If I was in Chicago tonight, this is where I'd be going

photo via Subinev

Indianapolis natives Margot and the Nuclear So and So's are giving back to their new home city by playing some old and and new songs FOR FREE tonight. Hopefully this stripped down version just includes Richard, the violinist, the percussionist, and the pianist. I imagine it might end up sounding like a Daytrotter session, which is never a bad thing. I've heard Neva Dinova is pretty good too, but haven't listened yet.

From Margot's myspace:
Tonight, Wednesday March 25th, Richard and some fellow margot's will be getting together at the inconvenience art space/venue to play some old songs, as well as some songs from the new record. They will be joined on this special day by their friends, "the whispertown 2000" and Jake Bellows (of Neva Dinova). You may remember that Margot toured with Whispertown long ago during the elected tour. Wanna re-live those memories? Of course you do. And we want to see you there. It's a small intimate space and it should make for a very special, one of a kind evening. The show is free (although a donation to help the touring band is appreciated), and it is open to all ages.

3036 N Lincoln Ave
Chicago, IL
Doors at 6 Pm
Music at 7 pm!

Feature instrument: The recorder

photo: wikipedia

Whenever a band uses an unusual instrument like a saw or incorporates a banjo into their usual straightforward-rock lexicon, blogs take notice. They almost always lavish praise on the band for their uniqueness or musicality. But sometimes taking a pre-tuned instrument prone to squeaks and squeals and making it work for you is more of a feat than learning a more strange or complex instrument. Think of how good woodblocks sound in indie dance music. These three artists take a plastic, rudimentary instrument, and elevate it from a third grade music class instrument to a college radio instrument.

• Guided by Voices' "The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen,"off the seminal Bee Thousand, before lo-fi was cool.

• Oxford Collapse's "Molasses." They don't reproduce the recorder solo live, unfortunately. They also opened for GbV before. Coincidence?
  

• Swedish expatriate Jens Lekman's "Into Eternity." When I saw him last fall, he found a local cellist, but must not have known I was available to play the recorder intro to this song. I actually did learn it, partly knowing his affinity for female accompaniment, partly because I am that nerdy.

Ranging from an F on the treble staff to a shrill high G four ledger lines above the staff, the recorder is ready tuned, inexpensive, and closer to my heart for making three songs more interesting.

Wtf Wednesday- ShowBros: Not just for Lollapalooza anymore

Photo of Sunset Rubdown by my dear friend Andy P.

Usually at indie-rock shows, the attendees are a smattering of different - but not disparate - arty types: music nerds, hipsters, coat hanger girlfriends and boyfriends, and other musicians. However, this show-attendee paradigm was shattered at the later Sunset Rubdown show at the Empty Bottle last weekend. Enter a new sub-genre of concert-attending males: the ShowBro.

The ShowBro differs from Hipster Runoff's classifications of an AltBro or an AltBag in that the ShowBro has not incorporated anything alternative into his lifestyle. He does not try to acclimate his bro-ness with his surroundings, at all. Allow me to illustrate through my experience.

Sunset Rubdown lived in relative musical obscurity, I thought. To get into them you would probably like the more popular Wolf Parade first, and then research its multiple side projects. Eventually you would stumble upon the more experimental SR. So when a group of clean-cut boys who looked like they missed their El stop back in Wrigleyville appeared in front of me at the show, I was a little perplexed.

Even with their Old Styles in hand and blond girls in tow, I still managed to withhold my judgment. Until the show started. And it wasn't just me who was befuddled by ShowBros presence.

Lead singer and keyboardist Spencer Krug was giving ShowBros weird looks when they were jumping up and down and high-fiving one another like teenage girls at a Plain White T's show. With Krug being a Canadian, this suggests that the emergence of ShowBros is of international concern. (Usage note: It is always ShowBros, never ShowBro- they are a pack species). Krug also had to take time out of the show to admonish ShowBros for leering at the so not-their-type Camilla Wynne Ingr, multi-instrumentalist. Like she would sleep with them and their syphilgonnaherpes crusty penises anyway.

It is great if you are not a usual show-goer; really, more people should expand their musical horizons. But please, don't act like a jackass when you are there. You wouldn't go to Italy and tell the Italians how to make wine, would you? Then don't go to a show and tackle football your way up to the front only to ogle girls, high-five one another, and act like you are in a cheesy nightclub.

Most of the show was really good though. I thought the music would be more tangential, but it sounded mostly like it does on the albums. It was a typical straightforward bar show, replete with Krug citing intoxication as a reason for the lack of an encore.

The crowd became most exuberant when Sunset Rubdown played "I'll Believe in Anything," originally a SR song but more commonly known as a WP song. ShowBros shared in this exuberance, further proving my Wolf Parade as a gateway to SR point. The ShowBros could have benefited from listening to themselves sing-scream the closing lyrics: "No body knows you and nobody gives a damn either way."

Finally, this is a video from the same night but the earlier show. They played "The Mending of the Gown" again at the later show, but they seem looser with this crowd than they did with our crowd. It looks good on hi-res.

Deconstructing Radiohead: Because we separate like ripples on a blank shore (in rainbows)

Radiohead - Reckoner - by Clement Picon


Radiohead offering up its material for free, and then encouraging interpretations of it is nothing new (see: radioheadremix.com).

Clement Picon, a French Radiohead fan, made the video for "Reckoner" in his free evenings. After his video was voted on by fans worldwide, Picon was one of four grand prize winners penultimately chosen by Radiohead and aniboom.com, and, ultimately to be the "official" video by because "it goes with the song so well." Yes, yes it does Thom. It perhaps even speaks for the song.

After reading about Derrida's hermetic view of language recently, I've come to agree with him that words, like the lyrics in this song, can only refer to other words. The lyrics aren't really an expression of some thought in Thom's mind, since no one can grasp the full meaning of their words alone. Words stand only in relation to other words- In Rainbows is not Out Rainbows, as much as it isn't any other word. So words can't point to any greater Truth or essence, even though they are sometimes our greatest tools in which to ascribe meaning. But, as in many instances, what we don't say is often as important as what we do say. If all of the cuts for the album made it on In Rainbows, it would frankly suck. Because Radiohead chose not to include these, it enhanced what they did say and play.

However, what we know empirically: The sounds of the guitars traveling through amplifiers into recording equipment, lyrics sung at an audible wavelength, and a video created out of an inspiration to and then eventually blending with the song lend themselves to the fullness of a moment. And that moment may feel differently to everybody, since it is then not only open to, but expectant of, the inevitable interpretation.

Does this seem like a vapid existentialist conclusion? Can meaning never be tacked down because of an endless chain of signifiers and symbols? Perhaps, but if many moments could look, sound and feel like you are in a song, the resulting peaceful -not staid- placidity would not be such a terrible existence.

WTF? Wednesday

Katy Perry kissed a girl and liked it, which is great for her. But then she defied gender norms again and butt-raped this MGMT song. The result isn't good for anybody.



Please, musicians, don't attempt to cover a song unless:

• You really like the original and can unmistakably have fun with a cover.
  
• You are pretentious and think you can do the song better.
  
• You can add a new sound or musical interpretation to the song. Or,
  
• You are Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash, or the Detroit Cobras. (Note: Do not go see the Cobras live, it is really disappointing.)
  

And please, don't just sing over the existing song blatantly coming out of one speaker and post it on youtube.

"... and the Chicago Cubs will beat every team in the league"- The Mountain Goats

I love Cubs fans. Say what you will about their fickle flightiness, but what other team's fans start making World Series championship claims before the playoffs have even begun? Cubs fans have season aspirations higher than Alfonso Soriano's paycheck, even though they are oft accused of drinking the "this year is the year" Kool-aid too fervently.

Great art is sometimes born out of frustration, and the Cubbie's 100-year drought serves as perfect fodder for musicians. Hopefully artists have some positive inspiration after this week's events. After Lee helped push the Milwaukee Brewers further back in the division during the 12-inning showdown yesterday, the Cubs stand a chance to clinch the division (for the second year in a row!) if they beat the Cardinals today, and if the Brewers lose.

Derrick Lee, 1st baseman for the Cubs,
1st place in my heart

Original pic from Clear Channel :(

Thankfully, I have two songs to listen to depending on the outcome of the season.

If the Cubs do well, I will listen to Eddie Vedder's wistful "Go All the Way," which he wrote per Ernie Bank's request. Vedder's narcissism aside, that's pretty cool he listened to Bank's request and created this sing-along.



Vedder's pretentiousness still seeps through in that he wants to release a recorded version of this song on "souvenir 45's." Can something be a souvenir before a historic event has happened? I guess if he says so.

If the Cubs lose, being a typical fan, I will blame it on some outside, probably mystical force, and then listen to The Mountain Goats' melancholy and sarcastic "Cubs in Five."



Though I much prefer the Goats' song to Vedder's, I hope to be singing "Go, Cubs, Go" followed by "Go All the Way" in October.

First installment of WTF Wednesday!

In TV on the Radio's video for "Golden Age," TVOTR step into a Polyphonic Spree video, hide Care Bears under their robes, and have a dance-off with the Hot Cops from Arrested Development.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0gghjczAt0

Sorry, it won't let me embed the video.

Formally due out next Tuesday, Dear Science (Interscope) is a lot less wacky than this video, but just as fun for the listen. More then.