Identity Theory Music Blog

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Best Albums of 2009

2010-01-23T13:40:00.028-05:00

I end every year by making a list of my favorite albums. Some years there are as many as 30 albums that I couldn't live without, but this year there were really only 10 for me. To be honest, the David Bazan and Fever Ray releases really monopolized a lot of my time. But there are some beautiful songs on all of the following ten, and I think a few of them are growers that I'll enjoy even more next year...

1. David Bazan - Curse Your Branches

2. Fever Ray - Fever Ray

3. The Antlers - Hospice

4. Robert Gomez - Pine Sticks & Phosphorus

5. Wilco - Wilco (The Album)

6. Kings of Convenience - Declaration of Dependence

7. Klum - We Carelessly Turned Amazingly Into Nothing

8. Devendra Banhart - What Will We Be

9. Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle

10. Andrew Bird - Noble Beast

A Week of Concerts in Denton, TX

2009-09-03T16:01:00.031-04:00

This past February, I spent a month in the mythologized town of Marfa, TX, recording an album with Robert Gomez for a project which has since been named Ormonde. I returned to Texas last Friday (this time to Denton, where Robert lives) to work on final mixes. Since it's his home studio and he has the better ear, Robert does most of the work while I hover nearby and generally approve of everything. I have also had time to slip out to several concerts, and will be playing one myself here in Denton in two days.

On my second evening in town, I ended up at the home of local musician Andy Odom (Hope Trust), where there was an intimate house concert lit with candles, pepperoni pizza contributed by Eric Pulido (Midlake), and Andy's own home brewed beer. I had gone primarily to see a solo set by Jeremy Buller (who my band Trespassers William recently toured with), which was as creative and intimate as one could hope. Lots of loops and a zoo of guitar pedals, two mics set up that he stepped back and forth between, a brief appearance of an accordion just acquired for free that week. Closing the evening, Mara & Ryan of Bosque Brown took the floor with an electric guitar and pedal steel, playing their first pared down two-man set in preparation for their European dates next month. Mara's voice was huge and pretty and they filled the room with reverb.

The following day, I spent a good six hours at Dan's Silverleaf as there was a free outdoor concert of all local artists, followed by an amplified set inside the venue. I was already familiar with all of the bands playing, as Robert had schooled me on the Denton music scene. But familiar or no, it was one of the most impressive line-ups I've ever seen in one place. Dust Congress played first, with a full sized marimba and upright bass set up on the patio, singer Nick Foreman often playing banjo, drums, and singing all at once, and without a microphone. I had gone primarily to hear Sarah Jaffe, who played second, accompanied by Jeremy Buller on guitar and Casio, and a violinist who supplied some beautiful vocal harmonies as well. With only the electric guitar plugged in to anything, the three-piece had the audience silent and knit in a tight circle to hear Sarah's sweet songs as the hot Texas temperature dropped. Third was a powerhouse of a solo set by Chris Flemmons of the Baptist Generals, who strummed a guitar that sounded like it was falling apart, shoes off, breaking into his first song by walking in circles around the audience with the opening lyric: "Shut your mouth..." Apparently Chris isn't playing any more solo shows for some time, and it was awesome. And I am lucky.

Spent the next few hours talking shop with the aforementioned artists and members of Midlake. We moved inside later in the evening to see a performance by Matthew & the Arrogant Sea, also from Denton and signed to the local label Nova Posta Vinyl. Singer Matthew Gray has a voice as strong as a trumpet but awfully pretty to listen to. The whole evening of music impressed me enough to almost make me want to move to Denton. Perhaps...

I'll be back at Dan's Silverleaf on Saturday to play two separate sets. One for my solo project (Lotte Kestner), and then, for the first time, Ormonde.

The Three Biggest Reasons Music Mags are Dying

2009-07-29T14:23:00.002-04:00

Slate has an excellent article tracing the root causes of the recent demises of Vibe, Blender and other music magazines.

Their three reasons for the decline of the music mag:

1. There are fewer superstars, and the same musicians show up on every magazine cover.

2. Music mags have less to offer music lovers, and music lovers need them less than ever anyway.

3. Music magazines were an early version of social networking. But now there's this thing called "social networking."

Read the full article here.

Bonnaroo Blog: The rest of Friday; a very long Saturday

2009-06-19T16:12:00.004-04:00

Admittedly, I am late in posting the balance of my thoughts, observations, and analysis on the Bonnaroo weekend. Then again, I did beat Robert Smigel to publishing his account, and he's getting paid!

I actually had a few more grafs written for the last music post, but they got lost in the ether, and now I can't really remember what I had written. Judging from my level of intoxication, it probably wasn't very good.

I caught half of the Beastie Boys -- the other half I listened to them from my campsite, while following Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals on satellite radio. The set was really heavy on Ad-Rock, MCA, and Mike D playing instruments with some other band members, which was a surprise, as I was expecting 3 MCs and 1 DJ the entire time. I enjoyed the 90 minutes they played, but would have liked to hear about 30 more minutes, in which they played the rest of their hits (among others, "Fight For Your Right" and "Brass Monkey" were missing) and maybe did another song with Nas.

I wanted to go all night, but was tired and knew that Saturday was going to be a full day, so I went back to camp and listened to the end of David Byrne and most of Phish's late night set from my tent. I drifted in and out during the Phish show, and found it most agreeable to fall asleep to. Whether or not it contributed to my nightmares, I am not sure. Also, their cover of "A Day In the Life" woke me up at 2:20 -- I was happy with this, as it sounded wonderful.

Saturday started off with exactly as much Jimmy Buffett as I wanted. Which is about 40 minutes. I've been to his 3 hour shows (includes intermission) on several occasions, and felt myself drift at points, but here he put out all his hits, and introduced us to Ilo Ferreira, who it seems was having immigration issues, warranting the call for backup, as they didn't confirm his performance until late that week.

I then walked over and caught the tail end of Elvis Perkins in Dearland. His live show rocks -- the band is well-suited to the stage, taking his folk music and injecting infectious energy. Doomsday benefits most from the live treatment, and brought the tent down. At this performance, I was told to check out Bon Iver later that day on the same stage, who joined Dearland for their finale. I probably didn't give them enough time (whose fault is that?), but the first song was slow and a turn-off, and I went for a walk in the campgrounds.

When I got back, it was time for dinner, which I ate while listening to the Mars Volta. While they were a band I was excited about, they also lent themselves nicely to being background noise. And then it was time for Bruce.

Springsteen put on one hell of a show. I was excited about this most about the weekend, and, to my surprise, a lot of the younger kids were too. While I spent the entire show within feet of the stage, and thus have no account of the rest of the crowd, I was told that the sing-along parts of the show were well-heeded in the back. Up front, I wasn't the only guy singing every word. Most notable was the close of the show -- during this tour, Bruce and the Band played, at various shows, "American Land", "Rosalita", "Glory Days", and "Dancing in the Dark" to end the encore; this night, he played all 4 in succession.

I then shot over to Nine Inch Nails for what Trent Reznor declared the last NIN show in America. While there's been talk about this being a farewell tour, I dismissed it as hype to increase attendance, as the show I went to for his last tour was about half-full, and a small venue at that. However, I read that he's found a woman he's living with now, and now I feel my theory has a bit of a hole in it. If he's happy, it must surely be hard to play this sort of show. At any rate, he played it like a finale, with reckless abandon, playing songs I've never heard before, throwing instruments, and all with an energy fitting a curtain call.

And then I found myself, at 3AM, very tired and scrambling for my tent. I walked by moe. and MGMT, and, though they sounded good, I resolved that even if the Beatles had miraculously reincarnated, reunited, and were playing with special guest Zombie Janis Joplin, I would have to pass, based on exhaustion. And then MGMT struck up "Kids", and I found myself dancing, with energy I didn't know I had. I was up until moe. stopped playing, which, as far as I could tell, was just before sunrise.

Sunday, the weather cooperated, and it stayed cool and overcast until about 11AM, allowing me some much-needed sleep.

Bonnaroo Blog: Now with 100% more music!

2009-06-12T20:01:00.004-04:00

OK, these blogs have been woefully short of actual music content. Allow me to remedy this:

Once, I watched the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on HDNet in Central Park. Karen O was nuts -- writhing on stage, ripping off stuff, just really going crazy. Today, she sang very well, but didn't have the same insane energy I saw on TV. Also, some instrument wasn't tuned right for "Maps", the YYYs' proclaimed #1 song, so Karen did it acoustic. While cool and rare and enjoyable to hear, it lost a bit of its emotional punch. Still a good set, though.

I was going to see Ani DiFranco, but as I was getting food (which is disappointedly hit-or-miss, and hereon I avoid kebabs) Al Green struck up -- his energy and charisma got me to stay and check it out. I think it was Rolling Stone who said he could have off nights, but he was ON tonight. No one's here expressly to see Al, but the crowd got into it quite a bit.

Bonnaroo Blog: Going solo

2009-06-12T16:27:00.001-04:00

So another thing I didn't mention earlier: I'm here by myself. But the thing about Bonnaroo is, that's not really a problem. You make friends with your neighbors and you hang out and get drunk or stoned and it's a blast. Everyone's naturally really cool and really friendly; everyone helps each other out.

Most of the people I've talked to are excited for Phish. Less so for Bruce. No one's even talked about the Beastie Boys.

Photos, informal surveys, and more observations to come. On tap this evening: the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Ani DiFranco, the Beasties (minus MCA, per Twitter rumors), Phish, Public Enemy (FLAVOR FLAV!), and Paul Oakenfold, if my stamina holds out.

Bonnaroo Blog: The drive

2009-06-11T15:43:00.005-04:00

Some of you die-hard IDTheory readers may remember me as the "Guy With The Biggest Car", or as the least-prolific blogger on "The Token Republicans". Anyway, I'm about to leave for Bonnaroo, and I'll be posting dispatches, photos, and other fun stuff here, for those of you with the good sense to stay indoors and not brave 90-degree heat and wicked thunderstorms, like the one that greeted early arrivals to Manchester, TN. Rumors have circulated that lightning struck the main stage, and there should be a wave of nasty weather every day during the weekend.

The hardest part about Bonnaroo might be getting in -- despite the best efforts of Tennessee law enforcement, I-24 backs up for hours on this Thursday with tens of thousands of cars, RVs, and VW Minibuses trying to clear security and set up camp. Thursday is billed as an official Bonnaroo day now, as compared to my last trip there 4 years ago, but there's still little on the bill tonight -- some bands that haven't caught commercial success playing the 3 smaller "tent" stages, and the opening sets of the comedy shows, who will also play tomorrow.

As a guide for what to expect from this blogging, you might want to know the following:

I haven't seen Phish before. I like a couple of their songs (Waste and Bathtub Gin come to mind), but my extent with their live performance is Trey playing with other people. I hope I'm pleasantly surprised with what I see/hear, but I wouldn't be shocked if their Friday late-night set leaves me cold and bruised with glow sticks.
This will be the third time I've seen the Boss this year: I was at the Super Bowl and attended their Atlanta show. I enjoy most of Springsteen's work, and am excited to see what he does with a stadium-sized crowd for 3 hours.
I've seen Nine Inch Nails at Pemberton Festival last year and in Orlando. The festival set was much tighter and benefitted from trimming the Ghosts instrumentals Trent et. al. played as a headliner.
I saw Snoop Dogg play a short set as part of the Linkin Park traveling show a few years back. I was thoroughly unimpressed. I'll still go see him Sunday, though.
I'm excited about seeing MGMT, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Ilo and the Coral Reefer All-Stars (with special guest Jimmy Buffett), Ani DiFranco, Public Enemy, Paul Oakenfold, Erkyah Badu, and the Beastie Boys for the first time.

There's more to the festival than the music -- I'll also be exploring the comedy. Every set features high-wattage stars, including Janeane Garofalo, Robert Smigel, Jimmy Fallon, and Michael Ian Black & Michael Showalter, to skim the surface. But more than just a summary of what played and who sounded good, I'm trying to report on the experience. More to come.

Sergius Gregory making quiet music in Homer, Alaska

2009-04-15T20:12:00.013-04:00

Sergius Gregory has taken the musician-in-a-cabin experiment leaps farther than the likes of Bon Iver. After living in Hawaii, Oregon, New York, and Pennsylvania, he has spent the last few years in Homer, Alaska, holing away in the winters in his own cabin with an 8-track and a handful of instruments. And, finding Homer to be growing too rapidly, with people migrating from Anchorage and building big new houses, he is planning to move across the water to a smaller town that can only be reached by plane.

Sergius' songs are rich with experience, despite the fact that he spends his winters alone. He has spent the past few summers traveling across Eastern Europe, shooting pictures and playing shows across Romania - picking up musicians to play with as he goes, and gathering material that he saves for the period of creation when he returns to Alaska. He refers to this as "molting," a recurring theme of the ten new songs he is just finishing up and preparing to release as an album.

Seeing as Sergius' music has never properly been released, other than his own generous file sharing on sites like GarageBand and BETA, it is good news that his new songs are not a far cry from what he has produced in the past. Though, as he explains, he has better microphones now that pick up his voice more clearly, and a superior 8-track recorder. He describes the new songs as "emotionally intense," and he is just putting the final touches on the last three songs.

I find myself constantly returning to his MySpace page and searching the internet for old demos that he has strewn about for people to download. The music is immediate, however much reverb encases it. His voice sounds like felt on piano keys, so careful and soft. He deprecates himself gently and celebrates his solitude. His melodies are like something Morrissey would've written, but all out of focus. I want to hear this music over and over, and I want everyone else to get to hear it. Listen.

Flaming Lips headlining Earth Day show in D.C.

2009-04-14T14:08:00.004-04:00

Just saw on the wires that the Flaming Lips are heading up an Earth Day show in D.C. on the National Mall.

Chevy Chase is also going to be part of the festivities, which pretty much juxtaposes one of my favorite bands of the last 20 years with...one of the worst actors of the last 30 years.

When I think Earth Day, I can sort of see the Flaming Lips, but Clark Griswold promoting environmentalism? That sounds like a bad SNL skit.

Here's a clip of a live performance of the Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize???":

Decoding that song from Twilight

2009-04-10T10:33:00.003-04:00

Call me a teenage girl, but I can't stop listening to that song from Twilight this morning. You know, the one by that singer who sounds like Avril Lavigne but isn't from Canada as far as I know. I don't like any of her other songs, but this one from the teenage vampire movie is catchy, I guess because it conveys what I imagine people who are into that series must be feeling. Incidentally, I am listening to it out of fascination with the fact that the Twilight book series accounted for 16% of all book sales in the first quarter of 2009. I haven't read the books or seen the movie and couldn't name any characters, but I feel like I've somehow experienced the whole franchise by hearing this song. Which might be an absurd thing to say, but we're all allowed certain creative and intellectual "liberties" on Good Friday.

Leonard Cohen's "Live in London"

2009-04-02T13:47:00.009-04:00

It seems fitting to launch the Identity Theory music blog with news about Leonard Cohen.

This week, our Canadian Zen Buddhist folk hero/poet released 'Live In London', a collection of 25 songs from his July 2008 performance at London's O2 Arena.

While Live in London is available as a 2-CD set and as a DVD, the Montreal Gazette recommends the latter:

"The DVD version of the concert includes the song lyrics, but otherwise offers no extra material. With its fine camerawork and superior sound, however, it's the more satisfying experience. Where else, for example, could you catch such a perfect guaranteed-smile moment as Cohen breaking into a little two-step shuffle after singing 'There’ll be fires on the road and the white man dancing' in The Future?"

View clips:

You can also listen to the streaming CD version online for free here. (Via LHB).

If the CDs or DVD don't satisfy your urge to see L. Cohen's live act, you can try to catch him on his current world tour, where perhaps you will be able to dance him to the end of love.