Archives : all posts by Dan

MGMT - "The Youth"

On an AM radio in outer space, MGMT's Oracular Spectacular sounds pretty good. I'm dating an astronaut, and she heard this on her little clock radio the other night. Night for her is just when the earth is dark, she refuses to switch to "space time". But she had an interesting thought the other day in one of her letters (she still writes letters!) she was amazed at how much you can see from space. Just from using google maps and her good binoculars that I bought her before she left, she can follow what she calls "the spirit of the nation". She can watch as red states slowly fade to blue, as crimes and natural disasters spike and dip around the country, as money changes hands, as needless travel blows like a great wind, as families spread out like little fireworks shows. And with a now mountainous amount of data she really agrees: "the youth are starting to change." [Buy tracks]

Ham1 - "Clown-Shoed Feet"

Shuffly, scuffy, and pretending to be lazy, this is an awesome opening to an album. I couldn't hear if the rest of the album lived up to it, I was already out the door, rushing off to 28. [Buy]

by Scott T.

Unknown Artist - "Sorban Palid"

Every night my grandfather would retire to the living room, the carpet worn from heavy traffic, and the tassels of the lampshade filled with smoke, and he would light his pipe and listen to this song. He never outright said he wanted to be alone, but I always assumed. One afternoon, the grey outside thick with fall, I sat just around the corner and listened. I stared at the floral print wallpaper and wondered what he was thinking about. Perhaps he was in a war I never heard about, and this was his song with a lover he had had over there. Or maybe he understood the language and it was an elegy to his own life. I peeked my head slowly around the corner, seeing his feet first, then the arms of the chair, and I saw him hunched over, bent focused, playing a scratch ticket. It was better than I thought. [Buy from K Records]

Red Pony Clock - "Don't Forget Who Your Friends Are"

Red Pony Clock have returned after a couple years away (when they released one of 2005's best albums), and they've grown up a little bit. David Barclay is in the band now, which is proof that they're very aware of what's good for them. They've shed their lo-fi fuzziness for undersea xylophones and warm brass bursts. The self-loathing is still rampant, even moreso, on this album. Sometimes lyricist Gabe Saucedo gets me a little worried about him. Seriously, Gabe, if you're reading, I hope you're okay, you can email me if you need to talk. And listening to the rest of the pink and charming God Made Dirt you come to this song with a different perspective. The implication of the lesson in this song isn't so much "don't forget who your friends are when you get famous" but rather "don't forget who your friends are for when you're not famous anymore". Like, literally don't forget which ones they are, to cling to, as in to pant legs. [Buy God Made Dirt]

The Monks - "Cuckoo"

If you were reading in 2004, you may remember Sean talking about this album back then. Or if you were living in Germany in 1966, you may remember its release, but I'm just discovering Black Monk Time right now, and I'm shocked, amazed, and running scared. The Monks seem to have written songs that they couldn't find a way to sing about. Much of their lyrics are sound-holders, just excuses to shout and wail and speak-sing over these strutting and pounding melodies. Like in "Cuckoo", the lyrics are almost nonsense, like a Devo song with even less attention to meaning, but they're perfect somehow. That hoo-ing man doo-ing the chorus has the exact right idea for what the surf/war drums need, what the guitar's jank-jank is hoping for. This music comes comes howling at me from so long ago, I feel connected to it, like I'm there, in a sweater vest nervous with a cigarette, out on a Friday in Munich, looking at grown men with weird shaved patterns in their heads, wondering at how far this stuff can go. [Buy directly from The Monks]

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Elsewhere: Powerful supporter of all things worthwhile and now longtime "ami du Gramo" Patricia Boushel produced the new Socalled video directed by Benjamin Steiger Levine, which is gorgeous in its restraint, with flares of subtle, unassuming, yet extraordinary beauty.

As I write this, the last few afterparties for Pop Montreal are swaying in the breezy rain, and all the tired happy faces are headed to bed. I was running errands tonight getting ready for the last Bleating Heart Show, and it struck me how hard everyone works at this festival, and how there's a perfect understanding of help and mutual support. It's quite wonderful.

I missed the first two Bleating Heart Shows, as I was in a play those nights, so I'm sure Sean will be able to give the full deal on those (all I know is they went marvelously), but I made it to the Sunday show tonight, and it was really incredible. Moments of pink and glowing beauty (see the Casey Dienel clip), red and sinking beauty (see Horse Feathers), and flashing, gnashing beauty (CLUES played a wild set).

The show took place in the Birks building, part of McGill campus, in a little chapel on the second floor. The old stone and hardwood pews and perfect sound made the silence as important as any of the bands. There was so much quiet that it lit up the artists better than any light.

Casey Dienel - "La La Song"

this clip is unwatchably dark, I know. But the visuals are just a formality, because the mood in the chapel during this song wasn't about what anyone could see, it was about the sound of 90 people singing along nervously but with grins to Casey's last song, being left on their own to sing, and laughing when they get it wrong. [Site]

Elfin Saddle - "Gods/Sky"

Elfin Saddle were really remarkable. They have a gentleness to them, and they build their songs like little sandcastles. Taking great care to make details right, carefully switching instruments to add little dings and crashes when needed, and every time kicking them into heaps when they're done. [Site]

Horse Feathers - "Mother's Sick"

Horse Feathers sounded like they had built this church for their songs. Every whisper, every movement, was clear as day, and felt intentional, full. I can't imagine a better way to have seen this band. [Site]

Clues - "Preview"

Clues were insane. They laid songs down like traps all around us, and unwittingly we set them off. I'm not quite sure what happened; capes were worn, drums were thrown, people were pinned under a giant xylophone at one point, but we all went through it together. Including the band. I think they were watching themselves play, wondering at their own fervency, confused at their own personae, elated by their own undeniable talent.

It was a great show. One I, we, will never forget.

I know this album came out in February, but I've never been a big Yoko fan (no reason, just didn't think of it) so forgive me that it's gone unmentioned all this time. Her album of remixes and re-visits, Yes, I'm A Witch, has some startling stuff on it. Truly wonderful things. Here are two:

Ono with The Flaming Lips - "Cambridge 1969 / 2007"

This instrumental is introduced by Ono, sounding as if she's on stage at a recital, and then is consumed and spirited away by The Flaming Lips. The song takes off, as many songs by The Flaming Lips tend to do, like a spaceship, and keeps whirring and pulsing the whole way. But with the kind of smiling excitement found in Je Suis France or Holy Fuck, it's currently unlike them as a band. This sounds like their old material, and it's the greatest song they've made in a while.

Ono with Cat Power - "Revelations"

The new Cat Power with the same old Ono. If this song were a face, and I think it is, it would be tender and a bit saggy, and wrinkled in all the good places. The piano would be the shape of the skull, the cheekbones, the "line" of the face, Cat Power's slender carved beauty and almost-perfect symmetry. The smile and the speech would be Ono's, her little mouth giving the pink-love-cloud lyrics and warm grins in between. And the eyes, I think would be John Lennon's, no telling how much of this beauty came from him or rubbed off on him, but his soul present nonetheless, looking out silent and without opinion or gender.

These are the kind of revelations you make apart from something, the kind of things you see after a long time, on a deathbed. Nice, valid, but pointless.

[Buy]

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I'm in a play that starts tonight. If you're in Montreal and you're already sick of Pop Montreal, come to Legend of the Barbarian at Theatre Ste. Catherine (264 Ste. Catherine E.) at 8pm tonight. 6$. It officially opens next wednesday and runs for 2 weeks.

Spider - "The Bitter One"

Spider doesn't own a car, she doesn't ride a bike, and she certainly doesn't take the subway or the bus. She rides a horse wherever she goes. It's not for the attention, or because she wants to be eccentric, she doesn't have to try at that, she's just herself. Here she's tossing the saddle onto Gabe's Ol' Jodie, a chestnut Halflinger, at daybreak, the air cold as ice and a thick dew runs down the leather like it's crying, and rides to the supermarket. There she buys dried onion flakes and club soda, for the horse, and a basket of plums for herself. Then she rides up and over the highway to the other part of town and checks on all the places she used to live, to see what's changed. A lot has changed if you know what to look for. [Buy]

Spider will be playing at Pop Montreal, and you can see her at My Hero Gallery Casa del Popolo on Sunday. But you can only go if you promise to come to the Bleating Heart Show that night too, there's time to catch the best parts of both.

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Hot Springs - "38th Adventure"

The Hot Springs album is way more "radio-friendly" (who even cares?) than I thought. Giselle Webber, by way of biographical information, is the child of Sas(s) Jordan and Robert Plant, and is dating Candi & The Backbeat. Come to think of it, this is the only song she could have made. But seriously, this is surprisingly fun and hits a different emotional spot (pointing to my bubble gum and power chords) than expected. But I like it, it hums and warbles and bops, and that's more than enough. [Buy on iTunes]

Ezra Furman & The Harpoons - "Mother's Day"

Ezra Furman is the kind of character you make a documentary about. He's the perfect embodiment of the idea of "an artist will emulate their heroes in their early stages". He's a teenager (I'm guessing from photos) with an amazing ear for melody, a natural talent for writing, and a bunch of hard-working and competent friends to be in his band. But all of his music sounds like Bob Dylan. On the Ezra Furman MySpace is a pitcure of one of the band members sitting casually on a stool with a big Dylan poster behind him, and an actual home-movie-mockumentary of Ezra as Dylan, talking about "when Ezra went electric." The groundwork is laid, filmmakers, all these kids have shown they like being on camera, and the movie would have a pretty rad soundtrack. I'll do it if no one else does.

Ezra Furman & The Harpoons - "God Is A Middle-Aged Woman"

I'm not done yet. I really like this guy. In a damn-I-can't-help-but-be-charmed-out-of-my-head kind of way. This has more of a "Perfect Day" feel to it, but doesn't stray too far from the original thesis. The lyrics just scream "adolescent portrait of sad grown-ups", and one group suddenly says just as much about the other, it's kind of gorgeous. Friday's verdict: Ezra Furman's unabashed excitement and unapologetic wet-behind-the-ears-ness is the most tender, fresh, inspiring thing I've found in a while.

[Site] [MySpace] [Buy From Minty Fresh]

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I did an interview with Tune-Yards for Ajisignal, and it went up yesterday.