Live Review: Starfucker @ Drunken Unicorn, 4/25/09

For Atlanta Music Guide:

Live Review: Starfucker @ Drunken Unicorn, April 24


After two-piece Guidance Counselor, who shared drummer Keil Corcoran with the headliners, played to a moderate Saturday night crowd, the aforementioned headliners took the stage without all the attention-grubbing, social climbing behavior their band’s name might suggest. Leaving affectation at the door, Portland quartet Starfucker humbly launched into a mixture of tracks from their self-titled debut and from their forthcoming eight-song record Jupiter, out next month via Badman Recording Co.

Starfucker plays pop, the kind that relies heavily on synthesizer melodies, dance hall beats, bouncing guitar hooks and Josh Hodges’ breathy vocals, and the Unicorn was absolutely full of all of it. Though certainly not the only song with a transcendent, shiny dance vibe to it, the standout of the night had to be “Laadeedaa,” from Starfucker. It features a repetitive guitar riff that’s got a frantic, too-quick quality about it, to the point that when I heard the first notes of the song, my curiosity turned toward whether they’d be able to pull it off faithfully live. But pull it off they did (I made sure to watch the guitarist’s fingers to suss out whether the riffs were pre-recorded or not), along with feats from all of their other compositions, all performed enthusiastically to a boogeying audience...[Read more]

[MP3] Starfucker - "Myke Ptsyson"

Phosphorescent + Willie Nelson = BFF

I wonder if, when Phosphorescent released their To Willie album earlier this year, Matthew Houck imagined that it would reach the ears of Willie Nelson himself. Or, moreover, that Nelson would enjoy it and approach him.

Well, whether he foresaw it or not, that's exactly what has happened. Not only did Houck and his band attend a Willie Nelson show recently and get invited onto the tour bus to meet the family, etc. (Houck gushes about it here), but they've also been summoned to perform on "Willie's Place," Nelson's Sirius radio show in honor of his birthday. It'll air today at 9 p.m. EST on Sirius Radio channel 64 and XM 13.

Most awesomely for Phos, here's the promo for the appearance Willie recorded.

Record Review: Wavves - Wavvves

Appearing in this month's Stomp and Stammer:

Wavves - Wavvves
[Fat Possum]

Nathan Williams is certainly not the first artist to center his work around damaged guitar riffs, malaise or the woes of beach life, but he just may be the very best one this year. Wielding his anguish about “going nowhere” (“Beach Demon”) and being “so bored” (“So Bored”) like weapons, and with his penchant for pop punk hooks, Williams as the entirety of buzz band Wavves is making….you know…with his second LP, released in March via Fat Possum Records. It’s the follow-up to his self-titled debut (the one with one less V in the name than the current record), which has been on the shelves less than a year; it even features a couple of the same songs. To say, therefore, that the record (and the Wavves catalogue as a whole, really) can be a listened to as one solid thought is a bit of an understatement. It is one thought...[Read more]

Stuff that will rock. Part 2.

Above: Cursive

Upcoming show awesomeness:

On May 1, Omaha's Cursive and Philly's Man Man will play the Variety Playhouse right here in the ATL.

Now. We all know the FOA opinion on Man Man. There's a lot of screaming and dancing, etc. Case in point. But let's not forget our headliner, who released Mama, I'm Swollen on Saddle Creek Records in March. It's the latest full-length in their rather prolific career. Here's the single:

[MP3] Cursive - "From The Hips"

It's a show that will rock.


Also, The National hits Atlanta's Tabernacle May 27th. Bonnie "Prince" Billy hits the Variety May 29th. Bon Iver hits the Variety June 7th.

And tonight, Lazer/Wulf plays with McClane at East Atlanta's 529. It will rock, too.

It'll all rock.

FOAVOD: Man Man - "Rabbit Habbits"

Want to see some romance/werewolf drama set to a great song? Then watch this!

Bon Iver + Bowerbirds + Avett Brothers + Shearwater = The Daredevil Christopher Wright

I have a new band to recommend: They're called The Daredevil Christohper Wright, and no one in the band is named Christopher or Wright. Like a gorgeous, reckless chamber ensemble, these guys make pretty, messy folk. It's the way to my heart.

You can stream their forthcoming release, In Deference To A Broken Back at Eau Claire's VolumeOne.org. And please do.

Live Review: Phosphorescent, Deer Tick, Magic Apron @ Drunken Unicorn 3/25/09

For Stomp and Stammer's Tales From The Moshpit section:

Live Review: Phosphorescent, Deer Tick, Magic Apron @ Drunken Unicorn 3/25/09

Written by Julia Reidy
It was fitting music to accompany having to drive around my dad’s pickup truck while my car was in the shop. After awkwardly parking it across the street, I walked in on an abnormally full Drunken Unicorn out of the unseasonably cold drizzle outside. Atlanta boy-girl duo Magic Apron was already on stage, producing their ethereal dual-guitar folk, resonant the way only miked acoustics can be, when you can hear each steel string ringing individually as if it were inside you. The crowd seemed to shift uncomfortably from foot to foot, eagerly awaiting buzz band Deer Tick’s arrival...[Read more]

Aaron Desner talks to P4K

There's a really excellent interview with Aaron Dessner of The National on Pitchfork right now. It's probably better than mine was last year. Humph.

Excerpt, on the new National record, which will apparently not be a Civil War theme album:
We're kind of in the early stages, but we're getting into it. In a way, we're further along than we were at this stage of Boxer because we actually have songs. With Boxer, we were sort of spinning our wheels without songs for the early part of it. The way we work, it just takes a really long time to turn these amorphous turds of rock songs into something that lasts and is interesting and has elbows and is special.

He also talks about the Red Hot compilation Dark Was The Night he and his brother Bryce curated. Recommended reading.

The National will be at the Tabernacle in Atlanta on May 27.

Stuff that will rock. Part 1.

It's Spring. Which means the world of music releases will soon EXPLODE. Ok, maybe not quite explode, but maybe pop? Not that kind of pop...anyway.

What I mean is, there are many upcoming releases about which I'm understandably excited. I thought I might bring a few of them to your attention. Of course, Pitchfork's got a comprehensive list of Spring releases here...as always, the resented tastemakers give us exactly what we need and we just have to roll our eyes and accept it. For a bit more personal take, keep reading.

1. Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer, rel. 6/23/09 (Jagjaguwar)



It's still too early to see any "premature evaluation"-type posts (has it even leaked?), but I'm sure it'll be great. I've been a little addicted to Spencer Krug since last year's Wolf Parade release, At Mount Zoomer. I'm sure this next will be no less awesome (if not more so, since I tend to like his Sunset Rubdown work a bit better than Wolf Parade releases). Stereogum has a tracklisting for the new album here, if you're interested.

The awesomeness of which Sunset Rubdown is capable:


2. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest, rel. 5/26/09 (Warp)



Even in dire financial straits, somehow Grizzly Bear and Department of Eagles records get bought with my wallet...I'm not really sure how it happens. Grizzly Bear's latest, named after an uninhabited Massachusetts island, apparently, is one of the most anticipated of the year for many of our ilk, promising orchestral pop the likes of which has never been heard! (Excuse my hyperbole.)

My favorite song from their previous LP, Yellow House:


Also, Ed Droste is very amusing on Twitter.



I caved too. Follow me on Twitter if you're into that sort of thing.

To be continued...

Record Review: Madeline - White Flag

For Atlanta Music Guide:

Madeline
White Flag
Orange Twin

By Julia Reidy

It’s unfortunate that the first comparison we’re inclined to make when it comes to female singer-songwriters is who else’s voice theirs resembles. In this case, though, it seems a dual and unavoidable comparison. Athens, Ga.’s Madeline Adams, on her third full-length release at least, sounds like Regina Spektor in her lower range and is a dead ringer for a young Joni Mitchell (before the cigarette-addled smokiness) in her upper register.

But Madeline has cut her own unique path through songstress land. With a musical career behind her that started when she was 15 and was nurtured by basically the whole of Orange Twin and the current Athens Elephant 6 contingent, White Flag gets a helping hand from Claire and Page Campbell of Hope For Agoldensummer, Matt Stoessel of South San Gabriel and John Fernandes of Olivia Tremor Control, while still maintaining Madeline’s individual songwriting identity...[Read more]

[MP3] Madeline - "Jive Talking"

Omaha

"I could have easily left this city for hers; there is little here to keep me. But she was in college, and I wanted finish the semester's classes, and so we felt compelled to stay where we were. I cannot count the times I have cursed our lack of urgency. If I ever love again, I will not wait to love as best I can. We though we were young and that there would be time to love well sometime in the future. This is a terrible way to think. It is no way to live, to wait to love."
-Dave Eggers, What Is The What

[MP3] Tapes 'N Tapes - "Omaha"

FOAVOD: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - "Statues"

CYHSY debuted a new song on Jimmy Fallon's show last night, apparently. It's funny, I thought I remembered hearing something about how they might be on hiatus and not writing anymore, etc....Oh well, happy to be wrong! The songs is good, too. Enjoy!

Urgh

Why am I a writer??!!!

This story might kill me.


Other people should be writers, however. Take, for instance, Bryan's shot at reviewing Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavillion for Flagpole. Recommended reading! So proud!

Also, R.I.P. Randy Bewley. You will be missed.

Black Lips - 200 Million Thousand

For Atlanta Music Guide:

Black Lips
200 Million Thousand
Vice Records

By Julia Reidy

As one of Atlanta’s most rapidly maturing acts of recent years, the Black Lips already Let It Bloom, and now they’ll “Let It Grow.” The latter, the fourth track to their fifth studio album, 200 Million Thousand (their third record for Vice), introduces the listener to more of what they’d expect from the irreverent flower punk four-piece — whining garage guitar; yelled, often incoherent, slurred vocals; a drunken aural atmosphere that almost seeps beer through headphones or speaker banks. But, as so often seems to happen when fans start to predict a band’s future direction, they’ve veered a bit off the path they set for themselves with 2007’s fantastic Good Bad Not Evil. They’ll develop a different way.

Rather than continuing to make their songs more hook-centric and deliberate with each release, the Black Lips have turned toward more echo and psychedelia, even opting for slower garage tempos over breakneck punk pacing. No track on 200 Million Thousand is quite as grimily charming as “Veni Vidi Vici,” for instance, or as adorably anarchic as “Bad Kids” (both from Good Bad Not Evil). Instead, we’re given the warbling vocals, silly falsetto backup and bells of “Trapped in a Basement” and the swaggering, reverb-heavy half-rap of “The Drop I Hold.”

As always, the Black Lips have a knack for walking the line between complete lyrical frivolity and topical poignancy. No songwriting moment on 200 Million mimics the timeliness of Good Bad’s “O Katrina!” but “Big Black Baby Jesus of Today” certainly doesn’t shy away from controversy. Even the seemingly lighthearted “Drugs” touches on a theme that seems to pop up repeatedly in the band’s material. One of the final lines of the song — which also discusses cruising around, taking drugs and hanging out with friends — says, “I hope they follow me,” expressing a wish that these good times (and the people that constitute them) will last forever. It mirrors the end of “Transcendental Light,” the final track from Good Bad, and maybe at its core reflects a fundamental anxiety about the fact that the carefree life can only be an ephemeral one...[Read more]


(I think I need to work on word variety a little...)
The Black Lips are playing the Variety on Friday with Atlas Sound and Gentleman Jesse...should be a good time!


Oh hey, did I ever show y'all my review of the Women record for this months Stomp and Stammer?

Live Review: Au, Tealights, Sleep Creeps @ The Earl 2/2/09

Written for StompAndStammer.com's Tales From The Moshpit section:

Au; Tealights; Sleep Creeps @ The Earl, 2/2/09

Written by Julia Reidy
Dana Valatka had forgotten to grab the tomato-shaped shaker when he picked up his drumsticks. He got up again, nestled it in one palm, and looked over significantly at Luke Wyland, Au’s songwriter and leader of the Portland recording collective, who was settling himself, shoeless, behind a keyboard, melodica and lap steel. They made eye contact for the first of many times during the set, when they would give each other nonverbal cues, or, more notably, sing or scream until it looked like the veins would pop out of their earnest foreheads. The meager crowd had rushed forward before Wyland had a chance to bid us to the front of the stage; we formed two straggling, expectant rows, eager to prove that though attendance was low, enthusiasm was high. They raised their arms above their heads, and with one synchronized motion began the noisy, beautiful, incendiary show that would follow... [Read more]

Au:


I really love this band. Check them out on their MySpace.