Musicalia: World's Best Band at World's Shittiest Venue?

Perhaps a bit of hyperbole was employed in the title of this entry, but The National might just be the best band out there right now.

With seemingly every occasion to see The National occurring during SXSW, Fun Fun Fun, or ACL Festival, this has made it hard for Austinites to see them outside of the undesirable festival setting. In fact, since the last time I had tickets to see The National and foolishly elected to squeeze an Architecture in Helsinki show in rather than sticking around after Clap Your Hands Say Yeah opened, The National have not rolled through Austin outside of a festival weekend. During only one of those stops did they play a show in which one could actually buy tickets and that was during ACL weekend of 2008. Tickets for that Emo's show with Blonde Redhead and School of Seven Bells were extremely hard to come by, makiing this the first time they rolled through town without a festival bringing them here since 2005.

Unfortunately, this stop through town brought them to Austin Music Hall. While there may be worse venues in the world, I've not been to one. I saw Wilco at the Cedar Park Center. I saw Radiohead at Alpine Valley Outdoor Amphitheater. I saw Nick Cave at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland. These were absolutely worthless venues to be sure, but Austin Music Hall puts them to shame. Cursed with the acoustics so bad that an airplane hangar would be a marked improvement and a redesign that--having been clearly motivated by little other than greed--renders a full two-thirds of the balcony obstructed-view seating, Austin Music Hall is a wretched shithole that only a band of The National's ilk could succeed in drawing me through those fucking doors.

It appears to me that a visual aid may be helpful to demonstrate what I mean by obstructed view, so I took a photo. For those who don't know me, I stand 6'3". The photo I have uploaded is taken from the vantage point of someone who would have been taller than me by roughly half a foot (or a sixth of a meter, for you metric sons of bitches).

I am well aware that this is a shitty photo. It is really just a reference point.

From this vantage point, that is roughly 35% of the stage that is visible. If you are my height. TSLF was unable to see a fucking thing. For the entire show. It doesn't matter if you are closer to the front on the right or left side of the General Admission section of the balcony. It doesn't matter if you move farther towards the stage. The grade of the bleachers/risers is simply not steep enough for anyone to see.

Now, you may be wondering from where exactly did that greed line three paragraphs ago come, and I can answer that for you. Rather than have those bleacher seats extend to reasonable edge of the overhanging balcony they begin at least 15' back from the edge because there is a VIP section of seating that actually extends the balcony without maintaining a grade of stage visibility. For those keeping track at home, a conservative estimate would be roughly 500 people in the house who can see virtually none of the concert that they paid to see because an extension to a balcony gives them VIP seating at $20 more a ticket. If you were on the stage-left side of the venue, you saw the touring trumpeter, the touring trombonist, half of the Dessner Brothers (Bryce, I think), and half of Matt Derninger. That leaves half of Matt, an entire Dessner twin, and both Devendorf Brothers out of view.

Fuck you very much Austin Music Hall.

You are the worst venue in this town. By. Far.

Just sink into the ground and go back to your home in Hell. You can even get the entrance/exit right (you cannot walk straight up to the main entrance, you have to walk away from the nearest corner only to double back to that very corner). Were you designed by the same assholes who designed Austin's broke-ass highway system?

Rant over.

Sorry.

As for the music, once getting beyond the terrible acoustics in that godforsaken shithole, it had a lot to offer. I'll refrain from talking about Local Natives for the most part. I'm sure they're great guys, and I've been negative  for five paragraphs now, which is surely tiresome for all of y'all who are still reading. I know it's reductive, but they share many likenesses with Fleet Foxes, a band whose allure wore off for me. I can see why people like Fleet Foxes. I can see why people would like Local Natives, as well. For the most part, Local Natives were simply a little too psych folk for my liking.

The one exception to that, however, was their set closer "Sun Hands," which struck me as an ideal musical fit for Sons of Anarchy if 85% of the music on Sons of Anarchy didn't suck. In the live setting, it succeeded in channeling a propulsive Western feel that was genuinely interesting, especially at it built to a huge climax. Here's a video from SXSW of them performing it live to give you a sense of what I'm talking about. Once they hit the three-minute mark everything explodes, and it's transcendent. It's just that "Sun Hands" was the only song that grabbed me.

Luckily, The National were great. With only one exception, they sounded great. The one exception was not even remotely their fault, but during "Runaway," the show opener, there was a sound issue where the mic on the floor tom was mixed too loud and when combined with the higher bass line notes in the chorus were blaring over the top of everything else. It was odd and perhaps isolated to the area we were standing in, but it seems like whoever the sound engineer was at least got the issue fixed by the time the third song kicked off.

Aside from "Runaway" having that weird sound issue, everything sounded great. The somewhat reasonable concern that some of the slightly more low-key songs off of High Violet was completely unfounded. "Terrible Love" settled in shockingly well into the encore. "Bloodbuzz, Ohio," which I expected to play well live, far exceeded expectations and was much bigger than I had anticipated. "Anyone's Ghost" was sped up ever so slightly but played better for it. The percussion drove "Conversation 16"* much more than I could have thought likely.

*Does anyone else feel like the 

It's a Hollywood summer
You never believe the shitty thoughts I think
Meet our friends out for dinner
When I said what I said I didn't mean anything
We belong in a movie
Try to hold it together 'til our friends are gone 

section of the song evokes that scene in I'm Not There with Heath Ledger out to dinner with Charlotte Gainsbourg and their friends Grace and Martin where he opines that "chicks can't be poets," or is that just me?

As for the material off of Boxer, Alligator, etc., it was rock solid. "Apartment Story" and "Mistaken for Strangers" both played very much like the singles that they were and could have drawn in even the casual listener. "Squalor Victoria" and "Fake Empire" were every last bit of what I had hoped they would be. "Mr. November" was the huge rocker I'd heard it was, and it sure as hell appeared as though Matt Derninger went into the crowd during that one (in the encore), but no one upstairs could see this.

The most transcendent moment of the night definitely lied in the encore closer: "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks." Perhaps having taken a cue from their pals, Bon Iver and Megafaun, Matt, the two sets of brothers, and their two man brass section stepped out to the front of the stage sans amplification and belted out the closing track from High Violet. Every time I've seen a band do this it has fucking killed, and this was no exception. They walk up to the line marked 'earnest,' line their toes up just before the line, and it worked like a charm.

Between that and the legitimately funny between song banter, it was hard not to love the show. That is saying a lot because that venue is fucking godawful. The National were outstanding and solidified my growing belief that they may just be the best rock band out there. If ever there were someone capable of taking that title without squandering their talent and potential on deviating from their artistic ambitions in favor of chasing commercial success, it is The National. They are one of the few bands recording today whose albums get better with each release, and unlike much of what I hear these days, their albums don't release their hold on the listener. Ever.

Hopefully that praise made up for the rather lengthy rant I went off on at the beginning of this post. I'll leave you with the two following things: An Open Letter to Touring Acts Considering Venues In Austin, and an entire embedded concert.

*******************************************************************

Dear bands rolling through Austin, 


Please do not book your shows at Austin Music Hall. If you are big enough to play that fucking abomination of a venue, hold out for the Long Center, the Moody Theater, or the Paramount. 


Sincerely,
The Citizens of Austin

*******************************************************************

If you didn't get to see the show last night, I did find a video of a full concert from Oakland in 2010. It was part of a graduate research project and was shot by a fella who cryptically goes by J. Flynn. More information on the recording can be found here. I know it wasn't easy to get tickets, since it sold out quickly, so I guess this is the next best thing. And unlike if you'd been to the show and been in the balcony, you can actually see this concert.

Guten tag.

Prick Tunes: Tom Waits "Bad As Me"

It should not surprise readers that Tom Waits would make an appearance here. His first new studio album since 2004's Real Gone drops today, so it is only fitting to see the titular track from Bad As Me in this space. Sadly there is no official video for this song *yet*, so this video is what you shall receive.

While I am generally reticent to reflect on albums as a whole here*, I can say that I've liked what I've heard so far. Perhaps you'll be so unlucky as to be [dis]graced with a quasi-review (or whatever the fuck it is I do here) in the near future.

*Largely because I do not feel the same way about an album on the first listen as I do on the fiftieth. After all, the listener's musical experience is tricky. For starters, it is subject to an evolutionary element as different facets of the song begin to function in varying ways that are not formed entirely independently of the listener. Music is also an art form that works on many different levels, but many of these levels come across on an aural plane. One could try to ascertain why certain instrumental orchestrations work, but I'm not that person unfortunately. Furthermore, any such efforts can later be rendered moot by the mere passage of time and the effect it has on one's feelings about an album. I guess this is an odd diatribe about my uncomfortability in committing my thoughts about the album as an art form. Of course, this likely means that I'll write something about Bad As Me while preemptively chalking up my inadequacy in describing my feelings about the album to this unease rather than ascribing these shortcomings to myself, but that's for another day.

Regardless, "Bad As Me" is a damn fine addition to the Tom Waits catalog, featuring the familiar (and I mean this in the best possible way) riffs of the spectacular Marc Ribot and New Orleans multi-instrumentalist Clint Maedgen on baritone sax sending the listener on a drunken voyage into the junkyard of Waits's construction.

Musicalia: RIP Gerry Rafferty

The criminally underrated musical genius of yesteryear, Gerry Rafferty succumbed to liver and kidney related illness at 63 in Dorset, England.  The Scottish singer-songwriter who was once in a band with comic Billy Connolly (in The Humblebums), is probably best known for having co-written "Stuck in the Middle with You" with Stealers Wheel bandmate Joe Egan and having released 1978 album City to City, which yielded the pop song featuring the best sax solo ever* "Baker Street" and the even better pop gem "Right Down the Line."


*One likely responsible for the entire sax solo binge that happened in decade that followed.


Rather than wax ecstatic about the genius that was Gerry Rafferty, I'll let his music do the speaking.  First, the stirring "Whatever's Written in Your Heart" from City to City.


Here is a link to one of the three singles off of his follow-up to City to City, "Get it Right Next Time" from Night Owl, and here is a session video for its title track.

And last but not least, one of my favorite songs ever...

I can say with confidence that I'll be wearing my Gerry Rafferty shirt in remembrance of you, Gerry.  Now if I can only dig up that photo of me at the Baker Street Underground station... 

Musicalia: Justin Townes Earle - The Parish - 12/04/10

Since the last time I saw him, Justin Townes Earle has had quite a lot happen.  In the past ten months, he has seen the release of his third LP, Harlem River Blues, was arrested in conjunction with an incident after an in-store performance in Indianapolis, suspended his tour, and checked into rehab.  Having taken to the road again, putting his relapse behind him, he stopped by The Parish this past Saturday evening.

This time around it seemed as though the show was perhaps a bit more subdued than his February show inside at Stubb's.  The songs seemed to have been slowed down a bit, and it took a bit longer for him to get into his groove in the banter department, but the show was still great.  Once he got a few songs under his belt, he addressed what it felt like the whole crowd was wondering about:  Rehab.  Now I'll have to paraphrase here because it's been way too long*, but Earle said that he loved cocaine and alcohol but that he wasn't any good at doing either.  It was a direct way to deal with the issue, but successfully diffused any tension regarding the issue with laughter. 

*I wanted to write this when I got back that night but didn't get around to it.  This is both good and bad, as the video embedded throughout the post surely wasn't up when I would have written this had I been concerned with timeliness, but now I can't quote what he said exactly.  Or maybe I can...


Now as for the rest of the show, it was pretty great.  Not only did he own the material from his own growing catalog, but he covered Townes, Lightnin' Hopkins, "Union Square" by Tom Waits, and closed the set (if memory serves me correctly) with "Can't Hardly Wait," but the moment that set the show apart from most was his transcendent a capella rendition of "Louisiana 1927" seen below.  See for yourself and tell me you're not convinced.

To me, there may not be a burgeoning artist on the scene that has me more excited for their future than Justin Townes Earle.  Yes, he's released three LPs and an EP, but all of this output has come since 2007.  His show on Saturday was fantastic to be sure, but there was more than that.  It held promise and gave me hope that Justin Townes Earle can continue to best his demons and deliver albums and shows that mean as much to me as the ones he has done over these brief few years.


Note: I do feel like this post owes a great debt to The Triggerman over at Saving Country Music, whose videos from the show at The Parish give this entry life.  His review of the show is also glowing and should absolutely be read.

Musicalia: Junip - Mohawk - 11/18/10

After inadvertently taking a two-and-a-half hour nap, I awoke in a stupor to realize that I had about 15 minutes to get down to the Mohawk if I was going to see Junip.

Not sure who did the artwork, but I like it

For those unfamiliar with Junip, they are a band featuring Jose Gonzalez, the Argentine-via-Sweden folkster whose solo work found its way into the indie pop pantheon thanks in large part to his covers of The Knife's "Heartbeats" and Massive Attack's "Teardrop."  In the case of "Teardrop," his cover was such a reinvention of the song that despite it having been the reason I got into Massive Attack in the first place I could not figure out what song it was when I first heard it and had to look at the liner notes of a friend's (Wes Edwards, oh how I miss your shoulder rubs...) copy.

Gonzalez's somewhat eclectic heritage seems to inform his music at every turn, and with the platform that Junip provides him, this is especially evident.  Here the Scandinavian pop-folk sensibility is met with the undercurrents of a Latin rhythm section.  Each song settles into a groove that gets even the most ardent of the stoic concert-goers* nodding along. 

*Speaking of concert-goers, there was a little incident fairly early in the Junip set in which a guy somewhere around 40 years old somewhat angrily told a chatty girl in his line of sight to shut up.  A song or two later (after not heeding his command) she and her friends started making light of the shut up comment.  Now personally I know it's harder for me to tell a girl at a concert to shut up than it is for me to say it to a guy** for reasons I don't fully comprehend, but the fact remains that if anyone is telling you to shut up, there is probably a fucking reason for it and maybe you should re-examine your behavior before deciding that it's hilarious that some old dude told you to stop talking at a concert.  If one person around you thought you were irritating, then the odds are pretty good that everyone around you thought you were a pain in the ass.  If you have had your back to the stage and talked through a whole concert, then I'm talking to you right now when I say this:  SHUT THE FUCK UP OR LEAVE.  YOU ARE NOT MORE INTERESTING THAN THE CONCERT.  WHATEVER YOU HAVE TO SAY CAN WAIT.  WHAT WAS THE POINT OF YOU GOING TO THE CONCERT IN THE FIRST PLACE?  WHAT SHITFACE FROM WESTLAKE (insert your own city-specific entitled rich kid suburb where appropriate) IS GOING TO SEE YOU THERE?  WHY ARE YOU ALIVE? In this instance, I wasn't bothered by the person until after Angry Old Man yelled at her, but still, stop being dipshits at concerts people.  Have some sense of decorum.

**If anyone ever had a bootleg of Kris Kristofferson's SXSW set at the New West Showcase at La Zona Rosa from about 2006, they would most definitely here me yelling at some badge-holding dickbag telling him to "Shut the fuck up!"



There is not a world in which Junip would be considered a raucous live show, as one would expect given Gonzalez's solo output, but that didn't detract from the show at all.  The music plays well live, and they closed with a collaborative cover of "With or Without You" with opener Sharon Van Etten (and band) that was very much their own as one would have expected.  Van Etten's vocals were remiscent of Chan Marshall and made me wish that I hadn't been asleep for her portion of the night's bill, and the random people that I happened into after the show solidified that sentiment with their intimations that they had actually been there to see her.

When the show let out, I contemplated meandering down to Emo's to catch the Kurt Vile show (after having slept through his in-store show earlier in the evening) but ultimately decided that Rio Rita was calling out my name, which was probably the quasi-financially responsible thing to do.

I'm getting too old for this shit anyway.

Reading Rainbow: Wilco: Learning How To Die by Greg Kot

Obviously one is probably going to be a Wilco fan if he or she is going to dive into this book.  As one who could be qualified as such, the book is pretty damn pleasing. 

For those of you whom the author's name does not ring a bell, Greg Kot is the co-host of music talk show, Sound Opinions, and the music critic at the Chicago Tribune.  If you are familiar with his work, then you would not be shocked to find that Wilco: Learning How To Die is a thoughtful look at Wilco as one of the bands that sprang forth from the ashes of Uncle Tupelo to become one of the most critically acclaimed rock bands of this past decade.

Learning How To Die essentially begins with Jeff Tweedy's childhood quickly getting into his work with Jay Farrar, first in The Primatives which eventually became Uncle Tupelo.  It is interesting to see the portrait painted of the unsure young Jeff Tweedy, and the elucidation of the dynamic between Tweedy and Farrar helps to frame the earlier Wilco releases, especially A.M.

From there, Kot works through the demise of Uncle Tupelo and through the early years of Wilco, showing Tweedy in many shades, not all of them flattering.  Flattering or not, though, Tweedy the Figure is a compelling one, and this makes for an interesting character study of sorts.  

Now most Wilco fans have seen the Sam Jones documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, and as such already have a pretty strong working knowledge as to what went into the recording of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, one could reasonably make the leap and assume that the last 50 or 60 pages of the book would be re-covering familiar ground.  Fortunately, Learning How To Die actually brings a little clarity to what had been a somewhat surprising and glossed over departure of a key figure in Wilco's rise, Jay Bennett.  In the film, Bennett is suddenly at odds with Jeff Tweedy in the mixing stages, and then he's out of the band.  Kot's painstaking work shows that Bennett had kind of been losing it in the studio, and that much of what Jim O'Rourke has been accused of doing by Wilco alt-country purists was actually off base.  Bennett had been layering track upon track upon track of material in the studio, and O'Rourke helped Tweedy strip down Yankee Hotel Foxtrot to its bare essentials.  The rest of the band's relief at Bennett's dismissal is also driven home. 

Wilco: Learning How To Die is a very quick read, and one that any serious Wilco fan should read, as Kot works in more than his fair share of music criticism, which is obviously his bread and butter.  His countless hours of interviewing and seemingly boundless access to the band make for an absurdly candid look at the band, warts and all.

(Weird video with a ludicrous intro/segue to follow)

Musicalia: Jónsi - Austin Music Hall - 10/26/10

Well, I definitely haven't been staying on top of things in the Musicalia department, as I never got around to writing about the Pavement* or Caribou** (thanks again, Luke Perry's Distant Cousin) shows that I saw, let alone my ninth time see The Drive-By Truckers, and that's just over the past month.

*Actually better than when I saw them on the Terror Twilight tour.

**First time I'd seen them as headliners.  Still great.  Weirdly felt very old at the show, which weirded me out because most of the crowd was in elementary school when Caribou was still Manitoba.

Speaking of not staying on top of things, this was actually the second time this year that TSLF and I had seen Jónsi, having traveled up to Lawrence in April to see the production when it rolled through the U.S. in the spring.  As described here by a better writer, that show was great.  Liberty Hall was definitely a better setting at which to take in the Jonsi show.  For starters, it was seated, even though the venue normally is not set up for this.  We were in the third row then.

Austin Music Hall is quite a bit bigger, and if you asked anyone who ever went to a show there, the sound is pretty shitty.  Yes, it was recently renovated, but I can guarantee you that acoustic tiling existed before the renovation. 

Aside from the difference in sound, there was also a difference between sets from April 22nd and yesterday, and I don't mean setlists.  The AMH physical set was missing a significant amount of set pieces from the earlier incarnation of the show.  This may not mean much to the lay person, but if you saw that previous version of the Jónsi show, hinted at here, the product at Austin Music Hall was going to leave you wanting.

Jónsi live show by 59 Productions from Jónsi on Vimeo.
Moving past the fact that last night's show didn't meet the absurdly high standards that one would have had if they'd seen the tour at a previous stop (I'd imagine this was a shortcoming that lies on the venue's shoulders, but it is also surely possible that some of the set has taken on casualties since April, which would be unfortunate), the performance was still pretty stellar.  Obviously if you're going to a Sigur Rós, Riceboy Sleeps, or Jónsi show, you have probably gotten past the potentially problematic aspects of the band, namely the made up language that much of Sigur Rós's material has been presented in.  Assuming you can move past that (I didn't have any problems), any show is going to be affective.  The sweeping epic post-rock is going to suck you in.  This time was no different.

Sure, half of the backdrop didn't come crashing down as the deer was eaten this time around, but when the storm hits in the encore, it is transcendent.  If a concert can give you that transcendent moment, even just one, I think generally the ticket (whatever the cost) was worth the price.  After all, isn't that really why we go to concerts?

To be swept away in the moment?

To have the music overpower us and forget about everything else? 

Regardless of the sparser arrangement of set pieces, the Jónsi Go tour will give you that.

Musicalia: GAYNGS - Emo's, Austin, TX - 10/9/10

(Sorry about the delay on this post.  I started it early last week, when it would have been much more timely.)

After four EPTs, three First Responses, and a ClearBlue Easy Pregnancy Test, I can nearly categorically say that I am not pregnant despite my concerns after having taken in what was ultimately GAYNGS' last show* of their brief fall tour. I do have an appointment set up with TSLF's OB/GYN just to make sure, but I think that the supremely potent baby-makin' tunage that I took in on Saturday managed to miss impregnating my by some strange twist of fate, thus sparing me some serious urethral damage in nine-and-a-half months.  

*In a sordid tale, their gear was abducted and driven to Nashville in the dark of night as a possible result of non-payment for bus services--not taking sides here, but I know that playing a stage at ACL pays a fuckload, and they were surely going to have money to spend the next day on such things as tour buses.  It seems like cooler heads probably could have prevailed--as the owner of CJ Star Buses sketchily saw fit to stoop to responding to chat room baiting here, I have a hard time believing that any less than professional behavior on GAYNGS' and Nate Vernon's part were likely a response to similarly shitty behavior on CJ Curtsinger's behalf.  Who does Curtsinger think he is, the CEO of Whole Foods**?***

**What a douche.****

***I also got more of the story after having written that passage from a quasi-inside source, and it sounds like Curtsinger may very well get his ass handed to him in court.  That's all I feel comfortable saying right now.

****And, yes, I do expect "Rahodeb" to comment here shortly...

Now, I don't know about you, but when I wanna feel sexy, I've been throwing Relayted on since the instant I bought it.  How my entire apartment isn't reproduced at an alarming rate, I'll never know, but my TV can feel free to spawn a larger child any time now.  Needless to say, it's been a sexy past couple of months in my lair.

Luckily, this past weekend presented a chance to see what could well end up being the only tour that this smooth, saxy, early-80s-pop-loving supergroup.  Now, as someone who unironically owns albums by bands like Bread, 10cc, Prince, and Bruce Hornsby, GAYNGS is in my wheelhouse.  I was excited heading in, and my excitement was met with a fun as hell show.


Openers, Bear in Heaven started things off (for me at least) with their weird merger of dreamy rock and REO Speedwagon vocals that leant itself well to what was to follow, especially given its surely coincidental throwback to the decade that the GAYNGS project is reveling in.

Once GAYNGS took the stage, it was a blitz of classic prom night bliss and smooth, saxy pop.  For a taste of what the performance is like, a look at this performance video* should inform you.

*Filmed at First Avenue, where I have easily seen more shows than anywhere else in my life.  There are things that I miss about Minneapolis, and First Ave, for all its shortcomings, is one of them.  To bring everything full circle, Prince, whose fame came to its peak on the very stage in the video, was at this show.

Now maybe GAYNGS ain't your bag, but this show was fun as hell with covers of Sade, George Michael, and Alan Parsons Project sprinkled in with the songs from the album, which includes a cover of 10cc-off-shoot Godley & Creme's "Cry."  It might be too late for you to see the band in this form, as it is comprised of members of Bon Iver, Megafaun, Solid Gold, the Rosebuds, Rhymesayer P.O.S., Digitata, Doomtree, and more, all of whom surely have other musical lives and projects to turn back to.


Despite the fact that Relayted was probably a one-off, GAYNGS brought it like a band older than its years in the best way.  Knowing their love for the music drives the audience, the fun they had on stage was contagious.  There seemed to be a shocking lack of ego throughout the band, with the driving force behind everything, Ryan Olson, content to sit in the background, orchestrating the shindig from his laptop at the back of the stage. 

In short, the show was outstanding.

Musicalia: Justin Townes Earle - Stubb's, Austin, TX - 02/04/10

Sorry for the absence. Work, computer death scare, and a 6,300+ word fantasy baseball article got in the way of writing here. At least it means I've got stuff to write about now. Starting with...

I'm not sure what it was that grabbed me, but within the past couple of months the latest Justin Townes Earle* record has kept finding its way back into my CD player. In the car. At work(s). Non-stop.

*Just in case some of you need this explained, Justin Townes Earle is Steve Earle's son. His middle name is in honor of Townes Van Zandt. He seems to be intent to deliver on every ounce of promise that pedigree offers.

The reason this is odd is that I bought it months ago. I listened to it a bit. I liked it.

I didn't become preternaturally disposed to listening to it until the last two months or so. Now, I listen to it multiple times a week. Maybe it was the "Can't Hardly Wait" cover*

--a song that I was already obsessing over when I first bought Midnight at the Movies--that started me back up, but obviously one song is not enough to force an entire album into your life repeatedly.

*Ryan, you sure as shit better have been at the show this is from. Isbell and Justin Townes Earle? That's just fucking crazy...

Regardless, I've been playing the shit out of this album. The obsession came at a great time because it just so happened that Justin Townes Earle was playing Stubb's Inside tonight.

Justin Townes Earle - "Mama's Eyes" Live at Paste - Free videos are just a click away

When we (The Special Lady Friend, multiple road trip companion Chad, and myself) first got to Stubb's, we seemed to have been cursed. The first spot on the floor we secured was next to a Susan Powter/Brigitte Nielsen* hybrid who apparently had no idea where the stage was and instead seemed intent upon loudly (and intelligently...) prattling on about anything and everything, cackling as the mood brought her to it.

*Late-80s/early-90s era Nielsen. Like married to Sly, not drunkenly hooking up with Flavor Flav in hot tubs with cameras rolling, although from what Sly has said, she was just as batshit crazy then, too. Oh, and feel free to inspect what is going on with Nielsen's left hand.

As soon as space somewhere not next to this wonderful couple opened up somewhere else on the floor, we relocated. This time we were greeted by a group who could be best described as people in town on business who had never been to a concert in their lives and therefore thought that it was all right to scream over the top of the band playing on the stage. Luckily for us (but not for the opener, Dawn Landes, whose newly styled late-60s Loretta Lynn hairdo aptly befit her engaging musical stylings), the Indianapolitans (or insert any equally culture-less town that you might prefer) took the intermission as an opportunity to smoke in the patio area, deeming it a better place to try to hook up with the likewise married colleagues while out of state than the louder club floor.

So by the time Justin Townes Earle took the stage, the assholes had migrated, and we were thankfully able to enjoy the show without the distraction of douchebaggery*. And we were lucky because the show was great. TSLF couldn't stop raving when we got out and deemed it worth going to work on five-ish hours of sleep before her head hit the pillow.

*Well, not entirely. Chad said afterward that the doucher next to him, out of place in a button-up dress shirt (this is a country show, son), asked the girl he was with if they could go now during each of the last five or six songs. I know what you're thinking, and no, she wasn't his mother.

As for the details, Justin Townes Earle stayed true to the music he's playing and put on a show complete with all the old-timey country between song banter and showmanship. There were darlin's to spare, he brought Miss Dawn Landes up for a duet, he sang about trains, he prodded the audience to get his bandmates beverages of the alcoholic variety, and he spoke lovingly but jokingly about his mother. As a member of the crowd got too boisterous, he said (roughly), "My mama's got three inches reach on me, which means she's got six on you." He exclaimed, "Oh, my damn!" enough times that if you ever hear the kids saying it, you'll know where it came from.



And the music? Well, the music made me want to learn to dance--don't get any ideas, TSLF... The appropriately attired band (Bryn Davies on upright bass and Josh Hedley on the fiddle) had his back at every turn, and despite the sparser arrangements resulting from touring with a three-piece band, the songs played great. Sure, there's no infectious mandolin line in the "Can't Hardly Wait" cover, and keys play a big part in a lot of his songs, but this was one helluva slice of contemporized Americana.

Musicalia: The Swell Season - Paramount Theater, Austin, TX - 11/15/09

Last night, The Special Lady Friend and I ventured out to what has become a familiar concert venue over the past few months to take in The Swell Season's headlining gig. If you need a refresher, I just saw Glen Hansard open for Sam Beam at the Paramount in July, and it was amazing. (I've also written about Once on more than one occasion). Every time I've seen him with now three different acts has been top notch, and this time was no different.

Hansard's solo acoustic rendition of "Leave" was absolutely transcendent. The full-band "When Your Mind's Made Up" was moving. Marketa Irglova led the band for a great run through the new stand-out track "Fantasy Man." They opened the encore up with a phenomenal Glen and Marketa duet of "Falling Slowly". In between, they covered much of the two Swell Season releases*, along with a few old Frames tunes sprinkled in.

*The new album, Strict Joy, is pretty damn solid, by the way. I'm a pretty shitty music reviewer, if we're being honest here, largely because music is a medium that I feel more than anything else and I have fairly major issues with the transition between the way I feel about music and finding the words to illustrate that feeling. That being said, the first three tracks are great, and the album manages to maintain its momentum through to the end.

Now you may have noticed that this recap has been fairly superficial, and I assure you there is cause for this. The cause for the cursory nature of this recount is because I was ceaselessly distracted by the insanely irritating super fan sitting right behind me for pretty much the entire show.

I freely admit that I am an irritable person, surely more so than most, but there is something especially grating about the person directly behind you singing through the entire concert. It is even worse at a quieter show at a sit-down venue. And all of that is further exacerbated when that person thinks herself a good singer, therefore singing loud, singing proud, and singing in a different register than the person singing on stage. Compound that irritation with a five-minute sneezing spell and hand-clapping for something like five straight songs roughly two feet from my ears, and you've got one irritated dude. For the record, I was not the only one irritated, but I'm the only one writing about it.

Now I don't have a big problem with singing along to certain things, especially when it is done tastefully or relatively quietly (the girl next to me was singing along, too, but she was doing so quietly and was shockingly not irritating), but singing out and harmonizing on shit is just fucking aggravating. If we were in a loud club, it'd be different, too, but it's a fucking theater.

I didn't pay $90+ dollars for a pair of tickets to hear you sing, lady.

Rant done.

The show was good, but some irritating broad* kind of took me out of it.

*I kind of want to bring the word 'broad' back. We'll see how it goes.

Musicalia: Bon Iver - Paramount Theater, Austin, TX - 10/4/09

I'm actually working on a couple of different entries that I intend to parcel out over the coming week. This is the first of those, but I assure you there is more to come soon.

Thanks in large part to my little brother (who has unfortunately abandoned the ranks of active blogger forgreener pastures of grad school and the married life), I have spent a good deal of time listening to For Emma, Forever Ago over the last year or so. In that time, Justin Vernon's haunting wail and the isolation that permeates the first Bon Iver album filled a hole--one not entirely unrelated to a healthy measure of homesickness for the Upper Midwest.

Having grown up in the same area as Justin Vernon, there is also a certain degree of somewhat misplaced hometown* pride. He went to UW-Eau Claire, where my brother and brother-in-law both did their undergrad. Vernon lived in the same dorm they did. And while Eau Claire is not La Crosse, it's not far from it (and they've both been repeatedly targeted by the Smiley Face Killer).

*I realize that I am not from Eau Claire, but this is the most appropriate term my limited vocabulary is affording my right now.

But I digress.

These things made me fall for the album.

All that being said, I was not sure how the music of Bon Iver would translate to a live show, despite my brother's assertions that they put on a helluva show.

It was with these tempered expectations that I went into the Paramount last Sunday.

Taking our seats in the opera box (a free upgrade, which was totally awesome), we sat down to catch the first band. While their name leaves a bit to be desired (understatement), Megafaun was surprisingly good. They seamlessly blended their brand of Americana with noise and had the crowd totally into their set, even bringing ex-bandmate* Justin Vernon up to play bass on a song.

*The members of Megafaun and Justin Vernon were in the band DeYarmond Edison together, the very band that broke up--one of the developments in Vernon's life that led to the penning of the universally renowned For Emma. As such, they are also originally from the greater Eau Claire area originally, although they are now based out of Raleigh.

When their set was through, I added Gather, Form, & Fly to my list of CDs to buy and began to get a little more excited for the impending Bon Iver set.

I was not prepared for what was to follow.

In their live shows, the sparse, acoustic guitar-centric arrangements are fleshed out with a much more percussive backdrop, adding a level of urgency and intensity that is not entirely present on the album tracks. On songs like the sublime "Skinny Love", Vernon's bandmates (Mike Noyce, Sean Carey, and Matthew McCaughan) occupy two drum sets and a single floor tom, picking up as the song progresses until by the end they're propelling the song to its conclusion. The same drive is provided on gems like "Blood Bank" and "The Wolves (Act I and II)", with the bass coming in and forming a full rhythm section for Vernon's act.

What all of this works out to is a shockingly great show. One of the best I've seen in a long time. Maybe it owes to tempered expectations. I know there have been times in the past where I've seen a band be amazing the first time, only to be underwhelmed in subsequent concerts*. Maybe my feelings owe largely to having a set of relatively low expectations going in. That often affects my judgment more often than I'd like to admit.

*I'm looking at you, Badly Drawn Boy the second time around at the Fine Line and a ladies-less Broken Social Scene performance two days prior to this Bon Iver show over at the Seaholm Power Plant. I know every show cannot be a great one, but those two stick out as being especially disappointing, and the latest Broken Social Scene show had the advantage of being in front of the dramatic backdrop of the Art Deco, long-restricted Seaholm Power Plant. Granted, the show was free, but the performance was still less than breathtaking.

Regardless of my pre-set notions as to how the show was going to be, coming out of it, I was floored.

You can take that for what it's worth, but anyone throwing in a cover of The Outfield's "Your Love" is all right in my book.

Musicalia: Iron & Wine and Glen Hansard - Paramount Theatre, Austin, TX - 7/27/09

Holy shit.

That succinctly sums up what an experience this past evening's show was.

From the onset, Glen Hansard of The Frames, Swell Season, Once, and The Commitments fame held the audience breathless.

If you've never seen Hansard in any of his endeavors, you can't really know how great he is live. Here is a taste, and this is a slightly subdued version of a song that he performed tonight.


Now, he opened with "When Your Mind's Made Up" (a version with Marketa Irglova embedded here),

and I got chills and started to get choked up. I don't know what it is about that song for me, but it fucks my shit up.

Past the overwhelming raw emotion often on display while he's singing, Hansard has this innate affability in his on-stage persona that makes you feel like you're watching your best friend up there. In the middle of songs, he'd break out and ask the crowd to sing along, or he bridged a tune into "Where is My Mind?" seemingly off the cuff.

By the end of the show, I had tried to convince myself that he had bought Jackie and I drinks in Dublin. In just a short time on stage, he inserts himself into your past and makes it feel as though he is family.

This man is a nearly impossible act to follow.

But Sam Beam came up and after starting off with the capo a fret off, worked into a set including "Upward Over The Mountain" (which I think I've seen four different times four different ways)


"The Woman King", "He Lay in the Reins", and "The Trapeze Swinger" amongst many others.

Now I don't know if he ever plays songs exactly as they appear on the albums, if this

is any sort of indicator, but each time you see him it seems like you are being re-introduced to each of his songs.

His continued assertion as to his jerkdom only further endeared him to the crowd, and his admission that he kind of zones out whenever women talk about having children while performing for the Midwives Alliance of North America played very well, as his own wife is a midwife and was in the crowd. Comments about being goofy on stage and a sure-to-be-coming divorce followed shortly thereafter.

Perhaps the best thing about the show was that both men played acoustic, something each does less and less. Closing with a pseudo-duet of "Pancho and Lefty" certainly didn't hurt their cause either.

Now, here's to hoping that both sets of tonight's show end up on Played Last Night.

Musicalia: Wilco Streaming Wilco (The Album)

Pitchfork and everyone's mother has linked to this. As was the case with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco is streaming their new album due out in June, titled Wilco (The Album). Its great cover is to the right.

Upon first listen, I have to say it was pretty good. I'll have more to say once I've listened to it 50 times--something that will surely happen.

I will say "You and I" sounds pretty great, but then I've got a soft spot for a certain Leslie Feist.

I guess this is all I need... I get a request to talk about more music from Ryan, and more albums keep coming out. Could someone stop time or fly around the earth against its rotational pull in order to reverse events and time? There's a shiny Andrew Jackson faux-gold (fauxold?) dollar coin in it for you. He's like an American Lion or something.

Musicalia: Soundtrack to a Defecation

While taking care of business before leaving work today, the following song (perhaps the best song ever written) came on:

I have to say that I have come to the conclusion that I would prefer that this song come on anytime I drop trou and get to working on what I do best.

Rediscovering the Past: Edward Mahoney

Pre-stroke:


Post-stroke:

If you haven't done so, go ahead and create a Pandora Eddie Money station. It gets you the optimal cross-section of all late 70s and early 80s bands that you could possibly want, while not getting too broad, like a Journey or Phil Collins station would.

I do think it's weird that he was a cop in the late 60s having followed in his father's footsteps, and no more than 15 years later, he was in a coma after snorting phenatol thinking it was coke.

Musicalia: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - Austin, TX

Seeing The Boss is a slightly different experience than seeing Leonard Cohen to be sure.

Jackie and I arrived at the doors about fifteen minutes before they were done giving out lottery numbers for the floor at the Frank Erwin Center. When the winning number was drawn, we ended up 250 people back in the queue. Upon finally being let in, we found ourselves standing about five people removed from the center of the stage, and unlike what people had told us about previous shows they'd attended at the Erwin Center there were no chairs set out on the floor.

Ho. Ly. Shit.

How this happened, I'll never be sure. But it did, and neither of us will ever complain about our vantage point for the show.

Seeing Springsteen that close, I can safely say that if ever a man were to claim the title of The Hardest Working Man in Showbiz now that James Brown is gone, it's Bruce. For two hours and forty-five minutes of rock bliss, Bruce Springsteen belted out every song with so much vigor that it's hard to imagine him not having had a stroke on stage twenty-five years ago.

Earlier in the day, I had thrown in Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River on a lark, which was a good thing because the set was marked with "Badlands", "The Promised Land", "Prove It All Night", "Sherry Darling", "Out In The Street" and "I'm A Rocker", and they are weirdly the two albums I am least familiar with (I don't have them in a portable format, just LP).

They blasted out "She's The One", "Born To Run", "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" and "Jungleland", during which I nearly shat myself out of amazement. He gave me chills with his rendition of "The Wrestler". They killed with a rocked-out rearrangement of "Youngstown" and a rollicking "Johnny 99". I'm a perfect two-for-two on seeing "Because The Night", as well, which is fine by me because it plays really well. "The Rising" roused my spirits, and completed the feel of a recession-tinged show.

Even "Outlaw Pete" played all right, despite my general dislike of the song.

Moreover, he took requests three times, with "Sherry Darling" and "I'm A Rocker" having been taken early on ("Rocker" didn't get in until the encore, though), and "Glory Days" serving as an addendum to the encore after they were all ready to leave the stage. One of the best parts was that they clearly did not have a strong grasp on "Sherry Darling" and "I'm A Rocker", but they played them anyway, adding a good dose of unpredictability, especially when Bruce acknowledged as they started into "Rocker" that he didn't remember how it started. With the three requests, it meant we ended up getting two more songs than those jackoffs in Arizona.

Now, before the show, I asked Jackie what song she wanted to hear most, and she said "I'm On Fire" to which I (kind of dickishly) told her not to get her hopes up. Well, as soon as we got back home, I got a call from Mark (who was also at the show but was seated with Chad) to tell me that he looked at the hand-written setlist and "Sherry Darling" took the place of "I'm On Fire". Who's the jackass now, Jack?

Regardless, the show was outstanding, probably even better than the Dallas show Chad, Mark, and I went to last year. It sure as hell didn't hurt that I was often standing a mere 10-to-15 feet away from The Boss as the veins popped out of his head and neck.

Musicalia: Leonard Cohen - Austin, TX (2nd Show)

I will gladly admit that immediately after having seen a much anticipated musical act in concert that I perhaps heave praise in their direction that can go well past effusive. Having proffered that qualification, Leonard Cohen was amazing Thursday night.

As many know, Leonard Cohen is not one for touring. If not for his former business manager basically robbing him, he probably wouldn't have to begin with. A lesser man would surely bear a noticeable resentment for having been thrust back into touring as a victim of circumstance, but Leonard Cohen is clearly greater than that.

What he gave the audience at the Long Center was a three-plus hour masterpiece. There was not a single moment in the show where you felt like you were watching anything less than a living legend who seemed to show no ill effects of being 74 years old. He was nimble on stage, dancing on-and-off stage during his shockingly energetic encore, and worked the audience like a consummate showman.

They went on pretty promptly at around 8:00 pm, broke for a twenty minute intermission at 9:20, and then played until 11:30. Three hours covers a lot of material to be sure, and barring a song or two that I really wanted to hear off of New Skin for the Old Ceremony, Cohen & Co. played just about any song I could have asked for. The setlist was pretty much without a flaw, and each song's rendering was marked with a command that was nothing short of arresting. As the show became more and more epic, the amazement at their ceaseless showmanship became more and more overwhelming, each song becoming marked with that feeling you get towards the end of a transcendent show where you simply cannot fathom that this song is going to be the last song, only at this show you were greeted with another and another and another.

It is difficult for me to objectively look at a show that I have seen so recently without being a little over-excited, but I can't imagine my personal concert-going history bearing out that this was easily one of the five best shows I have ever been to, and in the past year alone I've seen Bruce Springsteen (who I'm seeing again tonight), Tom Waits (three times), Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and Wilco to name a few.

As we got up to leave, the Rangers fan next to me (who I'll refrain from naming in the interest of preserving his privacy) turned and said, "I've never cried at a concert, and I cried twice tonight." That pretty well sums it up.

Do what you can to see this. You may not get another chance to be overwhelmed by the vitality of Leonard Cohen.

Musicalia: Of Interest to a Few

All right, I know that anyone who comes to this blog is likely not interested in my Royals blog. The lack of interest in both the retarded pop culture bullshit that I write about here and the Royals content that I now write over there was the determining factor in my having decided to start the Royals blog in the first place.

That being said, within my latest blog entry over at RoyalsCentricity, there is a nugget that at least Mark and Chad are going to want to see. It's pretty sweet, and we know right where that magic happened.

Musicalia: Leonard Cohen Touring

I actually intend to write another musically focused post later this evening, but I figured I'd drop in to mention quickly that I placed my order for Leonard Cohen tickets this morning. If any Austinites are interested in trying to get tickets, I can forward the email that allows you to get pre-sale tickets. Email me at my hotmail account.

Regardless, Leonard Cohen is touring everybody. This does not happen. He is setting out on his first tour since 1993. Most of you who check this site regularly can have the chance to see him at one of the tourdates here, and tickets go on sale for most of those other cities Friday, I think.

Cohen is 74. It took 16 years for this tour to happen. Another tour simply is not likely to happen. Sure, he may play a one-off if you live in New York or London or Montreal, but good luck getting a ticket to one of those shows, kiddos. My tickets were somewhere in the $85 per range.

Do yourself a favor.

Musicalia: The Swell Season on "Austin City Limits"

Watching the latest airing of "Austin City Limits" fills me with regret, as I had really hoped to see The Swell Season when they were in Austin over the ACL Festival weekend. This was the first ACL in ages that I'd not attended, but the lineup wasn't that great, and aside from The Swell Season and Beck, I had already seen all of the acts playing that I wanted to see.

But The Swell Season... The Swell Season I had not seen.

Seeing them on Austin City Limits makes me upset that I was unable to procure tickets for their sold out show at the Paramount Theater (or better yet for the taping itself). Their renditions of songs from Once and new songs like, "Low Rising", make me all the more wistful.

Having seen Glen Hansard with The Frames (who still comprise the band), I know exactly what I've missed in a Glen Hansard-led show.

This Austin City Limits recording makes me want more.

P.S. Why are you not in HD on DirecTV, KLRU. I know the show is taped in HD. Not cool.