Greetings! It’s been a bit since I’ve done a post. Since the last post I’ve been in Boston and Minneapolis for work and personal. I’ve got a couple of posts I’m working on for both trips, plus I have a couple of reviews I’m working on. I hope to have most of this up this weekend.
In the meantime media mogul Rob Galgano is posting the phenominal Raise
The tendency for reviews is generally to compare whatever artist is being reviewed to other artists– especially established ones– to help describe to the reader what a particular band is like. This helps guide the reader to a particular sound or aspect of a sound. Unfortunately, it also has the effect of possibly pidgeonholing the band.
And, so it is with Minneapolis band Tapes ‘n Tapes. I started listening to this album last week. Frankly, I can’t stop listening to it for long. I’ve been swimming though a lot of albums from bands lately, and I’m always hoping for a complete work– strong songs from start to finish. In some cases, I get it, in some I don’t. I think this record is a winner on every track. Pitchfork reviewed this album and gave it a glowing review (in Pitchfork terms– an 8.3!). The reviewer pulls the reference right away– Pixies, Pavement, Wire and the Beach Boys. I’d agree with the first three anyway. The track “Insistor” is clearly a Pixies prototype down to the boom-chuck-boom-chuck Mexican style drums and surfy guitar tone. The lead singer spitting out reverbby vocals. Surfer Rosa, anyone? Come on Pilgrim!
My problem is I love the Pixies. So, I hear this as a derivative of that style and it feels really good. It isn’t fair to just peg them this way, but that is where it starts for me anyway. Every song on this album stands on its own as a gem. All songs seem to be executed with an urgency that I sincerely hope they will hold on to for their future works. It’s a bit astonishing to me how tight these tracks are– colored with precision and tone. In the track “In Houston” the song changes between verses in time and style. Alternating buzzy synth and guitars and post-rocky marimbas.
Tapes ‘n Tapes played SXSW this year and were invited to play a broadcast set for KXEP. The interviewer seemed to be in the same position I was in. She just got the CD one day and was amazed by it. This band seems to be just coming out of the blue with this record. And, their live shows seem to sound as good as this album! They said they’ve been together for three years. It looks like they had an EP or album out earlier before they released the Loon. She asks them if they had a big pile of songs to choose from, or if they just had this great set of songs to work with. Kind of a back-handed compliment, I guess. But, I know what she means. How is it possible this band has all of these songs so polished? In an interview with the band they state that they’ve been working on these songs for a while and “get what we had down on record.” She also points out hesitatingly that the band sounds a lot like the Pixies. Their response: “Yeah, we listen to a lot of Pixies records– what can you do?”
Take a listen to some tracks from The Loon
Here is the KXEP Show on the Austin City Limits stage served up by Fresh Bread complete with interview segments.
Tapes ‘n Tapes will be playing The Mill in Iowa City on 3/31 as part of the Mission Creek Midwest Festival along with local favorites Death Ships, Golden Birds from San Francisco, and The Attic Recordings from Chicago. I haven’t heard any of these groups before, but I know that Death Ships is a typical “bill filler” for the Mill.
I was in Philadephia this week on business and heard on the news that Philly Mayor John Street declared March 18th “Daryl Hall and John Oates Day.” The duo will be celebrating the honor with a show at the Tower Theater tonight. They were quoted on WXPN as saying the only thing that would have topped this honor would be a lifetime supply of Philly Cheesesteaks. In this article in the Philly Inquirer, we find out that Hall and Oates liken themselves to an R&B Grateful Dead due to their diehard fans attendance to their shows and the fact that they change up their setlists every night. In the article we find a typically silent Oates outspoken in his resentment of accusations of his playing Andrew Ridgley to Hall’s George Michael. Evidently Oates has thrown down the gauntlet for Conan O’Brien and will kick his ass if he ever sees him. What kind of brotherly love is that, now?
From Slashdot: The settlement process has begun from the class action suit brought on to Sony by the EFF. If you purchased any of the CD’s from Sony that have the flawed digital rights management, you have until the end of 2006 to file a claim. Depending on which of the two rootkit DRM’s you have in your posession, you could be due a replacement of your CD sans DRM software, a digital download of your CD in question, AND you could receive a cash payment of $7.50 and 1 free download from a number of places including iTunes or three free album downloads from the same places. It is important that people take Sony/BMG up on this! In these kinds of settlements, the company in question counts on the fact that people won’t go through the process to get their claim. We consumers need to send a clear message that this kind of irresponsibility is not and will not be tolerated!
I only have one CD from the lists, which is Trey Anastasio’s new album Shine. I have already ripped the CD using cdparanoia on Linux, so I have a DRM-safe copy. So, I will be sending mine in.
Rob at The Great Leap Forward has an entry from Pitchfork on a couple of Ryan Adam’s fans who leaked Jacksonville City Nights tracks before the album came out. Unfortunately, they face some hard time for this under the new Family Entertainment and Copyright Act. Watch where you put your mp3’s, kids! Posting mp3’s on websites is really stupid, especially if they aren’t released, yet!
I was listening to NPR during the drive in this morning and they had a piece on “Pi Day.” I guess this is a recognized day to celebrate Pi– at least in this country (3/14). I’d assume that in places that don’t adopt our date format they would celebrate on July 22nd (22/7). In the piece they commented on the fact that on Kate Bush’s new album Aerial, she has a song called “Pi” where she sings the digits of pi and it is wrong. Here is a blog entry about this, and in typical rabid Kate Bush fan fashion they debate whether it was deliberate. Wave your calculators and slide rules in solidarity!
It just shows you how much I pay attention to big retail music chains. Musicland files chapter 11, and also closes a bunch of Sam Goodies and Suncoasts. Included in that is the Sam Goody in Lindale Mall in Cedar Rapids. Over lunch on Friday I was at Lindale and happened upon a store closing sale. Everything in the store was 40% off! I left with some things that I hadn’t gotten around to buying. I picked up the new Big Star In Space, the turntablism documentary “Scratch,” DJ Shadow’s “In Tune and On Time” DVD/CD, and Namco Museum Battle Collection for my PSP. I can see why this chain is in trouble. Everything in this store is overpriced! Most CD’s were between $16.99 and $18.99 before the 40% off. Musicland is attributing their poor performance to “big box retailer competition” and increased music downloading. If they can’t figure out how to charge less for CD’s, I doubt they will be successful. They state in the press release that in most cases, the local impact of the closing will be lessened by the fact that the consumer will usually be able to find another one of their chains close by. In Cedar Rapids, this isn’t the case. The nearest Sam Goody is Des Moines, and the nearest Suncoast is Waterloo. It looks like TransWorld Entertainment Corporation is making a move to purchase Musicland. Transworld seems to own most of the interesting record store chains: Strawberries, Coconuts, Wherehouse, CD World, fye, and Second Spin. It would be cool if we got one of those stores here.
In 2001 when I was helping DJ Shadow bring his website on line he asked me to write a bio to include on the site. I was pretty excited for the opportunity and a bit nervous. Although I had been writing for my endtroducing.com website rather prolifically, I hadn’t tried to write a concise piece– FAQs and “posts” only. So, I spent about a week on it. Josh had a couple of revisions he wanted. In my original version, I implied that the label was at fault for the failure of Psyence Fiction from becoming a huge hit. Reasonably, he toned that down. He liked the final product, and it was the bio on the website for over a year before the site was reconstructed. It was the bio on the Quannum Records site without the last paragraph until the last revision of that site. Since neither site is using it, I decided to post it here for posterity.
I went to a hockey game on Tuesday night with some people from work. We saw the Cedar Rapids Roughriders vs. the Indiana Ice. We had center ice seats against the glass. This was my third time to a hockey game– the second time to a Roughriders game. This was much more fun having a close up view to the game. It adds a lot to the game fearing that you’ll spill your beer at any moment! It was cool, the Roughriders were victorious.
The music that was being played over the action was lots of classic rock and 80’s hairmetal. It was typical arena rock– I guess that makes sense. I’ve determined that hockey arenas are where rock songs go to die. My friend Andrew said that this is the kind of music you hear in pawn shops. Here are some of the songs we heard: (Make your own mixtape!)
“Rock and Roll pt 1” – Gary Glitter This was a funny one because it was played when the Roughriders would score. All of the fans would shout “HEY! YOU SUCK!” for the opposing team at the appropriate spot.
“Rock and Roll” – Led Zeppelin
“Immigrant Song” – Led Zeppelin This was only the intro part which is the interesting part, I guess.
“Round and Round” – Ratt This one brings back memories of concerts at Five Flags in Dubuque.
“Shook Me All Night Long” – AC/DC Of course
“I Love Rock and Roll” – Joan Jett and the Blackhearts One of my first concerts was Joan Jett.
“Welcome to the Jungle” – Guns ‘n’ Roses Only the beginning part
“Kickstart My Heart” – Motley Crue
“Dr. Feelgood” – Motley Crue
“We’re Not Gonna Take It” – Twisted Sister What’s that on your uniform? A PLEDGE PIN?!?!
“Crazy Train” – Ozzy Osbourne “Ay Ay Ay!”
“What I Like About You” – The Romantics
“Come Out And Play (Keep ’em Separated) – The Offspring
“Daft Punk is Playing At My House” – LCD Soundsystem
The last song is a bit of a puzzler. This song came out in 2005, so it is newer than the rest of the songs by over five years. A lady in her late 40’s who was part of our group commented on how great the music that was being played was and that it seemed to be targeted at her age group. Tapping her foot, she said that this was a song she liked. I asked her if she knew it, and she said she did. Doubtful, I asked, “you’ve heard LCD Soundsystem?” She said, “I recognize the beat.” I guess LCD Soundsystem is moving into the hollowed halls of classic rock. At least we should expect that soon we will be seeing LCD Soundsystem in the used bin next to Out of the Cellar by Ratt.
While I was cruising around The Paste website I noticed in their News scroller at the top that CBS’s Love Monkey was put ‘on hiatus” after three episodes! This is old news, I guess. I’m pretty bummed about it as I enjoyed the show. But, evidently over 1 million viewers didn’t enjoy it enough to watch it the next week. Adding insult to injury a rerun of “Law and Order: SVU” drew more viewers! Aimee Mann was supposed to be on an upcoming episode. I wonder how many episodes they taped? Maybe they’ll release a box set of the first season, like Firefly.
