FOAVOD: She & Him - "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?"

Haha, whoa.

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I particularly enjoy the part where Zooey throws that ax and chops off her own head four times. And when M. gets carried away by the blue cartoon ghosts. I would also please like every item of clothing in this video. K, thanks.

She & Him play the Variety July 29th.

Forgo the Parable: A Morning Playlist

For your enjoyment:

Dark Meats, Hotel Lights and Broken Letters: July's Southeast Performer arrives!

Drumroll please!

It's.....my very first cover story EVER!



This month's SEP's quite the milestone for your favorite writer's tiny career! I had the privilege of doing a piece on one of the most hectic bands I've ever witnessed. Athens' Dark Meat is just...a walking disaster that somehow manages to function to the enjoyment of lots and lots of devoted fans. If you've never seen 'em live, you just don't understand. The first time I saw them, I got pegged in the forehead with one of those little bouncy balls you get from grocery store vending machines...twice! It's a true testament to just how many bands per capita there really are in Athens, Ga. Behold:



Anyway here's the story:

Dark Meat
The Most Organized Chaos You Ever Heard

Ben Clack’s oversized eyeglasses reflect the light from the street as he sips his Schlitz at a table in the empty theater. The Dark Meat bassist gestures at the chaos outside. It’s unexpectedly the day of the spring football scrimmage in Athens, Ga., and inebriated (or at least enthusiastic) college kids clad all in red stumble by on the sidewalk. Clack and frontman Jim McHugh glance up disinterestedly from time to time, but turn rather soberly away from the window. They’re here to talk about their own brand of chaos, an infamous shape-shifting musical collective that is a completely different variety of social experiment and one of Vice Records’ newest signees. It’s a project that’s taken them on the road over and over again, wreaking havoc in clubs around the country and on the eardrums of their lucky listeners; they’ve started fires in venue corners and butted heads with bouncers, all while performing delicately-named songs like “Well Fuck You Then” and “Assholes Of Eyeballs.” Even if one considers the numbers by themselves, forgetting about the spectacularly schizophrenic live shows and broad-scope recordings, Dark Meat is a force to be contended with. The band contains at least 12 members at all times - sometimes many more, almost all of whom are in other Athens musical groups - and commitment seems the only way to keep an operation like this running. Luckily, Dark Meat has got plenty of it. [Read more...]

Mike from Deadly Designs took a bunch of the live shots, which are pretty damn cool. (I don't know why the photo credit says "Mick." Sorry, Mike.) Check him out for other awesome Athens band photography.

This month's Performer also has a feature on Atlanta rapper Quanstar, as well as spotlights on Bombadil, Hotel Lights and The Broken Letters. As always there's a slew of live reviews
and recorded reviews for you to devour as you will. If you're in a band, you'd do well to read all the stuff in the advice section about touring and gear and what not. Enjoy!

[M4A] Dark Meat - "Freedom Ritual" (sorry about format...too lazy to convert...)

FOAVOD: Lazer/Wulf - "Lagarto" live at Corndogorama

Kickass video via Ohmpark, who likewise kicks ass. Davy's got videos of tons and tons of the acts from this past weekend's festival (including the sweatiest ball of awesomeness Dan Deacon, the catastrophic Gringo Star set, Snowden's bucking and kicking, and many more) here, here, here, here, here, here and here. He's also got general blog coverage of the whole event. The thoroughness award goes to Ohmpark!

The sweetness/eloquence award goes to The Pop Filter.

The force-to-be-reckoned-with award goes to Have You Heard. More live sessions from these fellows soon...

The too-overwhelmed-to-blog-frequently award goes to me. I win.

So. Tired.

Corndogorama. Exhausting. Good coverage from friends here.

That's all.

Corndogorama cometh!

I can't say it better than Rebecca Bowen, so let me point you toward PasteMagazine.com's article about this weekend's CORNDOGORAMA at Lenny's:

Dan Deacon to headline Corndogorama's meaty lineup


With its built-in wooden stick for convenient one-handed transport, and soft, delicious casing that prevents the traumatic puncture wounds often inflicted by skewered meats or vegetables, the corn dog (its origins as debated as those of man himself) was obviously conceived supernaturally for the purpose of consumption amidst throngs of schoolchildren, circus-goers and, finally, Atlanta indie rockers. [Read more...]

It's here. It's good. It's this weekend. Foods on sticks and music for everyone! All should come out and help support local music, as well as say hello to your beloved(!) journalistic entities like Southeast Performer Magazine's lovely troupe of editors, writers and interns, and of course my boys over at Have You Heard....I'll be the one wearing a silly grin (either sleepy or too excited) under the Performer tent for much of the weekend if you're lookin'.

Highlights for me include the Friday night lineup of Judi Chicago, Noot d'Noot and Dan Deacon and a Sunday afternoon onslaught from Lazer/Wulf. Can't wait. Full lineup available at Corndogorama.com!

Paste Band of the Week: Bowerbirds

Back from AthFest and attempting to re-organize. Phew. Pictures soon.

In the meantime, something fun!

When I awoke today, my very first Band of the Week piece greeted me from the Paste site. It's about N.C.'s staggeringly awesome trio Bowerbirds, in the wake of last week's reissue of their 2007 record Hymns For A Dark Horse on Dead Oceans. They're organic, sincere and wonderful musicians. I highly recommend them. And if you've got a moment read about 'em:


Paste: Band of the Week: Bowerbirds

Hometown: Raleigh, N.C.
Fun Fact: Guitarist/vocalist Phil Moore and multi-instrumentalist Beth Tacular have spent the last year building an eco-friendly house all by themselves to replace their AirStream trailer.
Why They’re Worth Watching: Moore, Tacular and multi-instrumentalist Mark Paulson create truly organic folk songs, full of haunting melodies and honest lyrics without layers of production.
For Fans Of: Phosphorescent, The Avett Brothers, The Mountain Goats, Bon Iver

People stare as Phil Moore, Beth Tacular and Mark Paulson stroll around a candy store in New York. Paulson’s tapping and thudding in rhythm on a bass drum he has strapped to him, Tacular is squeezing her accordion while she harmonizes sweetly and Moore is playing his acoustic guitar and singing about things like bur oaks and talons as he wanders. He turns to the side so he doesn’t whack the guitar’s neck on the corn-syrup-laden shelving. [Read more...]

[MP3] Bowerbirds - "Bur Oak"

Catching Up With... The Avett Brothers

This, my friends, is the best assignment I've ever had.

As you all well know, The Avett Brothers are one of my very favorite bands, live, recorded and otherwise (what's "otherwise"??). When I was told there was an interview opportunity with Scott, all the questions swirling around in my head, that I'd been formulating for months like I do with any truly fascinating band, immediately lined up, numbered, ordered and regimented. They stood at the ready, and a week later, by phone, I was allowed to ask them. Though over the past year I've had the chance to talk to a couple of other people who probably enjoy equal levels of fame and success, of any of them The Avett Brothers' music affects me by far the most personally. I was, therefore, seriously nervous upon dialing the phone number I was given at the appointed time. Scott was sincere and disarming, though, and did his best to answer questions I can only assume he's been asked before. I did my best to make it interesting, to delve deeper than the surface logistical and "personality-revealing" questions ("What's your favorite TV show?", etc). He indicated that my queries about the songwriting process and honesty in music were the type he prefers to answer, that a lot of interviewers never get there. Which made me feel good, even if it's not totally the case. I wanted so badly to know about the autobiographical nature of their songs, about the contradictory truths they espouse with such passion, because of the people I've encountered in my own life that seem to behave the same way.

After some serious editing, we're left with this piece, which arrived on the Paste site today. I hope you enjoy!

Catching Up With... The Avett Brothers

They’re traveling troubadours of the inner workings of the heart and head, these men in their stage suits wielding banjos with the force of weapons. They communicate all the gray areas and intricacies thereof through simple sonic textures; bluegrass strings join keys, kick drums, sweet crooning and guttural screams. Multi-instrumentalists Seth and Scott Avett, bassist Bob Crawford and cellist Joe Kwon traverse the country, ministering to ever-growing audiences from their book of unabashed balladry, hollerin’ all the way. They are rough around the edges of a center so baldly honest that even their ample facial hair begins to seem unlikely.

If theirs is a formula not many have used before, The Avett Brothers are testing it well now, gradually accumulating legions of loyal fans and releasing five full-length studio records in as many years. As the band prepared to depart Ann Arbor, Mich. for Grand Rapids in May, Paste caught up with Scott to talk about creative consistency, time spent on the road and achieving the unexpected. They’re in the midst of yet another of their incessant tours, hopping from venue to venue, from one frantic crowd to the next.

This particular journey leads the group to a discographical destination as well as a physical one. On July 22, the Avetts will release The Second Gleam via longtime label Ramseur Records. It’s the aptly-named sequel to their only previous EP, 2006’s The Gleam, and it’s a pit stop on the road to their next full-length record, which they’ve slated to record later this year with a release in 2009.

Paste: The Second Gleam comes out in July. Can you tell me a little bit about the writing and recording process of it and what your listeners can expect?
Scott Avett: Well, the basis of the thing is in the beginning. The first Gleam that we made kind of sprung from the recording of “Famous Flower of Manhattan” from Four Thieves [Gone], where we were going to make the recording and we knew it had to be a one-take sort of thing. We knew it had to be Seth and I just sitting down, two chairs, two guitars, two microphones, and it had to be done all at once. We would just go in and every day we would just try it once or twice, or at least until we got warm, which might take two or three times. And if it didn’t happen, you’d say “Okay, let’s just try again tomorrow. It’s just got to be right.” And we did that for six or seven days until we got it, and we really enjoyed the process of the quiet and calm feeling of it. So we said, you pick three songs, I’ll pick three that I’ve been writing on my own, and let’s just make a record and we’ll base it on this theme of this song that was called “Sanguine.” It was speaking of “the gleam,” meaning the outer skirts of light of what we do as a primary operation. Not the leftovers, but the outer skirts of the light of it. So it had a good theme to it and it felt good to record. So we did the first one. And on the second one, we started recording it last April and sat on it, and thought it over and added songs, and then after we just completed a number of demos, into the 30 realm, we added two or three more songs to it, edited down some and added newer songs. It sticks somewhat to the theme and to the order of quietness and calmness and just Seth and I basically partnering in the recording and the writing. The songs aren’t quite as individually written as the first one was. There’s input from each other more so on this one than there was on the first. [Read more...]

[MP3] The Avett Brothers - "Paranoia In B-flat Major"

FOAVOD: José González on a Bonnaroo ferris wheel with Paste

Click here to watch.

P4K interviews the Black Lips

Good reading.

Pitchfork: How would you describe the band in five words or less?

Jared: The happy clown that cries.

I get so proud of Atlanta bands....

FOAVOD: Bon Iver - Take-Away Shows!!!!!!!!!!

No words, except maybe "SHEEEEP!"

Ahem.

Watch this:

#93.1 - BON IVER - Lump Sum
by lablogotheque

Then go here, watch the other two videos and read about it all in broken English. They seem to promise more are forthcoming. I think I'll be spending the days surrounding my birthday in August trying to drive to Tennessee to see this band play. They keep skipping Georgia on their U.S. tours. It's the only thing I could possibly say about Bon Iver that even approaches negative. These videos only prove my point. Can't wait.

When I saw that they had been posted, I actually vocalized something. By myself in my living room. I'm not sure if it was a scream or a gasp or what...kind of embarrassed about it now...but maybe that communicates my feelings better than any words ever could.

Shutting up now.

Live Review: Man Man / Yeasayer (Lenny's Bar 5/3/08)

(Photo credit)

I wrote this review for Stomp and Stammer's website. You can read more "Tales From The Moshpit" here.

Copy-pasting action:

If for nothing other than a sociological study on facial hair patterns in young adults, the Man Man and Yeasayer show at Lenny's would have been worth attending.

That being said, I'm glad this wasn't the first time I'd seen Yeasayer. The sound engineering this particular night did them no favors, mixing all the punch right out of Chris Keating's vocals — pretty much the whole draw of the band for me. Without it, their creations spiral downward toward — what did Jeff call their album? — "Airy, mystical shit that sounds like somebody got a ahold of a bunch of peyote and somebody's Johnny Clegg records." Well sure, Jeff, to me it gets that way if the sound in the club's bad. I really like 2007's All Hour Cymbals, even if it's a little far down the blissed-out spectrum for my usual tastes. You might feel the same, but once you see them live, you'll fall in love like I did. Keyword in that last sentence: "see." At the Lenny's show, I only heard them, and it just wasn't the same. I could digress at this point into an argument against Lenny's ever hosting acts that draw a crowd that large. The stage is too low to allow anyone under 6' a view of the action. (Not to mention their one-stall bathroom situation on a night when the crowd's at capacity...bad news.) Ordinarily, I love the way Keating convulses when he sings, as if the music may actually be killing him, gnawing out his internal organs, but he doesn't care — he'll fight through the pain to bring you, dear listener, the tune that may save your life instead. He sings like a musical martyr. I know that at another venue, Yeasayer both looks and sounds more compelling; all I experienced at this show was the shoulders of those next to me, the varying haircut profiles of the people in front, and lots and lots of projection screen psychedelia and bass. So. Much. Bass. The logistics of showgoing were so poor that night that I even danced to my favorite Yeasayer song, "Sunrise," with 12 of my closest friends in line for the ladies' room. Questionable venue choice to host two such high-profile and visually-stunning acts.

Yeasayer probably shared a good portion of the blame for the bar being so packed, but my instincts tell me it was mostly Man Man's fault. These men's popularity is, to me, unsurprising and incredibly well deserved. I can think of no music less pretty — or more beautiful. Lead-fellow Honus Honus (a.k.a. Ryan Kattner) writes the smartest music I ever hear, lyrically and melodically; it's technically worlds and worlds superior to what mostly passes as pop nowadays. The set for the night featured heaping helpings of material from their new Anti- Records debut, Rabbit Habits, like the frantic "Ballad of Butter Beans," the syncopated and moaning "Big Trouble" and the just-plain-effing-brilliant "Harpoon Fever (Queequeg's Playhouse)." Yes, that's a Moby-Dick reference. They sampled bits off their earlier releases as well, most memorably the slower and more nostalgic "Van Helsing Boombox" from 2006's Six Demon Bag as the final song in their much-cheered-for encore. The song features saloon piano, whistling and one of my favorite opening lines in all of music; "Only time will tell if I'll allow the scenery around to eat me alive," Honus croons gratingly over Pow Pow's gentle rim-tapping. While you're wondering what he might mean by that, the other boys are all busy. Honus climbs and kicks, playing his keys, but the others switch instruments. Guitar, bass, all kinds of brass and saxophone, and even more keys are represented (not to mention the occasional slide whistle). Pow Pow plays his drum kit side-by-side with Honus in front, the upright pole of his high hat sporting an impaled plastic rabbit and some feathers. The all-white all the guys wear contrasts with their unruly hair and sweaty skin streaked with face paint. Sometimes Honus plays a bowl of water as a percussion instrument. Tell me you wouldn't love to stare at all this forever if given the opportunity. I certainly wanted to, and was grumpy at being denied the vantage point, but as I've seen them play before, and Man Man makes me dance like a maniac, all was not lost. You don't even need eyes to appreciate something so viscerally compelling.

Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

At Mount Zoomer, the forthcoming full-length from indie rockers Wolf Parade, will release June 17th on Sub Pop. I've been intrigued by this band for a minute now, and I still can't get "Call It A Ritual" out of my head. Accordingly, I wrote a review of it for this month's issue of Stomp and Stammer. The 'zine also boasts a cover on Mudhoney, my one-sentence sum-up of Man Man's Rabbit Habits and loads of other reviews and whatnot. Recommended reading!



At Mount Zoomer:

This Montreal side-project-happy crew's second LP sounds like a buffet tastes. It starts fresh and new and delicious. "Soldier's Gun" whets the appetite as the leadoff track, the first sweet synthesizer notes and mellow vocals launching square into poppy, post new wave territory. We are suddenly awash in a bright, pointillist guitar-punctuated waltz with warbling harmonies from singer Dan Boeckner, whose voice and delivery style remind more than a little of VHS or Beta frontman Craig Pfunder. He wails about chemicals and radio wires, beginning the album's consistent exploration of disillusionment and the darker sides of modern life.... [Read more]

[MP3] Wolf Parade - "Language City"

FOAVOD: James Houston - "Big Ideas (Don't Get Any)"

This one's been all over the blogs, so many of you have probably seen it already. If you haven't though, check this out. It's by far my favorite version of Radiohead's "Nude."


Big Ideas (don't get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

FOAVOD: Jason Killingsworth interviews Rainn Wilson at Sasquatch!

Watch this. All I'll say is "Port-O-Potty."