In 2004, I managed to land an internship at the Grammys. More specifically, the Seattle branch of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS), the professional organization responsible for the Grammys. Four or five internships later, it’s still one of my top two favorites, because I felt like I was making a difference (I did a lot of research for  the proof of need for the Hawaiian Music category, which was added a year later). It also changed the way I listen to hip-hop.

Though the average person associates Seattle with rock ‘n’ roll - grunge, Sub Pop and that ilk - Seattle has an impressive hip-hop scene, particularly from a production standpoint. Our most famous name is Sir Mix A Lot (who I drove past one day in Capitol Hill), but hip-hop aficionados might recognize the names Jake One, Bean One and Vitamin D, producers who’ve worked on albums from big names like 50 Cent, Jurassic 5 and Mary J. Blige.

While I was interning at NARAS, they hosted an event spotlighting the Seattle hip-hop production scene. As the intern, I helped set up, then got to stay for the event. It wasn’t exactly what I expected. I went into it thinking it would be more or less like any other rap show. Instead, it was the producers highlighting beats they created, and every once and awhile, someone would come up and rap to them.

As a writer, I’m a sucker for a good lyric, so it’s often easy for me to get distracted by what someone is saying and thus pay less attention to what’s going on musically. I love a lot of instrumentals, post-rock and classical music because I can really focus on the music and not be trying to juggle my attention. So, when I attended the event and heard just the beats, it was taking the genre and kind of flipping it on its head for me, particularly because at that time, much of the focus in hip-hop discussion was still on what rappers were saying, how they were rhyming or who they were insulting, though that’s certainly changed since.

The beat that really got to me was when Jake One played his beat from De La Soul’s “Rock Co. Kane Flow,” off of the Grind Date (which, incidentally, was the beat that put him on the map). After years of listening to mostly mainstream rap, It was just so unlike like any beat I’d ever heard. To this day, I cannot listen to that song without focusing on that beat, because it’s just so majestic and unusual. No matter how hard I concentrate on what they’re rapping, my ears always focus on the production.

De La Soul, “Rock Co. Kane Flow (Feat. MF Doom)” (download)

After watching the first 10 minutes, the most surprising thing about Shine a Light, Martin Scorsese’s concert documentary about the Rolling Stones, is that it ever happened. Shot in grainy black and white, the “behind the scenes” beginning captures miscommunication after miscommunication, compromise after compromise. If it’s not the set design (which Stones front man Mick Jagger claims is what Scorsese wanted, only for Scorsese to claim it’s what Jagger wanted), it’s the lighting (“We can’t burn Mick Jagger!” Scorsese exclaims to his stage director), or moving cameras (Jagger doesn’t want them to distract the audience, but Scorsese politely says, “It would be good to have a camera that moves,” as though he were an athlete saying it would be nice if he could use his arm). Through this Scorsese does his best to keep any frustration or confusion beneath the surface, covering it with nervous laughter and shrugs.

The matter of the set list is the most passionately debated, with Scorsese giving recommendations to Jagger, who keeps his own list of songs sorted by their “knownness” (well-known, medium known, etc.). After failed attempts to find out the set-list in advance, Scorsese resigns to just asking for it as soon as possible. Jagger promises he’ll comply, and he does — giving it to Scorsese all of 30 seconds before the show starts. Jagger’s obsessing over the set list aside, the Stones are a blissed-out counterpart to Scorsese’s nervousness, rambling around the stage, shaking hands with the Clintons (the two shows were fundraisers for the Clinton Foundation) as though making a movie with a legendary director and meeting legendary politicians were as average as brushing their teeth. (more…)

In New York, baseball is akin to religion. To many New Yorkers, Billy Joel is, too. So it was no surprise when it was announced that Joel would play the last concert at the New York Mets’ Shea Stadium.

And so, the themes of the night were, of course, New York and baseball, and Joel delivered a surprisingly long stream of hits that referenced those very things - “New York State of Mind,” “Zanzibar,” “Big Man on Mulberry Street,” “Miami 2017″ and “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Many of the songs he played also seemed to contain indirect references, those to tradition, the past, or change, like “Allentown,” with its opening line, “Well we’re living here in Allentown / And they’re closing all the factories down.” To really drive the whole baseball theme home, he opened with the National Anthem, and played “Take Me Out To The Ballgame,” during his encore.

Billy Joel, “Zanzibar” (download)

Joel’s facial expressions were somewhere between distraction, awe and stoicism, but in big screen close-ups, his eyes looked occasionally watery. He didn’t choose to slather the audience in overwhelming sentiment, however, only mentioning how strange it was that he saw the stadium being built only to watch it come down soon, and apologizing to those who bought tickets for the evening assuming that it would be the very last show (the Mets could only offer up Friday as the additional date, he said).

The “Last Play at Shea” — or “Last Double-Play at Shea,” as he jokingly referred to it — makes Joel the first artist to have headlined all three major New York stadiums: Giants’, Yankees’ & Mets. He also brings to a close a trend started by the Beatles, when they opened their ‘65 North American tour at Shea on August 15th; which he nodded to with covers of “It’s A Hard Day’s Night” and “She Loves Me.” That show was the first concert at a major stadium and broke records for attendance and profit, proving that rock ‘n’ roll was a major force. (more…)

When the Fleet Foxes performed at Bowery Ballroom last week, frontman Robin Pecknold had a cold. But unlike a downtrodden, silent Frank Sinatra, the audience might have never known it if no one had told us (either the Dutchess or the Duke — the openers — mentioned it in their stage banter, as did Pecknold himself). Pecknold’s voice was piercing, still at the shining center of the Fleet Foxes’ appeal. But more than anything, the concert proved that there isn’t just one key to what makes the Fleet Foxes so good. It’s the way the different elements combine.

Opening with “Sun Giant,” the mostly a cappella title track of their EP, the Fleet Foxes showcased one of the major things they’ve come to be known for: their vocal harmonies. Hearing them sing, “What a life I lead in the summer / what a life I lead in the spring,” it would have been easy to listen to just their voices all night long. But when they moved right along into “Sun it Rises,” the soft, ethereal folk rock was the perfect match for their lush vocals.

Fleet Foxes, “Sun Giant” (download)

Moving through songs from their full length, Ragged Wood, and the Sun Giant EP, the Fleet Foxes put on the kind of show that other bands, other audiences dream of. By the end of the third song, the audience was bursting into such loud screaming, clapping, rapturous accolade that the band was visibly taken aback. No doubt the soft-spoken Seattlites are used to tamer crowds.

When the other band members stepped back to let Pecknold perform solo, the music was stripped down and the songwriting received its fair share of attention in the form of Ragged Wood closer, “Oliver James.”

Fleet Foxes, “Oliver James” (download)

The band joined for a few more songs, and then Pecknold came out alone again for an encore of “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song.” As he confessed, “I don’t know what I have done / I’m turning myself into a demon,” the only evil that descended was the end of such an ideal performance. (more…)

Stylistically, Love as Laughter have jumped around a fair amount over 14 years of existence. Holy, the sixth release from frontman and founding member Sam Jayne (who seems to be the only consistent name attached, though drummer Zeke Howard has been around for the last three albums or so), finds his style no more grounded than in the past.

Holy centers around three genres influencing Jayne’s sound: a simple, singer-songwriter style folk, some sort of island calypso, and a heavy hitting garage rock revival. Instead of gently flowing from one into the next, which could actually be possible, ludicrous as it sounds in theory, the track listing jumps around, leaving the listener a little unsure of where they’re being lead.

It starts off rather basic with the title track, which begins with a strummed acoustic guitar, and Jayne’s affinity for absurd lyrics: “Holy’s never out of reach / I heard that demons don’t hit the beach.” One minute in, a ton of instruments and singers jump in, and it sounds like chaos. Beautiful chaos, but still chaos.

Most of the exotic island feel comes from the percussion, which incorporates conga drums or bongos. Occasionally they stand out almost too much, but at their most effective, they add an unusual pick-me-up to an otherwise relatively standard formula, like in “Crosseyed Beautiful Youngunz.” They also fit in well with the album’s most psychedelic moment, “All Parts of Me.” (more…)

Looking at the six years between The Devil, You + Me, the newest release from the Notwist, and Neon Golden, the release that threw them into American ears, leaves a deceiving impression. Markus Acher and Michael Acher have been working. Not for the Notwist, exactly, but for projects that are deceptively similar to their ambient electronic pop. There was 2004’s Faking the Books from Lali Puna, Markus’ side project, 2005’s 13 & God, a Notwist collaboration with Anticon rappers Themselves, and 2006’s Notes and the Like from Ms. John Soda, Michael’s side project. But these releases increased the appetite for a new Notwist album more often than they satisfied it.

It’s with much delight, then, that The Devil, You + Me easily picks up where Neon Golden left off. Some of the melodies even sound pieced together from remainders of the album that came before it; not in a lazy, “we’ve heard this all before” fashion, but like a fragmented memory nagging you to complete it.

The Notwist don’t really break from what worked so well last time. The Devil, You + Me features the same sort of smudged, smushed, scraping electronics, at times soft and warm, at others industrial and cold. The lyrical themes are somewhat similar, as well, bouncing back and forth between isolation (”I’m alone at last / with every other me”) and endearment (”the sun was up all night / and I put my arms around you / to hold you tight / on and on and on and on”). (more…)

When one thinks of survival, it conjures up images of barren islands, a lack of vital resources or, thanks to modern times, television shows where people are purposefully cast into harmful situations for the sake of money and fame. On her second album, To Survive, Joan as Police Woman (aka Joan Wasser) argues that relationships require strength and endurance, as well.

As with many a relationship, the music is seductive — and secretive. Sixteen musicians (in addition to Wasser) appear on To Survive, but rarely does it sound like there are more than two. Wasser is rightfully at the center of each piece, her voice, piano, synths, guitar, organ and/or strings the most auditorily present aspects throughout. It’s easy to get distracted by the projected simplicity, but attentive listening unfurls a gargantuan list of instruments, including saxophone, trumpet, farfisa, tambourine and even sandpaper.

Joan as Police Woman, “To Be Loved” (download)

The lyrics follow an emotional trajectory of in love — in conflict — in love — in conflict — break-up. But even the darkest songs contain professions of adoration, setting a sultry, sexy mood, creating the kind of album one might reach for before an intimate encounter.

The most interesting part of this narrative (and the album) is the final track, “In America,” which features vocals from Rufus Wainwright. It’s the only song that outright depicts any sort of fight (”In time the hunter will find the trail of blood / I see you alone tonight / when will you tear down?”), but it sounds the most majestic, the most triumphant, even though she still refers to the other person as “my love.” It leaves us to wonder: if a relationship, or love, is something to be survived, does its ending constitute a strange sort of victory or simply a release from a precarious position?

The word together implies the combination of parts — and the third full-length from Philadelphia’s Pattern Is Movement, All Together, perfectly represents that which its title suggests.

There are many pieces in play here, and band members Andrew Thiboldeaux and Chris Ward audibly have fun breaking them down and arranging them. There are layers upon layers of vocals and instruments, and they miss each other as often as they intersect. One could possibly compare them to avant poppers like Deerhoof, Dirty Projectors or Fiery Furnaces, but not because they sound exactly like them as much as they seem to embrace a similar creative philosophy with highly unique results. They’ve been labeled “Math Rock” before, but it’s an oddly fitting tag since, in recent examples, it implies a heavier, more immediate and overwhelming sound, owing more to progressive rock and metal than anything Pattern Is Movement has created, particularly on this album.

Apparently, both Thiboldeaux and Ward have classical training, and on All Together it shows in the instruments they use and the timbres they create. The keyboard parts are occasionally reminiscent of Debussy, especially when combined with the occasional oboe and violin accompaniment (and when they don’t sound like Debussy, they often sound like Bartók). Throw in some guitar and some drums, and you’ve got impressionism meets contemporary rock and pop. (more…)

Nearly two years ago now, I posted a short list of songs that reminded me of my post-college trip to Europe & Asia. One of those songs, DJ Bobo’s “Chihuahua” has recently reappeared in my life - and will soon make its way into yours, as well, if it hasn’t already.

DJ Bobo, “Chihuahua” (download)

A bit of a ridiculous song, “Chihuahua” is a silly, bouncy, dance tune that’s not actually about those yippy dogs that often get mistaken for rats and/or promote Taco Bell, but instead is about how the word “Chihuahua” makes DJ Bobo very, very happy.

I’m walking in the street and the moon shines bright
A little melody is spinning on my mind tonight
I gotcha it’s the song about chihuahua
Yeah, that’s cool alright (chihuahua)
It means fun - and a life without sorrow
Feels young - when you think about tomorrow
Say yo - when you’re about to freak out
Just go, and then shout it out loud

Nonsensical as it may be, it’s the kind of song that gets stuck in your head for hours on end, driving you insane. Kind of like “It’s A Small World.”

I first heard it two years ago on the aforementioned trip to Europe, when the tour guide used to play it to wake us up. (It was incredibly effective.) I downloaded the song as a fun little reminder, and had listened to it maybe twice since then. That is, until last week. (more…)

Fourth of July is, without a doubt, my favorite holiday. Firstly, because it’s not religiously affiliated. Secondly, because it generally involves some combination of the following three items: fire, grilling meat and alcohol. All in the name of patriotism. I’m not sure how our fourth of July traditions evolved to include these potentially disastrous things together, but I’m thankful they did.

However, there are few songs that connect with the holiday for me. Sure, there are all the patriotic anthems if you want to get stereotypical. There’s really only one song that reminds me of a particular fourth of July.

While I was still summering at home on the West Coast, it was something of tradition to go out to the cabin of some family friends on Harstine Island, which is in Puget Sound. It’s right on the water, so it cools off at night, and it’s far from any big cities, so it gets really dark. Because it’s so quiet and woodsy, everyone is shooing off fireworks. You can stand on the shore and be surrounded by bright, colorful lights in every direction — including an Indian reservation. They always delivered. Big time.

I was more or less left to my own thoughts at these holidays, and often I’d clear my mind of everything associated with my life in the cities, my life in New York, my life in Seattle, and just spend hours using as many senses as possible.  Watching the water roll in waves, skimming my hand on top of soft, pointed blades of grass, listening to the sounds of voices from far away, smelling the musk of the forest and the smoke of barbecues in the air… the taste of alcohol. (more…)