Wednesday 05.19.2010 | 5:23 PM EST

Backwards + Forwards:
New Music from MGMT + Broken Social Scene

This will be short, time is scarce this week, but I’ve spent the day absorbing these two new records. Both quite good, if not a little surprising.

MGMT: Brian Eno

MGMT’s 2005 debut, Oracular Spectacular, was deeply etched with New York City grooves common to the recent crop of synth-heavy, neo-dance, 80′s-obsessed Brooklyn bands. This time around though, Congratulations takes us a bit further back in time. The band adopts a 60′s West Coast vibe, dipping their toes in the same pool Grandaddy and Polyphonic Spree did a few years ago. Yet MGMT spikes these warm waters with liberal splashes of Roxy Music, Stereolab, and Air Miami. And though there’s nothing here that will drench the indie airwaves as much as “Time to Pretend,” Congratulations represents quite a leap forward for a band that could easily have gone the way of highly-hyped one-hit wonders like Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah.

BSS: World Sick

I’ve always had a little trouble wrapping my head around Broken Social Scene. Their records’ extremely compact production and dense instrumentation always left me feeling a bit claustrophobic. And while I positively loved a track here and there, the band’s stylistic restlessness, while impressive, was too schizophrenic to be rewarding for much longer than a 20 minute stretch. Set a mood, already, and let me float away on it, for chrissakes! 2002′s You Forgot It in People zig-zags between the soothing ambience of “Capture the Flag” to the propulsive frenzy of “Almost Crimes,” then takes a sharp turn towards the King’s of Convenience-style pop sweetness of “Pacific Theme”. Similarly, 2005′s self-titled effort had some fantastic tracks, but ultimately left me feeling exhausted as the band raced through a bewildering mashup of textures and tempos.

Thankfully, Forgiveness Rock Record finally has the Canadian collective making modest progress towards a more cohesive collection of tracks. The record maintains the inventiveness of past outings, but exhibits a bit more discipline as it segues between the band’s trademark exploratory tendencies. The record is still a herky-jerky roller coaster ride, but at least BSS finally sounds like a band, not a crowded collective of strong-willed personalities fighting for their own musical turf.

Wednesday 05.12.2010 | 11:23 PM EST

Purple Prose for High Violet

Terrible Love

For the suburban teen, October is by far the cruelest month. Summer’s memory still lingers as the full force of winter fast approaches. Daylight Savings Time darkens the damp walk home from school. The teen-age mind summons dread against a backdrop of shadows and tall trees. So it was on October 1 1984, the day I walked home with a freshly pressed copy of U2′s The Unforgettable Fire.

As a feverish fan of the Irish band’s first three studio records, I could hardly contain my excitement as I lay fresh vinyl down on a shimmering platter, adjusted my headphones, finally settling on the warm dry carpet of my poster-plastered room. What I heard left me baffled. Confused. Entranced. This record sounded nothing like it’s predecessors. Gone was the brash attack of Steve Lillywhite’s production. In its stead Eno + Lanois treated us to a gauzy, dreamlike recording at once sleepy and crackling with energy. It was unlike any I’d ever heard, one of the first records I had to learn how to listen to. It took me months to finally fall prey to the hypnotic rhythms of “Elvis Presley and America”. But fall I did, hard.

On first listen, High Violet strongly invoked these memories. The National’s musical kinship with U2 is no revelation. But this is only a passing comparison. Over the course of ten years, the boys from Brooklyn have managed to craft records that at once embrace and belie their influences, establishing a truly distinctive voice. But why did their new record render such vivid recall of a 25-year old memory? Not because these recordings are necessarily comparable, but rather for the place they hold in each bands’ development.

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Monday 05.10.2010 | 7:23 PM EST

Paris. Pavement. OMFG.

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This slideshow includes an audio track. If you have a boss or sleeping baby, mute your speakers.
Otherwise, crank it up!

Matt, Scott and I were infants when the Velvet Underground released their first record. We wouldn’t be hip enough to absorb the Fall’s massive discography until the early 90′s. But by 1992 we’d grown old and musically savvy enough to discover the second coming of these two bands by way of 5 indie slackers known as Pavement.

Over 20 years after VU’s debut record, history would repeat itself with the release of 1992′s Slanted and Enchanted, the record that, much like The Velvet Underground & Nico, launched a thousand indie bands. Drummer Steve West joined my list of most influential drummers. For their 1994 tour in support of Crooked Rain, my own shitty little band had the improbable good fortune to open two shows at the Masquerade Ballroom in Atlanta. OMFG indeed.

Between 1992-1999 I saw this band dozens of times. Then came a decade of silence. But after years of speculation, last year Pavement announced a reunion tour that weakened the knees of every indie rocker on the planet. As shows sold out in minutes a year in advance of the performance date, I joined the many crippled fans left out in the cold by faster trigger fingers. No Pavement shows for me. Till now.

It was generous of The National to let these old has-beens share a bill at Le Zenith in Paris. Glad they could help ‘em out. Or, to put it another way: watching my old heros take the stage was almost reward enough for having to sit through The National’s sets night after tedious night. Ok, no seriously. When I first heard TN would be headlining the Royal Albert Hall in London, I considered flying across the pond to attend. Then they dropped the real bomb on me. They’d be co-headlining for one show on Pavement’s reunion tour. Booked my flight that day.

Steve Malkmus, Mark Ibold, Steve West, Bob Nastanovich and Scott Kannberg took the stage with grins on their faces and springs in their step. After so many years of in-fighting and animosity, it was immediately apparent that this reunion was not some crass commercial venture. They were pumped to be here and ready to bring it. Like a thunderclap, “Silent Kit” blasted an awestruck crowd of 7000. As I jockeyed for position in a crowded press pit, I couldn’t help but bang my head a bit (not the best tactic to achieve a sharp image). The barrage would last nearly 90 minutes as the band played just about everything you’d want to hear.

The 10-year rest has been good to the band. Ibold showed some middle-age pudge but grinned like a little boy the whole set through. Spiral Stairs is not quite his trim former self but looked chipper/dapper in a newsboy cap. Steve West looked pretty much the same, if only a might hairier. My favorite, Crazy Percussion Bob hasn’t changed a bit–spry and slender, he screamed, hopped and clanged as usual, maintaining his position as the band’s B-12 shot in the arm. And Mr. Malkmus. In between solo stints, he must have spent the past 10 years looking for the fountain of youth. Apparently he found it. The man doesn’t age. You could practically hear the panties peeling off over his melodic lilts and spastic yelps. Not my panties. The ladies’. There were lots of ladies.

Pavement has never been a band big on precision. Rag-tag and sloppy was part of their appeal. But on May 7, 2010 they married youthful slack-and-slop with wise old age to perform a bigger, louder, tighter set than one might have expected. They’re second coming has them embracing live fidelity while staying true to their slacker-punk ethos. They’ve never sounded better.

Below follows a probable set list. If you happen to have the official set list, let me know. At some point I had to abandon editorial precision and just enjoying the fucking show.

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Thursday 05.06.2010 | 8:23 AM EST

The National
High Violet Tour 2010 Day 1: London

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The whirlwind three-city, four day tour begins, leaving JFK 10PM Tuesday night, arriving London Heathrow 9:30AM the next day. 3 hours sleep.

8 hours on a cramped plane seat, several train rides and a short walk to our hotel with 20 pounds of photo/laptop equipment leaves my old-man back in tatters. A 2-hour nap and a first rate 1-hour massage at the swanky K-West Hotel rejuvenates in prep for last night’s official opening show in support of High Violet at the Electric Ballroom in Camden. Arone and Aron of Brooklyn’s Buke + Gass open the show to a packed house. They rock and are such lovely hang-out partners. A must see, you hipster kids.

TN boys, crew and traveling entourage are bleary and worse for wear at the start. The band is still finding their purchase performing the new songs. Great presence, but the vocals are mixed too hot, the performance a might stiff. The audience predictably becomes livelier during the crowd-pleasing “Abel”, “Mr. November” and “Secret Meeting.”

Tonight’s sold-out highlight appearance at the venerable Royal Albert Hall should prove a different thing entirely. The stately 5000-seater will bring out the best in them, I’m sure.

Shot 600 frames with the new Nikon D300s rig. Not time to edit and prep for your viewing pleasure as of yet. For now, suffice with some shitty iPhone pix en route from Heathrow to the K-West and a bitsy smattering of live pics.

Off to the Tate Modern for the De Stijl exhibition. So many lines and squares. Yay. Then back to the K-West to purty-up for the show. At least three bands staying here, none as hot as TN. Ok, ‘cept one girl-band that are definitely hotter than the boys.

Tomorrow, off to Paris. The National is great and all, but Pavement is playing!

Real photos and more to come…

Tuesday 05.04.2010 | 7:09 PM EST

Elton or Lennon?

Friend Bradyspud took this iPhone photo on an East Village sidewalk and asked me whom I thought the stencil rendering was intended to depict.

Quite a riddle. It’s well known that John and Elton were mates (that’s “friends” to us Yanks). But Phil Spector gives Lennon some nasty ribbing during a recording session, implying that John + John were not merely “mates”, but perhaps actually, um, mates. That crazy Spector can be a razor-sharp bastard. Even more chilling is John’s prediction that he’ll live to be a “90-year old guru”

Phil Spector + John Lennon Studio Banter

Well, I didn’t peg Lennon, flambouyant as his late-60′s wardrobe may have been, as the feathered Fedora type.

Thankfully, we have the all-seeing, all-knowing Google to thank for confirming that, indeed, Mr. Hair Peace was at one time a feathered hat man. Lest we forget, it’s Sir Elton that actually wears a piece.

Saturday 04.24.2010 | 10:23 AM EST

Keep It Simple, Stupid: A Response to Reader
Comments on The New York Time’s article
“The National Agenda”

Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. And there’s no accounting for taste when it comes to something like pop music.

I could easily be accused of bias and puckering up to The National lads’ collectively firm, shapely musical buttocks. Fair enough. But there’s a few comments posted by readers of this article that left themselves wide open to what Kevin H endearingly calls my “unvarnished opinion.”

Reader IRMAFOUN comments:
I found this band’s songs especially repetitive. I cannot understand what motivates newspapers like this one to focus so intensely on what is simple pop music.

With all due respect, there’s a big difference between “simple” and “simplistic.” A creative act that on first inspection appears simple–that is, shaped and pruned to it’s barest essentials–is evidence of extreme skill and careful craftsmanship. Obscuring the significant effort required to present a pure expression of artistic intent is a rare talent. A painting by Mondrian or Rothko or a poem by Richard Brautigan may seem “simple” to an untrained eye, often eliciting an uniformed response: “Oh, I could do that.” Well, maybe you could do that. But did you do that?

Relegating 50 years of the dominant cultural and artistic achievements of “pop” music as “simple” is itself a “simplistic” remark. High Violet isn’t even officially available yet as a consumable document that can be lived with and studied. Passing judgement based on a distracted sampling of streamed media emitted from tinny laptop speakers doesn’t do musicians the due consideration deserved for their efforts. I’ve had the privilege of immersing myself in this gorgeous record for the past month in its intended, hi-fidelity medium. I’d give it a few more spins upon its official release before making up your mind. Don’t confuse “repetitive” with “subtle, mesmerizing, slowly revealed”. As has been said of Don Delillo’s Underworld, “masterpieces teach you how to read them.”

NS VA comments:

…I am curious as to how the Times decided to choose this band for a profile which will undoubtedly results in big sales. The sound is very hard to swallow. There is such a thing as trying too hard to be cool. If you have something to sing about, blast it out majestically and act like you want to be there. Critically acclaimed? Maybe, thanks to glowing articles like this. Will they get far? No. Again the sound only works on an intimate level. Won’t work on radio, TV or anywhere else. Then again, judging by the previous posts, there are people who actually love it.

Will they get far? Have you been hiding under a rock the past 5 years? This band’s trajectory is nothing if not a steep rising incline as they release records that leap further ahead in musical development with each new effort.

“Won’t work on radio, TV or anywhere else.”??? It already has. Witness their repeat appearances on David Letterman and Jimmy Fallon. Sold out shows across the U.S. and Europe, including Radio City in NYC and the Royal Albert Hall in London? Legions of loyal, rabid fans?

But more importantly, success on radio or TV is not necessarily (and is often most definitely NOT) an indication of quality. If all we had were these two media that, for the most part, champion mediocrity and pedestrian creative output, we’d be an even more culturally anemic nation than we already are.

Friday 04.16.2010 | 12:23 PM EST

Tax Man: The Marble Tea’s Sunny Afternoon

Rock ‘n Read

To quote from How To Get Ahead In Advertising:

No one ever remembers a late delivery. They only remember a bad one.

Well, seeing as this post is one day past due, I guess I better make this one count.

One-man pop dynamo The Marble Tea is beloved here at maunet. As Sir Knight Berman mentions on his blog, the obvious choice to commemorate the most un-sunny day of the year would have been a cover of The Beatles’ “Tax Man”.  Instead, The Tea wisely favors a subtler selection: a faithful cover of The Kink’s “Sunny Afternoon.”

The taxman’s taken all my dough / and left me in my stately home / lazing on a sunny afternoon / and I can’t sail my yacht / he’s taken ev’rything I’ve got / all I’ve got’s this sunny afternoon

Look for this track appearing on the next installment of Undercover. In the meantime, check out Knight’s entertaining writeup at  marbletea.com

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