Feeling Overwhelmed

I had so much music come at me this past week that I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed.  Therefore, I’m resorting to some quick-n-dirty commenting; not that  normal comments would ever be considered novels.

Brooke was kind enough to drop me a copy of the upcoming Arms release Kids Aflame (w/bonus tracks).  I talked about this release in my last post, but hearing it in its entirety was quite pleasing.  The acoustic version of Whirring is simply icing on the cake.

Brooke also sent me three other newsworthy tidbits:

- Dark Captain Light Captain is releasing a five song Remix EP. The cheering you hear in the background is me. DCLC’s Miracle Kicker was on of my 2008 favorites and I’ve been waiting for something new to come my way.  If the remix of Questions is an indication, this EP will be a must have.  The first word that pops into my mind is “charming” and I’ll stick with it.  You can download this nine minute wonder here.

- Sin Fang Bous aka Sindri Mar Sigfusson and member of Seabear is making his North American tour debut this fall in promotion of his solo release Clangour. If you need a sample, download Catch the Light, a sweet little track that has some of the subtle charm of early Shins.

- For something a little more laid back, I turn to Will Stratton’s up coming release No Wonder.  The lead of track, Who Will, is as smooth a song as you’ll hear.  Do I dare say Norah Jones?

Moving on…

I got my first twitter music reward last Monday when finneyerkes started following me.  Curiosity piqued, I checked their profile and discovered some wonderful ambient music.  Best of all they are making three albums worth of material available for free download. Check it out if you get a chance.

Here’s a lovely semi-acoustic version of the Clientele’s Bonfires on the Heath.

Lastly, here’s an Andrew Bird and St. Vincent video piece that is pure magic. I’ll see both in less than three weeks for a two night engagement at the Cat’s Cradle. And yes, I will be there both nights.

A call to Arms

A quickie update.

Back in August of last year I posted about Todd Goldstein’s (of the Harlem Shakes) side project Arms.  It seems that the release, Kids Aflame,  is about to receive a proper U.S. release on Gigantic Music (previously it was only available as an import). In addition, the Gigantic release will include bonus tracks.  I recommend you check it out when it’s released. Good stuff.

p.s. The title track is still available for download.

[Addendum:  The bonus tracks are Tokyo Moon (Windmill), Gunsmoke Legend and a superb acoustic version of Whirring]

[Addendum: Watch the video for Kids Aflame.]

Chairlift

Its been almost three months since I’ve seen a band so it felt good to get out again.  It was also good to come away pleased. Thank you Chairlift.

If you are unfamiliar with Chairlift, you’ve probably heard their song Bruises which was featured in an Apple commercial last fall. My friend Brooke is the one who turned me on to this group (Brooke is great for feeding me new tunes).  I think it was early 2008… maybe late 2007… when she first mentioned their Does You Inspire You CD.  I do believe the CD was re-released this year (adding tracks).  I want to say they changed labels, but don’t hold me to that.

Anyway, as I allude to early, the show was great.  They played something under a dozen songs, with a quasi-encore of two songs (encores at Local 506 are so awkward).  There was also a power failure about midway through.  It wasn’t complete darkness, just the sound system and everything on stage.  It was only a couple of minutes so no harm done.

Pictures (such as they are) are here.

Little Girls’ Concepts

I just love when one of these emails lands in my inbox…

I have been blessed with an early copy of the Little Girls‘ Concepts release (10/13 on Paper Bag Records).  It’s eleven tracks of lo-fi wonder that brings to mind thoughts of discovery of an unreleased Joy Division album.  I said as much in my last post.

There are other influences at work here… Wire comes to mind for one, but Wire is really too far up the lo-fi ladder.  Little Girls hover more around the lower rungs… more of a garage sound… but not to the extremes of the Cramps or the polish of The Jesus and Mary Chain. I could go on, but I can’t get away from the guitar work and how much it brings to mind the early work of Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook.  Its an eerie resemblance, but very welcome one… and I’ll gladly take more.

The track list is as follows:

Youth Tunes
Seeing
Tambourine
Concepts
Imaginary Friends
Salt Swimmers
Thrills
Departure
Venom
Last Call
Growing

[Addendum- 2009 Tour Dates]

9/16 – Windsor, ONT – Phog Lounge
9/17 – Detroit, MI – Magic Stick *
9/18 – Guelph, ONT – Albion *
9/23 – Montreal , QC- Friendship Cove **
9/25 – Ottawa, ONT – Cafe Dekcuf
10/3 – Montreal, QC – Barfly
10/7 – Toronto, ONT – Velvet Underground ^
10/8 – Hamilton, ONT – Casbah ^
10/10 – Chicago, IL -,Schuba’s (all ages matinee show) *
10/20 – New York, NY – Cake Shop (CMJ)
10/24 – Halifax – The Paragon ^^
11/06 – Philidelphia, PA – Swarthmore #
11/08 – Columbus, OH – Summit &
11/09 – St Louis, MO – Billiken Club &
11/11 – Lawrence, KS – Jackpot Saloon &
11/18 – Windsor, ONT – Phog Lounge +
11/19 – Waterloo, ONT – Bombshelter +
11/20 – Toronto, ONT – Phoenix ++
11/21 – Sudbury, ONT – Townhouse +
11/25 – Winnipeg, MB – Royal Albert +
11/26 – Saskatoon, SK – Amigo’s +
11/27 – Edmonton, ALB – New City +
11/28 – Calgary, ALB – Hi-Fi +

* w/ Japandroids
** w/ Wavves
^ w/ Monotonix
^^ w/ Japandroids, You Say Party! We Say Die!
+ w/ You Say Party! We Say Die!
++ w/ Think About Life, You Say Party! We Say Die!
# w/ Blank Dogs
& w/ Nurses

[Addendum]

To kick off the tour Little Girls have released a cover of the Artery’s song Heinz.   Thanks guys (or is it girls?).

Facebook FAIL take 3

Events, events, events.  They appear to be something Facebook just cannot fathom.  In take 3, events fall flat on their face for FB pages. Where as a normal profile can rsvp to any open event, a FB page cannot. It can only create its own events.  This may not seem like such a big deal, but consider the example of a trade show.  The trade show host creates an event for their FB page. If they do not send out invites to all the companies attending, the companies have no way to publicize that they will be attending… except by creating their own version of the event.  So if 25 of the attending companies have FB pages, that would mean the event could potentially appear 26 times (the original plus 25).  And with the super duper search FB released (as seen in Take 1), finding the correct one should be o’so easy. FAIL.

Little Girls

It appears Paperbag Records has another winner in its fold with Little Girls (aka Josh McIntyre and company).  There are heavy Joy Division influences at work here… and that is just fine with me.  Its particularly hard to miss on songs such as Youth Tunes and Last Call. The similarities are almost eerie. Can’t wait for this release to drop (October 13th).

Roofwalkers

D.C. band Roofwalkers (previously known as Pagoda) landed in my inbox last week with two solid tracks from their forthcoming self-titled release (8/25).  This will be their third release (the previous two, Dearly Departed and Seven Nights released as Pagoda). Listening to songs Chin Music and They Think They Own the Place I detect 60’s overtones… a laid back feel… say some variation on the sound of the Clientele. Very smooth.

You can download both tracks here.  I suggest you become a fan. I have.

Facebook FAIL take 2

Facebook fan pages are FB’s way of serving up content for a band, company, product, whatever.  These pages, while inheriting many of the features of a typical FB profile are really something of a different beast.  For instance… and most incredibly… anytime someone comments on a page and/or simply clicks on a “Like” link the administrator of the page does not get notified. Let me repeat that.  If someone comments on your page you DO NOT get notified.  So, unless you check your pages regularly you have know way to know what some a-hole slams you company or your product.  Isn’t that just lovely?

Facebook FAIL take 1

If you perform an event search on Facebook you are greeted with a new page design with the lovely heading:

Welcome to the new, more useful Search page.

Thanks for the welcome, but “useful” is only useful if your goal is to increase page views.  Dysfunctional would be more appropriate.

Let me offer an  example, I want to find out if anyone has schedule an event for the School of Seven Bells show at Local 506 on 9/28.  I type “school of seven bells” into the search box, click Search and get the following:

There is critical information missing in the results? Do you know what it is? Its quite obvious. I’ll even give you a hint. Since these are events, what do events have?

F-ING DATES. The ONLY way I have found to determine the date of an event is to click on each and every one.  As you may recall the prior event search did list the dates, which made it quite easy to scroll through the results to find (or not) the event in question.

Now you may ask about that All Dates drop down, but all it filters are events for today, tomorrow, one week or one month.  Is that honestly suppose to be helpful?  In my example I know the date of the show, but Facebook offers me NO way to search for events on that specific day.

But remember, this is the new useful search page.  Every one pat each other on the back.  Milk and cookies anyone?

It’s no mystery

Mystery of Two is really no mystery.  They are simply great (and there are three of them instead of two).  They also have a new release coming out on 9/15 (self-titled, Exit Stencil Recordings) and I’ve been lucky enough to lay my hands on a copy.  Pretty much made my day (and the next and the next).

Ten songs in all, it includes both songs from 2008’s Gravity single (Gravity and Strange Town):

1- Gravity
2- Repeat It
3- French Rocking Horse
4- The Spark is Sweet
5- Reprise It
6- Mornings Call
7- Swimming
8- Middle of a Field
9- Strange Town
10- Free Fall

Mystery of Two have a sound that is reminiscent of the early Talking Heads, particularly with some similarities between Ryan Weitzel voice and David Byrne’s.  However, M2’s have a harder edge… not quite to the extent of a Gang of Four… probably closer to Sonic Youth, but definitely something with a punch.  You can hear this in songs such as Swimming and Repeat It.

One of my favorite moments is in Reprise It when you get this blast of trumpet. It eerily brings to mind something from an Eastwood western… at least it do for me.  It’s a great followup piece to The Spark is Sweet.  My favorite song may be Strange Town. I love the way it builds slowly, whacks you around and then slowly fades away. And much like The Spark is Sweet has its companion piece in Reprise It, Strange Town has its with Free Fall.

If you want a live sampling of Mystery of Two, they did a lengthy session on Breakthru Radio on the 7th of August. Its a mixture of interview and tunes, and includes an explanation on the origin of their name.

Now if I could just see them live…