I've really been enjoying the wonderful new album by Raleigh's Bowerbirds (The Clearing, released March 5). On their last two albums there was a song that really jumped out at me from the middle of the pack as my favorite ("Olive Hearts" on 2007's Hymns for a Dark Horse and "Northern Lights" from 2009's Upper Air) but on this album it was the first song on the album: "Tuck the Darkness In." I love how it builds up to that wild ending. Listen to it loud (or with headphones); there's a really great official video for the song here:
This blog is intended solely to share the things I come across that inspire me. If I have posted a copyrighted image, I have only done so to the extent necessary to comment upon or discuss it; I will always include a link to the original source of the image if that source is online or acknowledge the source if it is in print. If I have reproduced anything of yours here that is copyrighted and you want me to remove it, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do so right away.
We brought the kids in to watch the Superchunk sound check at the Magic Stick last weekend (we've known Laura for a few years and she said we could). This might have happened:
I believe the kid was solo-moshing to a cover of the Misfits' "Where Eagles Dare," which the band also played later that night:
It was a great show and the songs they played from the new album sounded really great live. Did you follow that last link? While you're at the Merge website, take the chance to finally pay for a FLAC copy of that Arcade Fire album you illegally downloaded (and love) or buy someone you love the most amazing Christmas present ever: 69 Love Songs ON VINYL.
This blog is intended solely to share the things I come across that inspire me. If I have posted a copyrighted image, I have only done so to the extent necessary to comment upon or discuss it; I will always include a link to the original source of the image if that source is online or acknowledge the source if it is in print. If I have reproduced anything of yours here that is copyrighted and you want me to remove it, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do so right away.
One of last week's offerings on one of my favorite music blogs The Rising Storm was the Shaggs, described by Brendan as, "Three teenage sisters from New Hampshire, Dot, Betty, and Helen Wiggin [who] were pushed by their father to form a band and in 1969 they recorded the ultimate outsider album, Philosophy of the World. Both Frank Zappa and Kurt Cobain cited it as a fave."
But it's worth knowing that the girls weren't just pushed into rock-n-roll for some traditionally cliche reason (like Austin Wiggin, Jr. wishing he could be a star himself and living out his ambitions through his daughters). No, he believed it was their destiny to become rock stars because of a palm reading his mother gave him that predicted their fame (!!!). From Wikipedia:
During Austin's youth she had predicted during a palm reading that he would marry a strawberry blonde woman, that he would have two sons after she had died, and that his daughters would form a popular music group. The first two predictions came true, so Austin set about making the third come true. Austin withdrew his daughters from school, bought them instruments, and arranged for them to receive music and vocal lessons. The Wiggin sisters themselves never planned to become a music group, but as Dot later said, "[Austin] was something of a disciplinarian. He was stubborn and he could be temperamental. He directed. We obeyed. Or did our best."
Here is a youtube "video" of the song I found most disturbing. Here is an mp3 download of the same song.
I can't get over how sad that is. It just might be the saddest song I've ever heard. Some people have alleged they actually wrote it, but I can't believe the lyrics weren't imposed upon them. It's just so inhumane. It's the opposite of rock-n-roll, and I guess that has been what's made the whole album so intriguing for so long. As a parent, I'm offended. I would rather have one of my kids burn down the house and stick a middle finger in my face than sing a song like that. Unless they were doing it just to fuck with me. In that case, rock on.
Musically, it's pretty terrible but at least it's better than Smoosh. Really, it doesn't sound all that different from some of the crap Elephant Six bands produced during the 1990s. I am reminded, in particular, of one of my favorite Elephant Six songs, The Music Tapes' "Song for the Death of Parents."
This blog is intended solely to share the things I come across that inspire me. If I have posted a copyrighted image or song, I have only done so to the extent necessary to comment upon or discuss it; I will always include a link to the original source of the image if that source is online or acknowledge the source if it is in print. If I have reproduced anything of yours here that is copyrighted and you want me to remove it, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do so right away.
I was trying to figure out over the weekend what new album I have listened to the most this year, and I'm pretty sure it's The Mountain by the Heartless Bastards. I do like the Matt & Kim record a lot (though it freaks me out to hear "Daylight" in that Bacardi commercial) and the new Dan Deacon was a cool surprise. My wife's clear favorite is the new Bishop Allen (she leaves it on the turntable permanently).
But there's something about the The Mountain that I keep coming back to. Obviously there's Erika Wennerstrom's voice, but I've loved that since I first heard All This Time. It has this life-hardened strength to it, like the voice of that woman from karaoke night at the union bar next to the the machine tool factory who gets up and sings a Stones song you thought you hated and you're transfixed by her and everything she must have seen in her life until the fat retarded kid who always sings "Yellow Submarine" gets up there next and ruins the spell (true story, sorry). But Wennerstrom is writing really strong, hard-rocking songs that stand on their own. I loved this one from the last record:
But The Mountain is different: more mature, more epic. Right now I guess I am partial to the heavy, rust belt quality of these songs that is pretty much the opposite of the other twee shit we've been listening to. I think the video at the top and this one (both from their show at Stubbs' earlier this year) show it better than I can explain:
This blog is intended solely to share the things I come across that inspire me. If I have posted a copyrighted image, I have only done so to the extent necessary to comment upon or discuss it; I will always include a link to the original source of the image if that source is online or acknowledge the source if it is in print. If I have reproduced anything of yours here that is copyrighted and you want me to remove it, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do so right away.
Someone sent me this video saying, "You'd better watch this, and pay attention at about 1:09 and 2:13." It's apparently a parody of T.I.'s "Whatever You Like" recorded in M.C. Serch's mom's basement. Then at 1:09, after talking about all the "wack" things he can do in Detroit because he's white, the Bloomfield-based rapper says, "I can be a stay-at-home dad." I was all, "Woah!"
This blog is intended solely to share the things I come across that inspire me. If I have posted a copyrighted image, I have only done so to the extent necessary to comment upon or discuss it; I will always include a link to the original source of the image if that source is online or acknowledge the source if it is in print. If I have reproduced anything of yours here that is copyrighted and you want me to remove it, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do so right away.
So my friend managed to get some free tickets to the Neil Young/Wilco show at the Palace of Auburn Hills last night, as well as the keys to a corporate box with its own bathroom. I had been a little worried about the whole bathroom situation because I wanted to drink a lot of beer and I knew that with that many 50-plus-year-old male fans at the venue, the collective prostate issues were going to create some serious lines at the men's room. I counted seven David Crosby lookalikes just in our section.
One of my friends in the luxury box was a roommate from college who'd practiced this song on the guitar about 60,000 times our senior year, even recording it meticulously on his four-track in the basement. When the chords started I could feel his excitement, but when Neil Young sang the first verse: "Hey hey, my my, DETROIT CITY WILL NEVER DIE" even my withered spine felt a jolt. I love that kind of pandering. I think rock stars should always pander to local crowds and say nice things about where they are, especially 62-year-old rock stars who want to proceed with a set that includes 2-3 songs about the battery-powered/hydrogen cell Lincoln he's building. I wish I was kidding. Neil Young may just have written the definitive country rock song about fuel cells.
I hadn't seen Wilco in five years, but it's always nice to see Jeff Tweedy in his Canadian tuxedo. I had forgotten how much I liked this song, mostly because it was ruined for me years ago by some douchebag from Swarthmore who put it on a mixtape he made for my girlfriend and also by a girl standing next to me at a show during the Summerteeth tour who, after hearing the repeated line, "What you once were isn't what you want to be any more. . ." shouted, "Oh my Gawd, that is so true for me right now!" Gah! I could have punched her.
This blog is intended solely to share the things I come across that inspire me. If I have posted a copyrighted image, I have only done so to the extent necessary to comment upon or discuss it; I will always include a link to the original source of the image if that source is online or acknowledge the source if it is in print. If I have reproduced anything of yours here that is copyrighted and you want me to remove it, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will do so right away.
