4 a.m. stolen moments

("The Cat Burglar" by Will Bullas)

While I'm still waiting to get my cable/internet hooked up in my new apartment, I just managed to sneak onto someone's signal this morning. I've only managed to piggyback onto this strange signal one other time in my week here, so I'm going to abuse it before it's gone in the morning like all the women in my life.

That's not true at all. I just wanted to sound like Mickey Spillane, okay? There aren't even women in my life.

Since I'm at the mercy of a complete stranger's wireless signal, I'm going to make this a speedy entry. Here are a few quiet disasters, classic rockers and other ephemera for you to enjoy on your own late, sleepless nights.

"Nothing Up My Sleeve" by WILCO: This track, a demo from the YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT sessions, is like the morose, beat-down twin of the Beatles' "Two of Us." It has almost the same tempo and that galloping pitter-patter "beat" (played on the Wilco track by slapping the body of a guitar). "Your phone won't ever ring in the middle of the night. And if it ever does, I can assure you it won't be me." A great kiss-off song.

"Follow if You Can" by WE THE PEOPLE: I don't know a damned thing about this band. I originally got the track from one of my favorite blogs, Soul Sides (this link takes you to to the November 2004 post, archived at about the middle of the page), who says the band is from Peru. Why did the same band show up on the Nuggets II box set, though? I thought that set was all UK acts. I'm sure O-Dub over at Soul Sides knows more about We All Together than I do, so take his word over mine fo' sho'. (Upon further review, Soul Sides includes a link to this bio of the band. So, I'll shut up now.)

"Options R (Star)" by WIRE: From the absolutely essential debut album PINK FLAG comes this groovy less-than-2-minute chunk of punk that makes you want to dance like Molly Ringwald in "The Breakfast Club." This wasn't originally included on the record, but you can find it pretty commonly now as a bonus track.

"Ride Into the Sun" by THE VELVET UNDERGROUND: A song I don't feel needs any description whatsoever. If you don't own any VU at this point, I can't help you. May God have mercy on your soul.

"New Jersey" by RED HOUSE PAINTERS: I wrote about Mark Kozelek once on my short-lived first attempt at a music blog. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who can pen a sadder song than that guy. (Even his cover songs will break your heart. Clock what the brother does with John Denver on his cover of "I'm Sorry"!) His greatest songwriting achievement, for me, may be this track, which appeared in this version on the "Bridge" self-titled RHP album, and appeared in this alternate version on the "Rollercoaster" album that was released simultaneously. The lyrics here are absolutely killer. "You're an American girl / red-headed, eyes blank / living in a freckle on the face of the world. / Another dying kid that learned too much too soon / You're not as good as your mom / but you're as good as dead." I personally prefer the full band version, but I had to provide you with both so you could decide for yourself.

FOR MORE ON TONIGHT'S ARTISTS:

The official Wilco homepage
Wire's site
Links to Wire MP3 samples and videos
An unofficial Velvet Underground site
Mark Kozelek's new band, Sun Kil Moon
John Denver's discography

PINBACK: Protect! Embrace! Engulf!

I've been in Omaha for about 5 days now, and in that time I've been to three concerts of varying degrees of professionalism. It's always good to see my friend Sarah's band, THE SPRINGHILL MINE DISASTER (a Richard Brautigan ref. for those who might be curious... I myself wrote a song once with a Brautigan reference called "Spinning on the Bottom of a Top"), and if you ever get the chance, you should, too.

Last night I had the chance to finally see Pinback, a San Diego band who recently (okay, back in October of 2004) released their fantastic third album, SUMMER IN ABADDON on Touch & Go records. I'd been reading about Pinback for a while, and they've been gradually picking up steam/popularity after the 1999 release of their self-titled debut.

Listening to the band on record, you'll notice the songs are full of these intricate little bass, guitar and rhythym segments that, in my mind, could have been assembled with a computer program. It wasn't until I started hearing live tracks on various blogs that I realized that this was a fully formed band that was able to not only duplicate these songs in a live setting, but could also propel them even faster and more bouncy than on record.

The first Pinback song I really fell for was "Crutch". a droning little ditty with obscure lyrics like "Some sit down / Let the rest decide / Over what divided you." It has just the right mix of sadness and head-bobbing poppiness.

You may have heard one of the band's newer songs on television. "Afk" is currently being featured in commercials for the new Nintendo portable player. Apparently, the band's "Where to play?" lyric caught the ears of some pothead indie rocker working at Nintendo's ad agency. I'm glad, because I'm sure the sizeable check written to Pinback will be enough to help them get by on an indie band's salary for years to come. Plus, this song absolutely whips ass.

Last night, Pinback also played a charged up version of "Penelope", another favorite track of mine from the BLUE SCREEN LIFE LP. This song really showcases the dual vocals of Zach Smith and Rob Crow -- one sings the dreamier, airy vocals while the other sounds like he's singing through a vocoder. I found out last night that he's not treating his vocals; he actually sings like that.

The crowd favorite last night had to have been "Prog", a song which embodies its namesake with crazy time signatures and noodly guitar work. If I'm not mistaken, this was the set closer, and it really got the Omaha Hipster crowd hopping and acting out all of their hilariously well-rehearsed Britt Daniel dance moves.

With the show over, I returned to my apartment with my roommate and finished out the evening sharing a few beers and listening to music. As we relaxed, Pinback's "Trainer" came on my iTunes party shuffle. On the verge of passing out in my seat, these lines jumped out at me:

"Stick your arm inside the mirror,
Crawl back into bed.
Take a swim inside the mirror.
Exactified.
Exhausted."


FOR MORE ON PINBACK:

Grab some free MP3's from their site.
The Pitchfork review of SUMMER IN ABADDON
Pinback at Touch and Go Records
Video for "AFK"

O M A H A

The time is almost here. I'm packing up boxes upon boxes of CDs, books, photos and crap crap crap in preparation for my move back to my old hometown: Omaha, Nebraska.

The funniest thing about my return to that city over 10 years since I last considered it home is that now there's actually a music scene. It's not large (thought it sometimes thinks it is), but it's far more impressive and fruitful than the one that existed when I was growing up there. I tried as much as I could to support the scene back then, when the only real indie shows that came through town were held at the Cog Factory, a tiny little room that could become the hottest room on the planet on a humid summer night.

I once gave a cigarette to a nervous-looking Doug Martsch of Built to Spill there. I didn't even know who he was... I just figured he was some weird cat who hung out downtown at the Antiquarium book/record store. Turned out he was the leader of the band I was going to see that night.

Back then, bands really had to bust ass in that town to make a ripple in a virtually non-existant music scene. One of my favorite groups at the time was a Lincoln band called Mercy Rule. They were a trio lead by husband and wife guitarists, and they always played shows with three huge lights at their feet, so they looked massive on the walls behind them. Of course, I would have to leave Nebraska before I'd ever see them play live, in Columbia, Missouri. If I were forced to say what their "hit" song was, I'd say it was "Time of Day" from their debut, GOD PROTECTS FOOLS.

At that same Cog Factory, I once chatted with a geeky looking 14 year old kid who was gaining a little buzz as the new town prodigy -- a songwriter and guitarist for a band called Commander Venus. That kid was Conor Oberst. Here's him singing in just as squeaky of a voice on that band's "It's Fun to Grow Ornamental Peppers". For Bright Eyes fans, be forewarned: Conor is actually having a little fun here, so please hold your tissues and your tears.

Since Omaha is what I'd call a relatively small "medium-sized" town, I gradually came to realize how insular and incestuous the music scene (or really, any music scene) was. I sat next to a guy in one of my writing classes named Duncan Joyner, whose brother Simon also attended school with my brother a few years before. Simon would basically become a sort of godfather for what would become the Saddle Creek scene in Omaha, providing the blueprint for the folky misery that Oberst would ride to success. "The Simultaneous Occurance of True Love and Nausea in a South Omaha Burger King" is one of Joyner's earliest recordings, and a bit of a rarity if you've ever heard the guy. I think I once got a fried pork sandwich in that same Burger King.

If that example wasn't flimsy enough, I once worked a track meet for the Omaha Public Schools with a guy named Steve Pedersen. Steve and I were two of the only people tapped to stay behind after the meet and clean up the entire stadium over the course of a few days. Steve was in a little band called Slowdown Virginia, who had great songs like "Juan Pablo Shoe".

Steve's band also included Tim Kasher and Matt Maginn (the trio would later morph with one of Pedersen's other bands to form Cursive, undeniably one of Omaha's greatest bands), and their label Lumberjack Records would soon become Saddle Creek. I can't say enough good things about Cursive. One of the best tracks from the Pedersen era (he would leave the band for law school in 1998) is "The Road to Financial Stability," from STORMS OF EARLY SUMMER: SEMANTICS OF SONG. That off-kilter riff is 100% Steve.

After Pedersen left, Cursive's future was in question until the band added Ted Stevens. Ted had been in a band called Pole Cat (playing with a drummer named Boz Hicks, who was in my first little goof-off high school band with my friend Steve), and then in a band I have mentioned here before, Lullaby for the Working Class. As you can hear on "Honey, Drop the Knife" from BLANKET WARM, this wasn't exactly the same kind of band.

Doesn't matter, because when Ted joined Cursive, the band just got even better. They recorded a near masterpiece in DOMESTICA, and then added one key ingredient that completed the band's sound: a cellist named Gretta Cohn. Her presence on subsequent recordings like the 8 TEETH TO EAT YOU ep or THE UGLY ORGAN elevate the music above mere emo-hardcore-melodic-punk. Want proof? Listen to "Am I Not Yours?", "Art is Hard", or that fantastic breakdown on "Some Redhanded Sleight of Hand" and tell me that cello doesn't whoop more ass than a cello should.

Tim Kasher is the key ingredient for me, and his recent work with one of his side projects, The Good Life, has been as good as anything he has done with Cursive. The band's "new" album, ALBUM OF THE YEAR, is more sonically interesting, with a number of instruments and some subtle production nuances that really add to the ambience of loss on the record. It's a combination of Leonard Cohen, Wilco and Bauhaus, especially on "A New Friend". The lyrics are what really slay here, telling the story of drunken love gone wrong for all the usual reasons: "She said 'Space is not just a place for stars / I give an inch, you want a house with a yard" (from "Album of the Year").

I don't know who I'll be saddling up next to at the bar when I return home in a few days. I just hope I can pick up my guitar and give back to a few of these folks just a fraction of what some of them have given to me over the years.

This will probably be my last post until the move on Sunday. I'll see you at the 49'er, kids.

RADIOHEAD: I can feel the hills exploding

Sorry about the break in posting these past few days. I was on a fishing trip in (Slower Lower) Delaware. Between that and my upcoming move (check in the next few days for a post about my favorite Omaha/Nebraska music), I'm going to be pretty pressed for time. I'll try to post often in the next couple of days while I can, but if you notice a lull in posting for a week or so, don't give up on me. I'll be back for sure.

For now, I'd like to spend tonight closing off that Radiohead trilogy of b-sides posting I started a few weeks back. For this final installment, I decided to include a few collaborations by Thom Yorke outside of the band. Even though the rest of Radiohead don't play on these tracks, I think they all maintain the band's basic aesthetic: dour, quirky, and a little upsetting in a creepy, guy-in-your-bushes kind of way.

I Am a Wicked Child: A Radiohead Compilation (v.3)

13. "Maquiladora": If you've been following the whole CD concept of this b-sides collection I've been posting, this is a nice follow up to track 12, "Palo Alto." A BENDS-era bonus track from the "High and Dry" single, this one packs in all the stadium guitar heroics of that record, before the band's songwriting turned inward and more daring (or, in some folks' opinion, more pretentious). Fans of Jeff Buckley will love this, while fans of Ours will realize that this is that band's whole agenda encapsulated in 3 minutes. That guy wishes he could sound this much like JB.

14. "Lewis (Mistreated)": I really hate parentheticals in song titles. Just name the song one thing and be done with it. Of course, Radiohead gave that idea a huge "fuck off" on the HAIL TO THE THIEF album, where each song has two titles. Anyway, regardless of that transgression, this old number from the "My Iron Lung" EP was one of the early songs that got me into the band.

15. "I Am a Wicked Child": This mellow, funky little blues number was a castoff from the aforementioned THIEF album, and appeared on the excellent "Go to Sleep" single. Check out the lyrics and tell me this couldn't have been on one of those classic Harry Smith anthologies in a more skeletal form. No idea who plays the harmonica here, so if anyone knows, drop a line in the comments section.

16. "This Mess We're In": The first of three collaborations tonight, this track features Thom Yorke singing with PJ Harvey on her STORIES FROM THE CITY, STORIES BY THE SEA album. This track just oozes sex, not something Yorke has been noted for too often. A shame really... anyone ever heard Radiohead's live cover of the Carly Simon/James Bond anthem "Nobody Does it Better'? That's hot shit.

17. "I've Seen it All": Here, Yorke shares vocal duties with Bjork, on a song from her soundtrack to Lars Von Trier's incredibly depressing DANCER IN THE DARK (Bjork's soundtrack is actually called SELMASONGS). In the film, Yorke's vocal part is sung by Peter Stormare, but you can't fault Bjork for following her muse and going with the Radiohead singer for her recording. This Meeting of the Freaks is a soaringly sad meditation from a person coming to terms with permanantly losing their vision, as Bjork's Selma does in the film. The lyrics are absolutely killer:

Bjork: "What about China? Have you seen the Great Wall?"
Yorke: "All walls are great if the roof doesn't fall."
Yorke: "You've never been to Niagra Falls?"
Bjork: "I have seen water. It's water, that's all."

18. "Rabbit in Your Headlights (Underdog Mix)": The original version of this track, an incredible pairing of turntable genius DJ Shadow with Yorke, appears on U.N.K.L.E.'s PSYENCE FICTION album. This remix - from the "Rabbit" EP - is a pretty different take on the song, but Underdog still evokes Shadow's dark, stalking ambience. Radiohead were obviously fans of Shadow's ENDTRODUCING album, and Yorke worked with the DJ before the release of his band's OK COMPUTER album. If you have any doubts of this influence, you only have to listen to that album's opener, "Airbag," to hear what I'm talking about. (Trivia: the dialogue snippet at the end of this track, as far as I can tell, is from the Tim Robbins movie "Jacob's Ladder." Please let me know if I'm wrong on this one.)

The body is good business...

Check the time at the end of this post. I just got home from work, and I've been up since 7 yesterday.

That is why there are no words this morning. Only songs.


"Natural's Not in It" by GANG OF FOUR: These are the guys that Franz Ferdinand wish they were. Punk, funk and politics all in one angry, angular package.

"Not Even Stevie Nicks", live 2003, by CALEXICO: Summer is coming, and that means that - at least for Chicagoans - the street festivals are on their way. Calexico have been a staple at these Chicago fests over the past few years, and they always prove themselves to be a stellar live act.

"Dear God" by XTC: This one's for the new pope. This single kind of shocked me as a kid, especially that kid singing the opening and closing. I guess I was sheltered and hadn't heard such intense conviction as that whole "If there's one thing I don't believe in... It's you." As Homer Simpson says, "Mmmm, sacrelicious." And while I'm thinking of XTC, here's a live take (Australia, 1980) of "Life Begins at the Hop." Take this, Franz.

"Crazy" by R.E.M.: This R.E.M. cover comes from the pretty damned good b-sides collection DEAD LETTER OFFICE (which also contains all of the band's debut EP, "Chronic Town," in its entirety).

I got nothin'. (more covers)

Anybody wanna buy some CDs? My move to Omaha is coming in 2.5 weeks, and I'm going to have a lot of shit that I don't want to take with me. Still so much to plan, and a lot to stress about.

In lieu of putting forth any intellectual effort here tonight... I give you... the songs!

"Voices Carry" by SPOUSE: Since I was just posting about Aimee Mann a few days ago, I figured I'd include this cover of 'Til Tuesday's biggest (only?) hit. Not sure where I stand on this one, so you're on your own. I definitely don't like it as much as the original. From the vocals, this version sounds like it's from the viewpoint of the drunk abusive guy instead of the girl's POV.

"Maps" by ADA: I didn't think I was going to like this blissed out electronic version of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' hit at first, but I found it pretty hypnotic after a couple of minutes. If you liked the Postal Service cover from the other night, or some of that electronic Radiohead stuff from the B-sides posts, you should check this out.

"I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" by AL GREEN: I've got to say, Al Green is goddamned reliable when it comes to covering a classic song. If a cover song were an expensive car, you could always trust this guy with your keys. If you've never heard the Hank Williams' original, check it out right now. There are so many great things about both versions of this song, and each guy sounds totally sincere. I really love the restraint shown by Green's backing band, and in his own breathless vocal performance.

"I Love How You Love Me" by JEFF MANGUM: This cover of the Sonny & Cher hit comes from (Neutral Milk Hotel singer/guitarist) Mangum's "LIVE AT JITTERY JOE'S" CD. If you're looking for that disc, I already sold mine. If you check out the Reckless Records over on Broadway, you might find my copy of it. I don't know what goes on at Jittery Joe's (my guess is that it's a coffee shop), but there's a baby at this show. I bet that was fun for the kid... watching some semi-crazy guy singing "Two Headed Boy" and howling into the sky. That reminds me of a Cubs game I recently attended, where I saw a "parent" give their 10 month old baby Skittles, peanut M&M's and enless sips of dad's Pepsi. I'd much rather you took your kid to a Jeff Mangum concert.

"A Well Respected Man" by JOSH ROUSE: I'm one of those people who cannot believe it when someone tells me they like Oasis but don't like The Beatles. It just makes no f#$king sense. But then I consider someone like Josh Rouse and what fans of James Taylor must think of people like me who love the former but can't stomach the latter. I like my wuss-rock, but I'm picky. I love Rouse's take on this Kinks classic, and I like that he tried something very different with the arrangement.

"If You Want Blood" by MARK KOZELEK: The original mash-up artist, Mark Kozelek has for years taken the strangest choices for covers and rendered them almost unrecognizable by applying his own dark, mournful twist. His Red House Painters turned a Cars song ("All Mixed Up") into an anthem of longing, a Yes song ("Long Distance Runaround") into Crazy Horse prog rock, and a Kiss song ("Shock Me") into two different dirges. A few years back, he had his artistic eyes set on AC/DC, the authors of the original "If You Want Blood" for his full length solo debut, "WHAT'S NEXT TO THE MOON." (Trivia: Kozelek played the bassist in Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous," and appeared briefly to mock Tom Cruise in "Vanilla Sky.")


FOR MORE ON TONIGHT'S RAMBLING:

Spouse's home page
Stylus Magazine's review of ADA's Blondie
Ada's home, Areal Records
Al Green at the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame
Old Pitchfork interview with Jeff Mangum
Not sure, but maybe you can buy "Live at Jittery Joe's" here
La casa de Josh Rouse (album stream)
Mark Kozelek's new band Sun Kil Moon