I love watching country music videos when I’m hungover. Besides the really schlocky and profit-driven-patriotism that is a sad sub-genre of contemporary country, by and large country music videos are awesome: dynamic acting, melodramatic and rousing score, beautiful acoustic guitars, and really great storylines. Because with country, you really have to feel; whereas in indie rock you can sing about butterflies or old movies or your own fragmented urban existence, in country, you sing about life and death and love and heartbreak. By definition, country music is narrative music, and while at the beginning of country music videos that little text box tells you who the director is, at the end it tells you who the songwriter is. Because that’s really what it all comes back to in country music: the songwriter. And Lucinda Williams, first and foremost, is a fucking brilliant songwriter.
Archive for the 'mp3' Category
Ho-hum, it’s been a slow week around here. I keep falling asleep all over myself. I was about to engage permanent hibernation until I realized — holy crap! — dd/mm/yyyy is playing in Iowa City on Saturday night! Bringing together elements of noise, math-rock, and sweet irresistible pop, dd/mm/yyyy (day - month - year) is an outfit from Toronto. They’ve been tearing it up on summer tour, playing side by side such wonderful weirdos as Videohippos and Crystal Castles. They come through the Picador this Saturday on the tail-end of their travels. Their sound is all energy and their songs are all craft, well-conceived ear-bending nuggets. They recall that killer Iowa City duo Foul Tip although their sound is much fuller with their five-man lineup. And it’s totally appropriate that they’re sharing the bill with Iowa City rock stars, Birth Rites.
Chew on these fine hits…
Download: dd/mm/yyyy - Imagine Exclamation
Download: dd/mm/yyyy - Batman Guitar Clock
Tilly and the Wall have released their third album, O, on Team Love Records. A few months back we offered you a preview of the song “Cacophony,” but now that the CD is out the official first single is “Pot Kettle Black,” and you can download it below. The exuberance of Tilly’s live performances has always seemed a bit lost on record yet “Pot Kettle Black” comes really close to capturing that live energy. This is a fucking rock song, what with that White Stripes guitar riff and vocals sounding more vicious than anything they’ve done before. It’s as if singer Kianna Alarid channeled her inner Karen O to make this track happen. It’s a snotty take on hipster shit-talking that sees the Omaha quintet stepping fully into the spotlight they’ve long lingered on the edge of. Download below (and props to KRUI Blog for dropping this first.)
Download: Tilly and the Wall - Pot Kettle Black
Nothing like waking up to good news, especially when it involves my personal hometown hero Greg Gillis. I pre-ordered Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals album sometime back in 2007, only to wait and wait as the thing was delayed until, well, right now. The mysterious and legendary head of the Illegal Art label, Philo Pharnsworth, sent us pre-order nerds an email that the album can now be snatched in delicious mp3 320 kbps format. Even if you didn’t pre-order, the album is available Radiohead-style (read: “free!”) from the Illegal Art website. Jump on it.
With each release Gillis smooths out his style, from the IDM leanings of his sophmore effort Unstoppable (2004), to the club-friendly mash-ups of Night Ripper (2006), to the even more refined mix of the new Feed The Animals. Here the music seems more like an exceptional mix tape than the genre-pushing collage that thrust Gillis into the limelight, aligning him closer to Mission Creek alums The Hood Internet, or other ‘net DJ stars like Siik or Certified Bananas. [This is especially true due to the short shelf-life of music like this and it’s popularity. I mean, I understand that Gillis essentially had to include R. Kelly’s “I’m a Flirt,” but the Hood Internet version is already the definitive interpretation.]
That’s not to say that the music itself isn’t awesome; these are guaranteed ass-shakers that will have every music geek in the world laughing out loud AND singing along. Additionally, I’m only 80% through my first listen, it’s 10 am, and I haven’t had breakfast yet. So judge for yourself with the sample below. As you’ll soon hear, you can expect everything from AIR to Dexy’s Midnight Runners to Tag Team to Busta Rhymes to Lil’ Wayne, with a little Tom Petty thrown in for good measure. I’ll let you do your own careful listening.
Download: Girl Talk - What It’s All About
Today’s featured Daytrotter session comes courtesy of Dri, our favorite Lawrence, KS songstress who released her lovely debut, Smoke Rings, last year on Range Life Records. Smoke Rings has been on heavy rotation for me since it came out, so to hear these reworked versions from the intimate Daytrotter vaults is totally a treat. I saw her show at Huckleberry’s the night that she did the session, if you remember, and it marked one of the first (if not the first, I can’t remember) times that these songs ditched the iPod backing track in lieu of a full band. The session itself features three cuts from that album and a cover of a Brazilian band called Spectrum. The added bonus here is that album opener “Two Are One,” done as a solo take, happens to be one of the best Daytrotter session songs I’ve ever heard. I admit that I have not listened to every single one, but I’ve heard a lot and this just blows me away with how rich and warm it sounds. Click the link below to download the songs for free. Non-Iowans will be able to catch Dri on a leg of Conor Oberst’s solo tour with his Mystic River Band in July in support of his forthcoming solo record.
Dri on tour with Conor Oberst:
Jul 29 - Richard’s on Richards - Vancouver, British Columbia
Jul 30 - Neumo’s - Seattle, Washington
Jul 31 - Midtown Ballroom - Bend, Oregon
Aug 1 - Bottom of the Hill - San Francisco, California
Aug 2 - Bottom of the Hill - San Francisco, California
Aug 3 - Rio Theatre - Santa Cruz, California
Aug 5 - Troubadour - West Hollywood, California
It’s a strange time in Iowa City (to say the least) but by no means does that mean that the rock has to stop. Wednesday night at the Picador is the most immediate evidence of this we could find, with a show featuring one of our favorite Iowa bands, the Envy Corps, who haven’t been in town for a minute but have been keeping busy. Rumor has it they’re commencing work on the follow-up to Dwell, which is out in the UK on Mercury Records. As such, they don’t have any major touring plans right now but do have a smattering of Iowa appearances this summer, including Wednesday night at the Picador with some other pretty killer bands.
Javelins hail from Detroit and feature Matt Rickle and Julian Wettlin of presently on-hiatus Thunderbirds Are Now! Javelins are touring to support their newest record, Heavy Meadows, which is slated to come out July 1 via Suburban Sprawl. This tour takes them through the end of this week, and then they’ll hook up with Colour Revolt in July for a tour that conveniently features them back at the Picador for a just-announced hot show with Apples in Stereo and Ames’ The Poison Control Center. Get to know them now and be sure not to miss their return on what’s sure to be one of the summer’s most memorable shows.
Headlining band Diesto represent something of an anomaly on a mostly pop bill as the most metal band of the night. This band from Portland probably belonged on last week’s killer Russian Circles bill, but we’ll take them here as a welcome dose of thrashing riffs from their new record Isle of Marauder, which is currently available from Exigent Records. Exigent have made all of their artists’ albums available for streaming, so head here and give Isle of Marauder a listen.
Lastly, we’re happy to have openers Pomegranates on the bill. Last month they delivered their fabulous new album Everything Is Alive via Lujo Records, who also happened to put out one of our favorite records of 2007 - Baby Teeth’s The Simp. Everything Is Alive has drawn comparisons to early Modest Mouse, but I confess that I’m barely hearing it. Rather, I think Pomegranates are deserving of some hybrid comparison of Built to Spill and Tilly - complex pop but not in the heavy handed way, and hella exuberant. The quartet hails from Cincinnati but sounds like California.
Doors are at 9, cover is $5.
Download: The Envy Corps - Wires and Wool
Download: Javelins - Square Hips
Download: Pomegranates - Thunder Meadow
Get out there and help out where you can. The city thanks you.
Foster Road in Iowa City…
Cedar Rapids…
This new Coldplay song is sick…
Wye Oak is playing at the Mill this Sunday and we hope it will be your ultimate weekend close-out. For those of you on total summer vacation cruise control, this show is just further proof that the weekend never ends - Sunday is the new Thursday, or something like that. Joining them will be the locally legendary Poison Control Center, recent Thrill Jockey signees Pontiak, and San Francisco sunshine pop aficionados the Botticellis.
Wye Oak are a duo from indie rock town-of-the-moment Baltimore whose 2007 debut record If Children just saw reissue from the peerless folks at Merge Records on April 8 (Pitchfork review). The collection of songs - eleven, to be precise - unravels like a finely woven fabric that suggests the work of a much larger group of musicians. If Children is a true work of studio art with seemingly infinite layers of instrumentation backing the slow, reverb-bathed alto of Jenn Wasner. Similarly, Wye Oak prove over and over both on record and live that they can be uncompromisingly loud (see: “Please Concrete”) - so much so, that once again one must question the ability of these two players to conjure up so much sound. The not-so-subtle parts are far outweighed by the subtle parts however, and that’s largely what makes these songs work. They exist in the middle of the Venn diagram where acoustic meets shoegaze, in a place I can only call electric slow folk. The songs themselves are largely reminiscent of some amalgamation of Beach House meets Neva Dinova - nostalgic, wistful, vividly imaginitive: “If children were wishes, my mother spent hers on impossible things / My brother was money, my sister was love, and I was world peace / My brother he spent it, my sister pregnant and all that I’m worth / Will only come true where there are no more of us left on this earth.” You can chew on that while you wait for Sunday’s show - in the meantime, download the track below and visit their download page for 4 more.
Download: Wye Oak - If Children Were Wishes
When: Sunday, June 15 - 9pm
Who: Wye Oak w. The Poison Control Center, Pontiak, the Botticellis
Where: The Mill
How Much: $7
Sunday night marks the end of an era. After seven years of aural attacks, Portland, OR noise duo Yellow Swans are calling it a day. Fortunately for us, the guys have to get a few more stops in first; including one, Sunday night at our very own Picador. Plus Pete Swanson and Gabriel Mindel Saloman have one last full-length release slated for next year as well as a smattering of splits and seven inches throughout the rest of ‘08 and into 2009 (dudes are hella prolific). Plus in case you were asleep, Swanson and Mindel Saloman put out critically acclaimed, aptly titled album At All Ends in October of 2007.
Wait, they’re disbanding? Sounds like they’re just opening up the flood gates. Maybe evoking a torrent isn’t the best image. The Swans’ last time through (October ‘07) was more subtle than a flood, to stay with a water metaphor; it’s closer to the shift between holding your breath and drowning. There’s a calm allure to their slow builds, and comfort in their interplay and crescendos, but then suddenly, all you can do is close your eyes and accept what Swanson and Mindel Saloman do to you.
Flanking Yellow Swans tomorrow night are a quartet of Iowa City’s finest noise-makers: the previously freak-focused Wet Hair, knob-twiddler(s) Lwa, one more night people (along with Wet Hair) side project Darren Ho as Driphouse, and possibly the most disturbing band name in Iowa City, Open Goat. Download the track “Our Oases” below and we’ll see you tomorrow night. Doors open at 7pm.
Download: Yellow Swans - Our Oases
Touch the awesomeness if you can: Mission Creek has teamed up with the Los Angeles-based promoters of F Yeah Fest to bring their energy through Iowa City on their upcoming tour. F Yeah Fest, formed five years ago in L.A., is an annual summer festival that features a day of killer bands and comedians rocking out and dropping jokes. These are the same folks responsible for the Mess With Texas party that invades SXSW in Austin each year. Now they’re making their festival mobile, hitting up 28 cities in 28 days, beginning in Baltimore in June, wrapping their away around the country, and then finishing in Brooklyn. About halfway through the tour they’ll be stopping off at the Mill in Iowa City for a raucous party.
The Iowa City show will feature sets by Tel Aviv’s Monotonix, Brooklyn’s Team Robespierre, Iowa City’s very own School of Flyentology (who have graciously put their weekly residency at the Yacht Club on hold for this special show), a couple of comedians, and one more band TBD (very soon!) There may even be a couple rounds of Bingo but we haven’t confirmed that quite yet. Nonetheless, take a deep breath and compose yourself ’cause it’s going to a full-on head-banging, shot-pounding extravaganza of a night (Ed. Note to Self: take Wednesday, July 2nd off from work.)
The Details…
F Yeah Fest & Mission Creek Present F Yeah Fest Tour ‘08 in Iowa City!
w. Monotonix / Team Robespierre / Flyentology / Comedians TBD
Tuesday, July 1st at the Mill
8PM / $8
Watch this sick performance by Monotonix on Pitchfork.tv (this is just the intro — full performance available if you dig around on Pitchfork.tv)
