New York City living, with its ever-expanding list of options, presents a reoccurring problem: What to do when you need or want to be in two places at once? Given the opportunity to see both legendary crooner Morrissey at Webster Hall for free and up-and-coming hype bands the Grates and Micachu & the Shapes for free, what does one do? Well, if you have experience covering festivals like CMJ, and enough money for cab fare, you do both.

Starting out at Webster Hall, the end of the set by openers the Courteeners was unsurprisingly Smiths-ish. At any other time and place, that might be perfectly fine, but as an opener for Morrissey? Who wants processed cheese when you can have cheddar?

Morrissey warmed the crowd up, once again, with a series of old video clips before his set. When the curtain dropped and the pompadoured singer took the stage, he asked, “I just have one soul searching question to ask you: Where the hell am I?” before jumping into Brooklyn bar dance hit, “This Charming Man.”

But, sadly enough, the same people that will likely bust a move to the song when it comes on at their local bar were noticeably less rapturous than the average Morrissey fanboy crowd. Were people there to say they saw Morrissey at a smaller venue than he usually plays, or where they simply there to see him?

Morrissey, however, was up to his normal tricks, casting shirts into the audience, whipping the mic around, brushing back his hair, and interjecting an air of mystery between songs with statements like, “I am a myth.” The set list was full of standard fare – “How Soon Is Now?” “Irish Blood, English Heart” “Billy Budd” – all of which were as aggressive as Morrissey has ever been, with the help of his current backing band. But lest we forget his reputation as the International Man of Misery, there was “Let Me Kiss You,” and “Seasick, Yet Still Docked” to tug at the heartstrings. (See below for a video of “Seasick, Yet Still Docked” from this show.)

Unfortunately, as he began mid-set standard “The Loop,” a cab and Piano’s were beckoning… (more…)

Tags: Brooklyn, Irish Blood English Heart, Live Music, Micachu, Morrissey, New York City, South by Southwest, Taylor Long, The Grates, The Shapes, Webster Hall
Posted in Live Music, Music | Comments

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

CD Review: Neko Case, “Middle Cyclone”

by Taylor Long

neko case is badass On her latest release, fiery-haired singer-songwriter Neko Case lightens the tone, musically, while trekking into deeper territory, emotionally. With Middle Cyclone, Case, who’s developed something of a reputation for avoiding love songs, has created an album stockpiled with them – but there are those caustic break-up odes, too.

She claims the perky opener, “This Tornado Loves You” is based on a dream she had about a tornado who falls in love with a boy, but a tornado is an all too fitting metaphor for someone as tenacious as Case, challenging the object of its affection to “Come out to meet me / run out to meet me / come into the light.” Despite the tornado’s destructive ways, it insists, “This tornado loves you / this tornado loves you,” before demanding to know, “What will make you believe me?”

Neko Case, “This Tornado Loves You” (download)

Then there’s the bold, heavy-hitting, “I’m An Animal,” which celebrates a tendency towards instinct. “There are things I’m still so afraid of / but my courage is roaring like the sound of the sun,” she boasts, encouraging her equally wild lover, “I’m an animal / you’re an animal, too.”

But Case’s tenacity doesn’t stop with positive feelings – she confronts the disappointing just as easily. In the almost painfully short under two-minute track, “The Next Time You Say Forever,” she slips and slides from the music box effects of the “tiniest sparks and the tenderest sounds” to bass and string-laden threats, “The next time you say forever / I will punch you in your face.” Later, she addresses the let down of a young romance in “The Pharaohs,” with the repeated line, “I want the pharaohs / but there’s only men.”

Case isn’t always be direct, though she connects the dots for us, stringing themes of animalia, weather and the play between strength and fear throughout. But there are a few curveballs, like the strange and obtuse “Polar Nettles” and “Red Tide.” (more…)

Tags: CD Review, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, Middle Cyclone, Neko Case, Taylor Long
Posted in CD Reviews, Music | Comments

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

Lost MP3 of the Week: John Coltrane, “A Love Supreme, Part 1: Acknowledgement”

by Taylor Long

The first time I heard A Love Supreme, I was on a train coming back from MacArthur Airport in Islip, Long Island. I was in my senior year of college and had just watched my long-distance boyfriend board a plane back to California.

It had been an interesting and emotional trip, as rushed visits between distant lovers can be. He had told me early on in the relationship that he loved me. It was the first time anyone other than a family member or friend had used that word to describe how they felt about me. It put me in a confusing state of mind. I wanted to tell him that I loved him, too, but regardless of what my emotions were telling me, I felt obligated to understand what, exactly, that word meant. What it meant to him. What it meant to me, in regards to those I felt I had loved in the past, but also in relation to him. I felt like I had to explore what I was acknowledging, what I was committing to, what was expected of me.

After an extended visit from him, I was exhausted. And the fact that the confusing Long Island Rail Road schedule caused him to miss his flight didn’t help. He booked another and I rode out to the airport with him. After we parted ways, I hopped back on a train to campus. I was exhausted and selected the “Jazz” genre on my iPod and drifted off to sleep.

Eventually, I was awakened by a fast and furious stream of notes from a saxophone. It was A Love Supreme. I had never really listened to it, but owned it because of my jazz history class. Music history courses usually came with listening tests, which I was habitually horrible at. I made sure I owned all of the music from the course so I could listen to it on repeat. A Love Supreme was one of the pieces. (more…)

Tags: John Coltrane, Long Island, Long Island MacArthur Airport, Long Island Rail Road, Lost MP3s, Love Supreme, New York, Taylor Long, Union Square, United States
Posted in Lost MP3 of the Week, Music | Comments

Monday, February 16th, 2009

Lost MP3 of the Week: Des’ree, “Kissing You”

by Taylor Long

des'ree I “fell in love” so many times in high school that it’s hard to know who to classify as the first, but Damon was the first time I fell hard. Really hard.

We met in a summer program through a local occupational school that allowed you to take a culinary arts class in the summer and get credit for it. The program lasted for half of the summer, and you actually got to run a restaurant, which you’d cycle through each section of. Damon was two years older than me, and very mature and well dressed for a high school guy in Washington state. He worked at the Gap at the mall 15 minutes from my house.

We became fast friends, which quickly grew to stronger feelings on my end. Damon was the guy I’d talk to for hours on my private phone line late at night, hiding the receiver in my sweatshirt hood so I could quickly feign sleep if my mom came in to check on me. If it wasn’t the phone, we would talk for hours on AIM, and I’d frequently fall asleep on the couch in the computer room, waiting for him to sign on. (Author’s note: thank god high school is over.)

Damon was a pretty talented piano player and singer, and I was constantly harassing him into performing for me. Somewhere in my childhood bedroom, I have a tape of him singing an on the spot version of U2’s “If God Will Send His Angels.”

During my formative years, I’d become obsessed with Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, including the soundtrack, and Des’ree’s “Kissing You” was my sad-romantic anthem. So, for my birthday one year, Damon came over and played and sang to “Kissing You” on the piano for me. It was one of the happiest moments of my adolescent life.

Des’ree, “Kissing You” (download)

My feelings went unfulfilled, and we eventually lost touch, but we reconnected not too long ago. (Hello, Damon, if you ever read this, and apologies if you’re embarrassed, but don’t be!) I still always think of him when I hear that song, and I still always smile when I think of him.

Tags: Australia, Baz Luhrmann, Des'ree, Hugh Jackman, Lost MP3s, Moulin Rouge: The Splendid Illustrated Book That Charts the Journey of Baz Luhrmann's Motion Picture, Nicole Kidman, Romeo + Juliet, Romeo and Juliet, Taylor Long, Washington
Posted in Lost MP3 of the Week, Music | Comments

Monday, February 9th, 2009

Lost MP3 of the Week: Muddy Waters, “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had”

by Taylor Long

muddy waters Being an obsessive music hoarder has its drawbacks. The questions of, “How often do I really listen to ______ ?” and all those albums that you really mean to get around to listening to, you’re just never really “in the right mood.” Or those albums that you think you hate then decide you like on a re-listen before you put them in the “sell to record store” or “delete” pile. Then there’s the organizing of one’s library. Any modern music aficionado is often dealing with three to four formats: digital, CDs, vinyl and/or tapes. (Yes, I really do have tapes.) Oh, and let’s not forget the financial toll for any one who still pays for any of this.

But willful music binging has its benefits, too. On a recommendation from someone on tumblr who responded to a video of Skip James that I posted, I’ve been watching the seven-part Martin Scorsese blues documentary series, Martin Scorsese Presents: The Blues: A Musical Journey. I’ve seen five of the seven films, and so far have just about broken even: two of the films I could have passed on, two of them I found captivating, and one of them fell somewhere in the middle. Unsurprisingly, I’ve been grabbing artists like Skip James, Robert Johnson and B.B. King out of my collection lately, and have a long list of artists and albums I plan to acquire. One thing on that list is the song used in the opening credits for each of the films – I hadn’t looked it up or written it down, I just reminded myself each time I watched another chapter in the series that I needed to look it up.

A few days ago I embarked on a massive digital library clean-up, requiring that I both listen to some of those things I’ve been meaning to get around to hearing, and be honest about my listening habits enough to purge the stuff I just don’t listen to. I put iTunes on shuffle, got comfortable, and began. At some point, the opening credits song from Martin Scorsese Presents: The Blues began playing. It’s Muddy Waters‘ “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had.” I have no idea where I got the mp3 from, or how long I’ve had it, but there it was. Right under my nose all along.

Muddy Waters, “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had” (download)

Tags: Blues, Entertainment, Lost MP3s, Martin Scorsese, Muddy Waters, Music, Robert Johnson, Shopping, Skip James, Taylor Long
Posted in Lost MP3 of the Week, Music | Comments

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

Live Music: Frightened Rabbit @ Le Poisson Rouge, 2/2/09

by Taylor Long

Frightened Rabbit could not have been more different from the setting for their acoustic, all-request set at Le Poisson Rouge on Monday night. Le Poisson Rouge’s pricey beverages and bottle service attracted an audience more interested in being seen there than being there, as the sound of chatter rose above both openers, Joe Pug and Gregory & the Hawk. The scene was a stark contrast to the hairy, earnest Scots who took to the stage with plaid shirts and holes in their jeans. But try as they might have, a band as raw and emotional as Frightened Rabbit can’t be talked over.

Front man/songwriter Scott Hutchinson and crew were cheery from the start, which was a request for fan-favorite, “Backwards Walk,” from their second and most recent album, The Midnight Organ Fight. “That’s a poor choice,” Hutchinson jokingly chided before launching into the tune about the inability to stop returning to an ex. The song closes with one of their more memorable lyrics, “You’re the shit / and I’m knee deep in it.” That was all it took for the audience to stop talking.

Jokingly holding up blank set lists, Hutchinson explained that the idea for the all-request show came along because after 10 months of touring, “We just wanted to do something that was going to be enjoyable.” And enjoy it he did, telling stories about the songs between swigs from a bottle of whiskey. “Everyone thinks it’s about my penis, but it’s not,” he remarked after playing “Snake,” which he elaborated is actually about his plans to surprise a woman in New York City by showing up with nothing but the clothes on his back and a draft snake he’d been keeping for her. As it happened, the girl was “less than thrilled,” so he wrote “I Feel Better” as a sequel, reusing the music from the chorus. (more…)

Tags: Frightened Rabbit, Live Music, Taylor Long
Posted in Live Music, Music | Comments

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

CD Review: Animal Collective, “Merriweather Post Pavilion”

by Taylor Long

Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009, Domino)
purchase this CD (Amazon)

The optical illusion cover for Animal Collective’s latest and eighth release, Merriweather Post Pavilion, is more than something fun to look at while under the influence of the sort of drugs you might like to be on while listening to it. Curves of bright green ovals on a purple background, they appear to be in motion when we know they’re stationary. It’s an apt representation of the album’s dueling thematic components: fantasy versus reality, whimsy vs obligation, restlessness versus tranquility.

These themes of Merriweather Post Pavilion manifest in both the musical and lyrical content. Guitarist Josh Dibb, aka Deakin, decided to take time off after Strawberry Jam, so the remaining members — David Portner aka Avey Tare, Noah Lennox aka Panda Bear & Brian Weitz aka Geologist — wanted to create an album with samplers as the primary instrument, much like Panda Bear’s highly acclaimed solo album, Person Pitch. Unsurprisingly, the result is pretty similar to that album, but with multiple aesthetics combining, Merriweather Post Pavilion is jumpier, more in your face (or ear, as it were).

As part of these dueling themes, the samples seem divided between two different types of effects — those that echo nature, the rush of the wind or the flow of a river, and those that recall constructions, like music-boxes, carousels or video games. Opener “In the Flowers” sounds like discovering a carnival hidden within a swamp. “No More Runnin” is a piano-driven singalong played on the edge of a lake. (more…)

Tags: Animal Collective, CD Review, suck it Web Sheriff, Taylor Long
Posted in CD Reviews, Music | Comments