I Cherish With Fondness the Day That I Met Them

The latest band I can't stop listening to is Los Campesinos! I wasn't really excited when I wrote that. The exclamation point is actually part of the name, and the name of each of their members, who are Aleksandra Campesinos!, Ellen Campesinos!, Gareth Campesinos!, and so on.

This is another band from Wales, which produced probably my favorite currently existing band, the Super Furry Animals. They are very poppy, and very energetic, and infectuous. I will be seeing them live in February when they come to the Logan Square Auditorium. Also, new Song of the Day from your truly, which is a good place to start. If you like the music I like, you'll be hooked about 15 seconds into the first song embedded below. Enjoy:

Broken Heartbeats Sound Like Breakbeats


You, Me, Dancing


My Year in Lists

More Spiritualized

I'm trying to think of the best way to describe J. Spaceman and the various incarnations of Spiritualized since the dissolution of Spacemen 3 about 2o years ago or so, and I think the best description came from either Greg Kot or Jim DeRogatis in the episode of Sound Opinions where they reviewed "Songs in A&E".  Spiritualized basically has three styles:  Straightforward rockers, ethereal/ambient ballads, and, well, spirituals - real gospel type stuff.  

Occasionally they overlap a bit.  You can hear hear tinges of gospel stuff in their rock songs.  Of course, a quicker, pithier explanation is from Pinko Punko, in which he termed Spiritualized 'drug boy singing about drugs'.  I can't honestly dispute that.  The endless allusions to drug use and the effects thereof are unavoidable.  But hey, music's gotta be about something.  So here are the three phases of Spiritualized:

Ambient:

Rock:

Spiritual:

And that, in a nutshell, is Jason Pierce and his professional output. And it's pretty amazing live.

More Coming Attractions

The Whigs, Saturday, February 9th at Schuba's.



Super Furry Animals, Saturday, February 16th at the Metro. Behold the greatest concert ending song you may ever be privileged to witness, and a little bit of a Juxtaposed With You remix at the end, for hell of it.

The Verve, when they were good

The two best Verve singles, to keep you occupied until the Arizona homestand. Feel free to gaze at your shoes.

More Coming Attractions

Interpol @ The Aragon - October 11th
"Mammoth" from Our Love to Admire


Spoon @ The Riviera - October 12th
"You Got Yr Cherry Bomb" from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga


New Pornographers @ Metro - October 18th
"My Slow Descent Into Alchoholism" from Mass Romantic


The Raveonettes @ the Empty Bottle - October 19th
"That Great Love Sound" from Chain Gang of Love


Rogue Wave @ Double Door - October 24th
"Publish My Love" from Descended Like Vultures

Two straight

No one could have reasonably expected Santana to win today the way he's been going. As I've said before (and it's no great analysis), Santana during the day on the road is a recipe for disaster.

If they had taken some momentum into today's game, it may have been a different story, but Mike Scioscia, whom I can only assume was a little upset with Mike Napoli and his three run homer yesterday, inexplicably turned the ball over to arguably the AL's worst reliever this season. Predictably, he allowed the Tigers to double their lead, and predictably, the Angels almost came back, only to lose by one. And while the souls over at Halos Heaven may not like it, Vlad was almost as at fault as Bart and Scioscia, grounding into a double play with the tying run on first.

So what had the makings of nice trip has turned into a precarious journey, which now requires the Angels to take 2 of three against the suddenly not so terrible Yankees to salvage a .500 trip. And while they've had great success over the Yankees in the last 10 years, that has to end some time.

As for me, I missed today's game, partly because of work, and partly by design, as I had no desire to see Santana get drilled. And last night's game ended just in time for me to head over to Schuba's to catch the Broken West, this time headlining (they supported the Walkmen earlier). While the mix was a little too heavy on the guitar and to light on the vocals, the show was otherwise excellent. Not to sound like a music snob, but shows with less than 100 people are kind of cool to see when you really like the band, and they really are excellent.

Grant Lee Phillips @ Lakeshore Theater - 5/3/07

Grant Lee has a new album which came out about a month or so called "Strangelet". In my opinion, after a handful of listens, is that it's his best solo work to date. A little louder and more up tempo than Ladies Love Oracle and Virginia Creeper, not quite as electronic as Mobilize. For me, so far, it's the one I've most enjoyed listening to.

To start with, last night's show was a treat because it's the first time since late 2001 that GLP has toured with a more or less full band (him, bassist, drummer). And the whole thing was electric. There wasn't even an acoustic guitar on stage. Most of that is probably because the new album sort of lends itself to that setup more than the last two, but it also means that the old GLB stuff is really going to sound great.

Clearly last night's show was going to be heavy on the new album. One of the downsides of seeing an artist with so much material (nine albums by my count) to draw from is that you're virtually guaranteed to leave without hearing everything you wanted to hear, but that's only a small complaint. He mixed in about half and half. Incomplete and out of order setlist (by album):

• Runaway
• Soft Asylum (No Way Out)
• Fountain of Youth
• Hidden Hand
• Chain Lightning (he opened with this one)
• Johnny Guitar
• Raise the Spirit (video below)
  
• Calamity Jane
• Far End of the Night
• Don't Look Down
  
• Truly, Truly, Truly
• Honey Don't
• Mockingbirds
• Lone Star Song (closed with this one)
• Fuzzy
• Wish You Well, which I'd never seen him do live before in the six or seven times that I've seen him.

Nothing off of Mobilize, Nineteeneightees, or Copperopolis.

It's truly an experience to see him live because he's either a great actor, or he really does love performing. More than anyone I've ever seen live, he really has a good time bantering with the crowd between songs, and that gets everyone into the show.

The down part last night was that "everyone" was a pretty small crowd. In addition to that, Lakeshore Theater is not a particularly good venue for a rock show. It's exactly what it says it is, a theater. As in, like a movie theater. It would be a great place to see a play, or a lecture. It's not a good place to see rock show. I don't like to sit at concerts, but you really didn't have a choice at this one. In addition, it was about three times too big for size of the crowd, especially for show in which the headliner was taking the stage at 11:00 on a Thursday night. This would have been a fantastic show at Schuba's. It was still a very good show, but the venue left a lot to be desired. That's not a knock on the theater itself. It just wasn't the right venue for this performance.

Speaking of Schuba's, Michael Penn comes to town next week.

Friday Morning Music

Not sure why, but I've been on a big Mary's Danish kick lately, and there is limited postable content on the net, so you get the classics. Saw them at UCR during my freshman year at the Barn, which at the time had a sort of seedy bar feel, but apparently is now a "casual dining location". At least it's still there. Good place to see a show, or to drink before going to see a show at the Rec Center.

I don't what it is about female fronted rock acts, but they seem to deliver a ton of energy to their performances. The Raveonettes come to mind as well, and the Peels. Anyway, these guys were great, and they got totally scewed by their record company. Enjoy:

Hoodoo Gurus w/ Goldstar at the Abbey - 3/25/07

It's not often that you get to a see a band in concert whom you've been listening to for almost 20 years, especially when you thought they'd broken up about 10 years ago. It's also not often that I'm arguably the youngest person in the crowd. But lo and behold, my update email from Pollstar told me that the Hoodoo Gurus were playing the Abbey, and I felt obligated to get a ticket. I'm very glad I did.

Goldstar, who is apparently a local Chicago band led off the evening, and quite frankly, I found them to be pretty entertaining. I want to be delicate about this, but these aren't exactly spring chickens we're talking about. Throw in the matching shirts, and I'm sure one can be forgiven for underestimating them. But they played a very tight set, threw in some comedic banter between songs, and generally seemed to be enjoying themselves on stage.

The Gurus took the stage shortly thereafter, and after firing up with about a 20 second jam, they launched into "I Want You Back". They played an excellent mix of songs from across their eight proper albums, without too much focus on any one in particular. They hit all of the major tracks, though I would have loved to have heard Leilani, Death Defying, Desiree, or I Don't Mind, I can't really complain about the set list. I've tried to reproduce what I could remember, and this, like always, is not the order in which they were actually played:

1. I Want You Back - Stoneage Romeos
   
2. Dig It Up - Stoneage Romeos
3. Kamikaze Pilot - Stoneage Romeos
4. Bittersweet - Mars Needs Guitars
5. Poison Pen - Mars Needs Guitars
6. Like Wow, Wipeout - Mars Needs Guitars
7. What's My Scene - Blow Your Cool
   
8. Where Nowhere Is - Blow Your Cool
9. Middle of the Land - Blow Your Cool
10. Come Anytime - Magna Cum Louder
11. Another World - Magna Cum Louder
    
12. Miss Freelove '69 - Kinky
    
13. 1,000 Miles Away - Kinky
    
14. The Right Time - Crank
    
15. Form A Circle - Crank
    
16. Be My Guru - Stoneage Romeos (Bonus Track)
    
17. At least two or three from Mach Schau
18. At least two or three from Blue Cave

That's a pretty impressive grouping of songs. I usually expect about 15 songs out of a headliner. Anything on top of that is gravy, and they played upwards of 20 last night. They even tossed in a couple of requests.

Decent crowd. I'd guess the Abbey holds a couple hundred people (a little bigger than Schuba's), and it was more or less filled. I was about 10 feet from the stage, and it looked pretty packed behind me. If you're a fan, or even if you just have a passing familiarity with their stuff, do yourself a favor and check them out. It's called entertainment, folks. Not every song has to change the world.

Listen to this song

Then listen to it again. And when you're done, listen to it one more time. If by then, you aren't hooked, you have no soul. Either that, or your taste in music just sucks.



That's Viva Voce, and they opened for the Shins on the recent tour. I missed most of their opening set, because unless I know a lot about the band, I hate seeing opening acts at big shows. 50% of the audience isn't there, and of those who are, 90% of them aren't paying attention. It makes for a shitty atmosphere. But it was my mistake this time (note: I also screwed up by missing most of the High Dials set the first time I saw them when they opened for the Brian Jonestown Massacre). But this song is brilliant. And the video is good too.

And just in case you thought those were actors, and that Anita can't really shred like than on actual guitar, here's a live version:


Hat tip to the Uncanny Canuck over at Song of the Day.

While I'm back on the subject of music...

...It's getting to be good concert season again, and there are finally a bunch of good acts coming to town. So far I'm set to see:

The Shins at the Congress Theater:



The Apples in Stereo at Subterranean:



And the Walkmen at Schuba's: