The times, they are a-changin’. I’m working full-time at www.PasadenaNow.com, but fear not! My music writing will most likely continue on at www.LA2Day.com, and I’ll still publish here.
Whenever a story comes up, it’ll be posted here first.
Top Ten song fragments
This is pretty simple. I’ve listened and sang along with music since I was in Kindergarten and judging from the content in most music magazines, this makes me an expert on many levels. Any way, a top ten songs list is cliche, so here’s a top ten song fragments list. If you haven’t listened to these songs, do so. It will gain you credibility and all the women around you will say, “Oh my, that young man is credible, and he’s very handsome, too.”
10. Do Make Say Think — Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! (Winter Hymn,Country Hymn, Secret Hymn) — 5:43 to 6:05
As with most DMST songs, there’s an orgy of riffs and a long build up before the actual melody is revealed, but when it’s finally played, it’s one of the best melodies you’ve ever listened to. After the drums and guitar solos, the trumpets wash over the song like a calm blue tidal wave and bring peace to a chaotic mix of a CD.
9. Hint Hint — Same Skies (Young Days) — 1:36 to 2:03
A lesser known band, Hint Hint came out with this CD four years ago and I keep going back to it once every three-to-six months, mostly for this one song–nay, song fragment.
8. Hella — City Folk Sittin’, Sittin’ (Hold Your Horse Is) — the final two minutes
Any fan of Hella knows what I’m talking about. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, listen to it. You’ll find out why this is (a) their most popular song on iTunes and (b) why they’ve closed with that song almost every concert they played before expanding to four/five band members.
7. Tortoise — TNT (TNT) — 0:38 to 1:10
Sometimes, these song fragments are perfect for certain moments. This is perhaps the best song to wake up to in the morning and Tortoise released this 10 years ago. Try it out some time: wake up from your alarm clock, plug in your ear buds and listen.
6. Against Me! — Rice and Bread (As the Eternal Cowboy) — 1:09 to 1:42
Rock and roll.
5. Hot Snakes — Past Lives (Automatic Midnight) — 2:13 to 2:26
When I want blistering-loud rock, Rick Froberg and John Reis come to mind. This is not their best song, but it’s their best song fragment, and it has shown mercy to the bands that precede it on this list.
4. Lightning Bolt — Dead Cowboy (Hypermagic Mountain) — 3:10 to 7:58
Of course you’re looking at the length of this segment, but this song is all about the smooth transitions between movements. And damn if these two Rhode Island boys didn’t nail it.
3. HORSE the band — Seven Tentacles, Eight Flames (R. Borlax) — 0:00 to 0:10
Opening an album is often difficult, especially for a band’s first try, so when Horse came out with this blazing hot intro, my attention was immediately grabbed. It’s still one of the best albums ever made.
2. Godspeed You! Black Emperor — Dead Flag Blues (F#A#00) — 1:43 to 1:47
A stern, gravely voice reads “It went like this,” followed by the crescendo of a couple of morose violins dueting. It’s one of the few moments in a song that I can genuinely call beautiful.
1. Explosions in the Sky — Yasmin the Light (Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die…) — 1:35 to 2:10
If something is done right–just perfectly–it never gets annoying. A slow-tempo of some light drum beats, a couple of soft guitar riffs, nothing serious, and then WHAM, the music frenzies like piranha for 35 seconds, mashing a solid, quick rhythm with a faster tone and sweet, light-hearted melody before returning to the soft water flow of the Amazon. According to iTunes, I’ve listened to this song 100 times just for this forty-five second clip. That’s not including all the times I’ve rewound the song just to get back to the 1:35 marker, which would probably put it somewhere in the 200 range and make it the most listened to song, period. It’s a real wonder why no band tried to imitate this barrage of sound into a 40-minute CD.
If you don’t know who Chris Thile is, perhaps it’s time for you to find out. Thile, 26, has spent the better part of his young career performing with his soon-to-be-ex bluegrass band, Nickel Creek, though now that they’re broken up, he seems to be doing more solo work (which you can thank … someone for) and performing alongside other bands.
This YouTube is a performance of a J.S. Bach piece (Gigue D Minor Partita). On a mandolin. That’s right. That instrument your crazy uncle used to try to teach you on his farm when your parents went out of town and left you in his incapable hands.
His Web site is fairly bland (ChrisThile.com), but his MySpace has a few of his songs from his solo album, “How to Grow a Woman from the Ground.” And they’re all good.
I think we’ve all seen Little Miss Sunshine, right? The opening scene, the dance scene, the ending scene … it’s a good, light-hearted movie, but what really made it great was the soundtrack. It matched the mood so perfectly and only a few movies in time have been able to do that. Set that final scene where they’re all pushing the car back onto the road after the competition to some Slayer and it’s not quite so touching.
When I found out that the music played was made by a band called DeVotchKa (Note: this will be the last time I type it like that), I was eager to check out their stuff. Hey, it sounded good in theaters, it sounded like the kind of temperamental indie rock that I usually listen to and perhaps even a little catchier than most of that shit. Heck, I got an Oink account, what’s the worst that could happen? Other than filling my already full hard drive with more bad music?
Turns out that was the worst that happened.
I downloaded the music. I listened.
It’s bad. Not just bad, but really bad. A full 40 minutes of trainwreck. I didn’t know that a singer could ruin a band so much. I get sound engineering, but to take away the focus from the stellar melody and rhythm and pump up the volume on the amateur singing so it drowns out the hard work.
I deleted it from my hard drive, only to realize that the hard drive still recognizes it as being there.
How could something so beautiful and peaceful in nature be mutated into something so hideous? It’s frustrating, really, to think you’ve found something you really love and then it turns out to be the ugly bastard son who blames you for all of his problems.
Is there anything worse than being disappointed?
In essence, don’t listen to DeVotchKa. They’re terrible.
Iceland:the land of ice!
It’s been a pretty good year so far for Sigur Ros. As of today:
1. They did a brief tour in the US.
2. The Kronos Quartet covered some songs from their 1999 album, Agaetis Byrjun.
3. They’re all set to release a new album before the end of the year.
4. (Best of all) They’re all set to release a new concert DVD/documentary before the end of the year.
That documentary, titled Heima, which means “at home” in their silly Icelandic language, follows the band through a tour of free shows the performed in their home country last summer.
Finally, a great band gets a great (looking) documentary. I can’t wait to see it. Hell, I can’t wait to own it. I’m looking forward to having it on my shelf and then someone at one of my unforgettable parties turns to me and asks “Hey, what’s this?” while pointing to the Heima DVD, and I say “Oh this? It’s just the greatest music documentary ever.” And then I twirl it on my finger like Michael Jordan did with a basketball and put it into the DVD player and suddenly an Icelandic dance party breaks out and my pants have exploded off my legs.
For more info, watch the YouTube clip or see www.heimafilm.com.
Didn’t see this until I was reading The Onion while getting my car washed, but everyone’s favorite instrumental Nintendo cover band, The Advantage, is playing tonight (Sept. 4th) at The Echo in Echo Park. Show starts at 8 pm.
Hopefully I can squeeze an interview out of them.
Looks like someone overdressed!
I enjoy the finer things in life. The belt clips that accommodate moderately priced cell phones. The half of a sandwich my dog didn’t eat when she jumped on the kitchen counter. Carlos Mencia. And, of course, any good music that’s free and with no strings attached.
Asthmaboy is a piano-and-acoustic-guitar duet out of Bellingham, Washington. They are unsigned and their first full-length, titled Later Days, is self-produced. I’m not usually one to gush, but I really like this album. Think Ben Folds, but more sincere–or at least less facetious. Kind of like what I had hoped the band from Once would be like if they were an actual band.
Best of all, like some beautiful design of the Gods, Asthmaboy has granted anyone who visits their Web site the ability to download their new album completely free.
You can listen to them on their MySpace page and test a few songs before you download the album from their official Web site here.
This is the last known photograph of awesome.
That’s right. The Standard Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles is hosting a killer pool party at the Rooftop Bar this Monday (Labor Day) from 1pm to 7 pm.
Best part: it’s free.
Second best part: knowing the Standard, the DJs are going to be pretty damn good.
Worst part: you have to RSVP. (Also, it will probably be crowded, but who cares). Click the link above to RSVP.
Hilly Kristal, founder of the iconic CBGB, died yesterday after a prolonged bout with lung cancer. He moved back to New York City when he was 18, where he worked as a singer, occasionally appearing on stage at Radio City Music Hall. He later became the manager of the Village Vanguard, a jazz club in Greenwich Village, where he booked acts like Miles Davis. In 1970 Kristal opened a bar in the Bowery section of New York called “Hilly’s on the Bowery.” In 1973 he changed the name to CBGB, an abbreviation of the kinds of music he intended to feature there: country, bluegrass and blues. The club became known as the starting point for the careers of such punk rock and New Wave acts as The Ramones, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Television, and Blondie. The club closed in 2006.
This is where it is believed to be at.
I don’t know why, but LA’s concert schedule always seems to suck in the summer, warm up in September and peak somewhere in October/November and again in March/April.
Warped Tour is playing tomorrow (August 25th) at the Home Depot Center in Carson, Ca, and there used to be four or five bands you’d want to see, but this year’s a stinko. The only band worth seeing, Flogging Molly, is not worth $32.75, and the ones that might interest you are ten years past their prime (Bad Religion, Throwdown, etc.). And let it be known: any concert with A Static Lullaby, Coheed and Cambria, Hawthorne Heights and Poison the Well is not a concert worth seeing, no matter the cost.
Can you imagine if all four of those bands were playing on each of the stages at the same time? The world would say, “OK, that’s it, I’ve had enough,” and collapse into itself.
As for concerts worth seeing, the good bands are coming, the great bands are on their way.
August 26th, Real McKenzies are at El Rey.
September 10th, 11th and 12th, Spoon is playing at the Fonda. (Warming up!)
Sept. 18, Animal Collective is playing at the Fonda, which is good, because most indie idiots will be at …
Sept 18-20th, Clap Your Hands, Say Ya at the Troubadour. (All three shows are sold out already, which doesn’t make much sense because, honestly, who listens to them?)
Sept. 21st, High on Fire at El Rey.
Sept. 26th, Klaxons at the Fonda. (Fonda seems to be getting a lot of decent shows next month.)
Oct. 2nd, Atmosphere with Grayskul at the Fonda. (Goddamn you, Henry Fonda!).
Oct. 9th, Justice at the Fonda. (Sounds good, so long as no one tries to convert me to Christianity.)
Then we get into the really good concerts.
Oct. 11th and 12th, Horse the Band plays the Showcase Theater in (gulp) Corona, Ca. Since Horse is the kind of band worth seeing every time and they just came out with a new CD, I may actually drive the hour and a half out there just to see them. Or maybe I can stay with my cousins in San Diego (they play at Soma on the 13th). This band is a must-see.
Oct. 30th, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists at El Rey. If you’ve never seen Ted Leo, you should probably see him once. He’s a great performer, very active on stage and a consummate professional.
Nov. 5th, Do Make Say Think at the Echoplex. I’ve never seen this band live, but if they’re half as good in concert as they are on CD, then it’s going to be an awesome show.
More as they happen, but this is everything as it is right now.
