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Play it while you imagine sitting in possibly the most, best, perfect theater to see a band perform the entire album from which that song is cut. Imagine that you have played that album over, and over, and over since it was released on March 24. And as you’ve digested every chord of this “concept album”, no… for the love of god, don’t call it an opera… you’ve imagined how it would be played: no goofy costumes, no characterizations, no props, just the music. That was exactly what I got on Saturday night in Milwaukee at the Riverside Theater. The Decemberists came onto the stage under the shroud of fog and to riotous applause and proceeded to take instrument in hand and simply play. No introduction, no banter between songs, there was no in between songs. It was all of a piece, and set against the grandeur of a tremendously large stage and before an audience of 2,500 Colin Meloy and company (the usual plus the wonderful Shara Worden and Becky Stark) seriously gave me chills.
No, strike that. There were small breaks between some songs, but only to change guitars or to give people enough time to get to appropriate microphones on stage. And we clapped until our hands were red and tired, and cheered ourselves hoarse. Colin’s voice was in great form, and the instrumentation was, …. well, what can I say? They played like it was the thing they loved to do the most in the whole wide world. I think that night that was exactly right.
These are photos, mostly of the show at the Hollywood Palladium on May 19, 2009, from flickr. I’m honestly at a loss for words on what else to really tell you. Buy the album. Listen to it all in one sitting. It’s all there, and it was all there that night in Milwaukee, and more. The energy poured off Colin Meloy. He was absolutely drenched in certainty. He knew he was bestowing this gift, live…. upon an audience that already knew the words, the chord changes, the concept. And when Becky Stark and Shara Worden sang their parts, the energy level rose to the very top of that great concert hall.
I took M.Chutney, the little wife, with me. I thought that this would be one indie concert she would like. She’s into guitar-heavy rock and roll; this translated I hoped. At intermission (yes, they performed the whole album and then took a break only to come back and play some more!), I looked over at her and she said “Well, that sucked.” Ha! There’s no accounting for taste in this family!
What followed next can only be described as a whole other concert. It was a two-for-one night, much to the wife’s relief! Songs included “Leslie Ann Levine” (what I requested via twitter while in a three-block-long line to get in), “Yankee Bayonet” (M.Chutney’s favorite), “We Both Go Down Together,” and more. It all ended with a giant sing along and invitation to come up on stage which I think Mr. Meloy might have later regretted. Look at MChutney’s picture below, almost the entire standing area hopped up there!
Oh Lordy! I almost forgot to mention perhaps the crowning moment of the evening for MChut and me; Shara Worden and Becky Stark sang a spine-tingling cover of Heart’s Crazy On You. Yeah, all us 40-somethings (and late 30-somethings) danced our asses off to that one! It was gorgeous!
buy Heart’s Dreamboat Annie, it’s a great, classic album
Well, I can’t get enough of this band! I wrote about them awhile back and told you that this might just well be the band that converts me to screamo or some version of it. The music is always interesting in that genre, I just can usually never get past the vocals. But Children are downright palatable, my dear readers. Give em a chance, Power Spirit listen past the 2.5 min. mark, this is a cool, rocking song.
And, bonus! There’s an awesomely fun video to go with it. I can’t help but think that they had a blast dressing up in longjohns and running through a forest with their guitars, wearing sunglasses. Isn’t that what every 16 year old boy wants to aspire to? Gawd, this makes me laugh. It’s office safe, if you can keep from giggling to loudly. Heavy Metal or Punk or whatever you wanna call this has just never taken itself too seriously and that’s it’s saving grace.
It’s Friday, I’m on my way to see The Decemberists and well, it’s a long drive to Milwaukee. Yeah, I’ll be playing some of this on the road today.
buy Hard Times Hangin’ At The End of The World
Children on MySpace
“One of the band’s greatest achievements to date is marring progressive variety and narrative sweep with thrash’s relentless sense of groove. It’s more than a little intentional.”- Decibel Magazine
See the video, directed by Clayton Harper here on Pitchfork TV in case this embedded thingy won’t run.
Folk-rock genius, Andrew Bird is touring this summer to promote Noble Beast. That is not news to anyone, my darlings. But…what IS news is that if you’re lucky enough to live in or rich enough to travel to NYC you can receive a free download of the never-before released Live at the Precipice when you purchase tickets for the Radio City show. The ten-song set was recorded last month on Andrew Bird‘s Noble Beast tour.
LIVE AT THE PRECIPICE TRACK LISTING
1. Masterswarm
2. A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left
3. Tenuousness
4. Natural Disaster
5. Effigy
6. Oh No
7. Armchairs
8. Anonanimal
9. Fake Palindromes
10. Headsoak
Well, that’s no small thing, now is it?!? I’ve listened to a bit of this wonder of a man. I am intimidated enough to venture further into the depths of his mind just a bit more. See, it takes a bit of fear to get me really intrigued, to really turn me on, same with you? There’s nothing more titillating than the fear of going just too far to turn back. And some of Bird’s music takes you to that place of no turning back. More to follow… I’ve not digested enough of it to have a clear cut reaction yet. Do tell me what you think of the man, please, xoxo …… do go and buy the album please. photo credit:Brandi Ediss
Here’s a little tidbit of Bird and his band in Zilker Park performing “A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left” at ACL 2007: Nervous video click here
Tour Dates…. buy tickets here
ANDREW BIRD ON TOUR
Jun 8 – Merriweather Post Pavilion – Columbia , MD
Jun 14 – Bonnaroo – Manchester, TN
Jun 15 – Cobb Energy PAC – Atlanta, GA
Jun 18 – Radio City Music Hall – New York, NY **
Jun 19 – Bank of America Pavilion – Boston, MA
Jul 10 – Greek Theatre – Los Angeles, CA
Jul 11 – Greek Theatre – Berkeley, CA
Jul 13 – Red Butte Garden – Salt Lake City, UT
Jul 14 – Red Rocks Amphitheatre – Morrison, CO
Jul 16 – Britt Pavilion – Jacksonville, OR
Jul 17 – Marymoor Amphitheatre – Redmond, WA
Jul 18 – McMenamins Edgefield Amphitheater – Troutdale, OR
Jul 19 – McMenamins Edgefield Amphitheater – Troutdale, OR
Jul 26 – Squaw Velley Ski Resort – Olympic Valley, CA
Aug 7 – Lollapalooza – Grant Park – Chicago, IL
Aug 8 – Lollapalooza – Grant Park – Chicago, IL
Aug 9 – Lollapalooza – Grant Park – Chicago, IL
Oct 2 – Austin City Limits Festival – Austin, TX
Oct 3 – Austin City Limits Festival – Austin, TX
Oct 4 – Austin City Limits Festival – Austin, TX
special thanks to Marni Warner @ Sneak Attack Media
(I originally posted this in November of 2008 when the issue in California came to a head the first time… In light of the recent court ruling yesterday I felt perhaps it might deserve a repost, forgive me. And the latest ruling in CA is just so ridiculously irrational as to be a judicial farce, but that’s a whole other point.) Many of my blogging friends are outraged and depressed over the passage of anti-gay marriage amendments in Arizona, California and Florida this past Tuesday. The simple fact is that in some of those states the very same people who voted in Obama voted out the rights of gays to marry and it’s making folks more than a little upset. Here at chez Tart, we remain unfazed. Why?
Marriage sucks. Marriage should be outlawed. Nobody should be married. Marriage is for neanderthals and pricks (no not the kind I like, ok?). The only reasons semi-right-minded people get married these days are:
for health insurance rights (an insult to our inherent rights as a human being to health and happiness)
to please our families (an insult to our independence and sense of self in the face of a worn out tradition that smacks of heterosexism and oppression)
to get a boatload of gifts that you could get anyway at a big ole party
in some states, (now Arkansas, as of Tuesday) to adopt children, yes for you straight people now too
to declare a legal relationship in order to inherit an estate at a reduced tax rate (that rate is currently zero)
Yeah, that’s my opinion. It’s insulting to some of you, I’m sure. And indeed MeatPocket M.Chutney, my lovely “wife” and I got “married” in that we stood up before a hundred or so of our friends and family and declared our unlawful love for one another 15 years ago. It wasn’t legal then, it isn’t legal now. It was SYMBOLIC folks, we had a blast doing it.
Marriage was created as a legal contract between two parties to establish lineage in order to retain property rights. Period. It is not a spiritual union, it never has been. All that churchy stuff was tacked on to make it seem like a nice community oriented matter in order to sell it to the public and mask its true commercial nature and to provide for yet another opportunity of collective effervescence (aka. a party with drunkenness and general good feeling to bond us together). As capitalism grew as a dominant force in world power, the marriage contract grew in importance — wealth accumulated and we needed to know who would inherit it! But with all the fun we were having at weddings and baby christenings and bachelor parties (not in that order, obviously!) we didn’t have our minds on the accumulation and protection of wealth, did we?
In the 20th century, with the advent of a multicultural and postmodern society, (which values tolerance and inclusiveness), stretching the definition of marriage and allowing other types of couples to enter into that contract should be seen as simply a business arrangement transacted for the benefit of the economic forces at hand. Logically, there is no reason to prohibit two men or two women from entering into this type of contract for their common welfare and the welfare of their children. Just as 40 years ago there was no logical reason for prohibiting two people of different races (at that time African-American and white) to be married. However, those old religious trappings have a lasting impact. People have become wed to the mask and have forgotten the original meaning of marriage. That is what capitalism seeks to do, and what it does so well. That is the essence of its success. It takes what is mechanical, inhuman, and purely market-oriented, and masks that with something that thinks, feels, and acts in a way to react to the lived experience of capitalism itself. In other words, it takes a market transaction and makes it feel like a human experience. When any disruption in forces is sought out or naturally comes about to change the workings of capital intentions (the smooth operations of mechanistic contracts) then conflict arises – emotional flareups occur. Read more after the tunes, it’s long, sorry. (edit: But it gets better, I think)
new song for 2009 Elbow, The Bones of You, from The Seldom Seen Kid …. buy it here (this kind of connection can never be represented in a legal relationship)
Nina SimoneBe My Husband Let It Be Me (such a sad song, surely no recommendation for marriage!)
Nina SimoneMarriage is For Old Folks I Put A Spell On You (here, she really tells it like it is)
Billy BraggThe MarriageTalking With The Taxman About Poetry (well, he did it anyway, alas!)
The ReplacementsYou’re Getting MarriedStink (the song NOT to give someone about to get married)
Some nights go really well and you pay your money and hear your band and go home with the taste of ecstatic satisfaction on your lips. This night went well, …in the end. It was a long and twisting path to get there though; we had a good laugh or three all the way through. MChutney and I dashed downtown to The Dark Room to catch one of our favorite bands, Arizona on their last stop of a 25+ gig tour that took them from Philly in April to Chicago by the end of May. These guys play and travel hard!
At a booth in the club, they sat listening to the Southern Rock/Country inspired band on stage and I snuck over to ask if they had already played (we came a bit late and I was worried we missed them!) Ben, the fuzzy haired (he calls himself a “hobbit-man” I’m not gonna go there) singer/guitarist and often keyboardist seemed to recognize me. Nope, not on yet, whew! We settled in… no one knew how many bands were going to play exactly or in what order, …interesting. Ben came up to me after a few minutes and we chatted with him throughout the night. That guy has a real brain for faces; we had talked about 7 months ago! And now tell me how often do you get to just shoot the shit with a member of one of your favorite bands? See, this is the coolest thing about indie music. I learned alot about this guy. He’s got size 9 feet. His girlfriend knitted him a beard for his keyboard on the last tour, where I saw them play with Amy Ray, reviewed here. (I must admit to wondering what that was dangling from it at the time.) His guitar is made by a guy in MN (?) and it gives the sweetest tone I’ve heard in a good long while. Wow. And, even though Arizona weren’t able to follow through, they did offer to cover Poison’s “Fallen Angel” for us. Now that’s entertainment folks!
But you came here for the music, didn’t you? Well so did we that night, and we sat through three bands to get it. By the time Arizona took the stage I told Ben I was a little scared for them! He laughed and said, “Me too!” The crowd was rowdy, the previous bands were rough and rude and rockin, and here’s these indie kids who play this amazing psychedelica/prog rock with high toned harmonies and sharp contrasts and prolonged pauses and measured moments of reverb and feedback. ”Glowing Bird” is perhaps the best example of this. It seemed to be a little like throwing the antelope out in front of the lion for the cameras in Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom (were you as disappointed as I was to learn they did that?!?) But Arizona did exactly what they said they would. They played a great show to our little crowd. They sang over the hecklers, over the guy asking where their balls were, over the very drunk loud talkers. And we soaked up the goodness of this amazing music.
Their voices were in fine form, Ben’s high, strong and clear. Nick, playing mandolin and soloing beautifully on “Whiskey or Wine” (maybe another as well, memory fails) also provided harmonies on everything. Alex sang backup and complimented and filled in the blank spaces just enough to let a little light shine through. Ben’s new(ish) guitar was absolutely gorgeous, even though it went out on him a few times, hardly anyone noticed due to the “forest of sound” as MChutney put it. We had been talking about how bands produce a wall of sound, how it hits you, hard. With Arizona, it’s equally forceful, just as big and complete. But not dense like a wall—more depth and texture, hidden and open spaces, seemingly an endless terrain that you want to go back to again and again. Their guitar work (two guitars and a bass) is all twisted around itself, there’s a feeling of banjo/bluegrass to it at times in that it’s lush and complicated but not rambling. Alex’s bass was as wonderful as I remembered it to be the last time I heard them. And their new songs …. wow, just wow. The album they must be conjuring up is really going to captivate you, my dear readers!
Go over to their MySpace and peek at the video Nick Fiore made of them creating a song. It’s about 20 mins long and it sheds some real insight into how these four guys work together. It echos the feeling I got from them Saturday night, no one personality runs this thing. This really seems like a band of brothers who are moving forward on a rising crest of creativity and just plain passion for music. When Ben left the stage, the first thing he said to me was, “Well that was a weird show.” And yeah it was, it was a rough night to play. But Arizona got caught up in their own trap of effervescence. This hard-working band performed wonderfully. If they come near you on their next tour go see them. They are amazing live, much bigger than their recordings lead you to believe. Thanks so much for coming, guys! xoxoxo
I had the opportunity to see Holy Fuck play last year here in Chicago and it was really one of the best shows I’ve seen all year. We were completely lifted to the ceiling and dropped on our asses to the floor by the surge of sound those boys produced! Everyone who’s been reading the music blogs has come across their song “Lovely Allen” but not many of you have heard these mash-ups of Holy Fuck’s “Lovely Allen” and A Place To Bury Strangers‘ “To Fix The Gash In Your Head.” Not all mash-ups are meant to be, my dears, but when bands tour together and play together as these two bands have, it’s inevitable that they’re gonna create some fantastic work together.
APTBS’ second album, coming out on Mute Records is hugely anticipated, and if you’ve not got ahold of their debut album you really do need to hear this “wall-of-sound” shoegazy, psychodelica music. Buy it here…. and pick up Holy Fuck here if somehow you’ve missed the boat on that as well.
I’ve heard from APTBS’ manager (who also manages Shilpa Ray – that’s how I found him) that A Place to Bury Strangers are going to close out Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers Pianos residency in NYC on Wednesday Night. So, if you’re in the city, get yourself out to that venue and celebrate Steven’s birthday with this amazing lineup:
I’d kill to be in NYC this week, no lie! Darlings, this show is gonna kill. buy tickets to this show here!
APTBS Tour Dates:
Jun 5 2009 8:00P
Rock & Roll Hotel with Caverns & True Womanhood Washington DC, Washington DC
Jun 6 2009 8:00P
Metro Gallery with Dirty Projectors, Sky Drops, & Chairlift Baltimore, Maryland
Jun 13 2009 3:00P
Westword Music Showcase with Built to Spill, Cursive & the Fluid Denver, Colorado
Jun 27 2009 8:30P
Le Rock Dans Tous Ses Etats with Yeah Yeah Yeahs & Fucked Up Evreux, France
Holy Fuck Tour Dates:
May 27 2009 10:00P
Rock N Roll Hotel WASHINGTON, Washington DC
May 28 2009 10:00P
Grog Shop Cleveland, Ohio
May 29 2009 10:00P
The Magic Stick Detroit, Michigan
May 30 2009 10:00P
The Empty Bottle Chicago, Illinois
May 31 2009 10:00P
7th Street Entry Minneapolis, Minnesota
Jun 3 2009 10:00P
Nightlight Lounge Bellingham, Washington
Jun 4 2009 10:00P
The Doug Fir Portland, Oregon
Jun 5 2009 10:00P
Bottom of the Hill San Francisco, California
Jun 6 2009 10:00P
Troubadour Los Angeles, California
Jun 7 2009 10:00P
The Casbah San Diego, California
Jun 8 2009 10:00P
Plush Tuscon, Arizona
Jun 10 2009 10:00P
Lounge on Elm Dallas, Texas
Jun 11 2009 10:00P
Mohawk Austin, Texas
Jun 12 2009 10:00P
Walter’s Houston, Texas
Jun 13 2009 10:00P
Spanish Moon Baton Rouge, Louisiana
Jun 14 2009 10:00P
Bottletree Birmingham, Alabama
Jun 15 2009 10:00P
Drunken Unicorn Atlanta, Georgia
Jun 16 2009 10:00P
Pilot Light Knoxville, Tennessee
Peter Bradley Adams sings those kind of soft, country-folk songs that fill the spaces in my soul that James Taylor used to fill. No, he doesn’t sound like him in the least. This isn’t a comparison to that once great artist. Peter Bradley Adams is all on his own a wonderful folk singer and a tenderhearted lyricist. My ears prick up at each phrase, excited with what will come. Yeah, the stories are that good, the delivery that pleasing. This singer/songwriter has admittedly slipped under my radar with his debut, self-titled, EP and his first LP, Gather Up. I’m onto him now though, and even late to the party on Leavetakng, I can feel that this one will be with me still by the end of this year when I’m deciding on my best of list. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it to his show last night at Uncommon Ground, so if you did catch him let me know! I’m hoping he comes back to Chicago soon. I’m simply captivated by his latest album. Go get it now if you, like me, love beautiful guitar work and probing lyrics you will want this album. The song they are promoting, “Always” is a bit TV show-ready but go over to his MySpace for more, I must say, better songs that showcase his talent….buy Leavetakinghere. Oh and I should mention he was formerly half of eastmountainsouth, if you ever followed that duo, xoxo Tour Dates:
Jun 13 2009 8:00P
Memphis House Concert -info@memphishouseconcerts.com for reservations Memphis, Tennessee
Jun 18 2009 8:00P
Dom New York, New York
Jul 17 2009 8:00P
Workplay Theater Birmingham, Alabama
Jul 22 2009 8:00P
Eddie’s Attic Decatur, Georgia
Well, this popped into my inbox a few days ago and I’m quite smitten with it’s catchy, hook-filled sound. And it’s got a pretty catchy title as well: “This Song Is A Commercial” really does stick in your brain. Now, I never, ever do this (well ok, maybe once a long while ago I sort of did it) but the press release on this album is so well written by Michael Bertin, I’m gonna paste it in here for you. I know, it’s more than verbotten in these sorts of pages to do that but really, it’s a super cool story about how Wonderlick came to be and how Topless at the Arco Arena got made.
Wonderlick’s Tim Quirk is an artist. It must be true, because Tina Weymouth of the Talking Heads said so.
Recalls Quirk, “I once got in a drunken debate with her about sampling, during the course of which she told me she didn’t think I was a real artist. Later on she apologized by hugging me for an uncomfortably long time, and whispered the following in my ear—and I’m not making this up—’You are an artist. And you know what it’s like on a major label. It’s like they stick an umbrella up your ass. And then they open it. And you just have to walk down the street like nothing’s wrong.’ Her husband, Chris Frantz, was standing behind her, smiling at me as though he were used to moments like this.”
The major label stint Weymouth refers to was another life ago when Quirk and Jay Blumenfield, the other half of Wonderlick, were themselves half of the alterna-snark outfit Too Much Joy. That band had: A) a minor proto-modern-rock radio hit with “Crush Story,” B) a unwavering adoration of Joe Strummer and, C) a penchant for legal run-ins that never translated commensurately from press to record sales. But hey, if the hand isn’t going to feed you, might as well keep biting it.
TMJ went on hiatus in 1997 as real life rudely encroached on their rock ‘n’ fantasy. But Quirk and Blumenfield, friends and bandmates since before they could drive, never completely let go. And, in the early Aughties, they started recording tracks on their own as Wonderlick. And they gave the songs away for free on their website. As an afterthought, they included a Paypal link allowing people to donate money. Of their own volition. However much they wanted, if they wanted.
“We weren’t trying to make money, or even be noticed. We just wanted to make music for the fun of it again,” Blumenfield says. But fans kept donating, which enabled the duo to keep recording, and in 2002, the free (but revenue-generating) tracks became Wonderlick’s self-titled debut, a darkish pop record about life and death. Think Tolstoy, but with guitars and whimsy.
It’s taken seven years—these are people with actual jobs (Blumenfield a TV producer and Quirk a VP at Rhapsody) and families and stuff after all—but the pair is finally following up the debut with Topless at the Arco Arena. Both the album’s name and leitmotif come from an essay, included in the liner notes, by Quirk about the moment where theater, commerce, exploitation, possibility, liberation, and, the majesty of rock all coalesced together in the singular image of a giant pair of exposed breasts (female ones) on a massive video screen.
Titties. Awesome.
The gap between records works in favor of Topless as it doesn’t sound the product of a particular narrow slice of time, mostly because, well, it’s not. Too many things change over that period—musically, emotionally, socially. So, whereas there’s a nice thematic singularity to Topless, musically it’s a gallimaufry of twists and surprises. The cheeky sonic meta-aping of Xeroxed sound-alikes in “This Song is a Commercial.” The surprisingly ballad-esque tempo of the self-loving “Fuck Yeah!” The cyclical relevancy of the pop-sprawl behind “We Run The World.” The record definitely sounds like the work of the same two guys. But it never sounds the same.
So, yes, hints of their old snark remain, but one of the secret by-products of acquiescing to maturity is that it offers more nuanced ways to be subversive. So the pun gives way to the metaphor, the sarcastic humor to the symbolism.
It’s Wonderlick focusing on the ‘art’ part of ‘smartass,’ while not forgetting to let the music do as much talking as the lyrics. And they both speak in compelling tongues.
Now darlings, doesn’t that sort of sound like what I’d write anyway? … I mean the part about the titties of course.
Go buy this album. And by the way, “This Song is a Commercial is set to be the theme song for ABC’s reality show Here Come the Newlyweds premiering Monday, May 25th.
Ok, so I’ve got nothing I want to post, in terms of music, at the moment. And all sorts of rants and ideas rattling around in my head instead. If I hurry and finish this before 3 a.m. when I know I go a bit crazy I think we’ll be o.k.!
Over on Matthew’s blog we’ve been discussing/arguing about taste… musical taste. It all started out innocently enough with Himself musing over the focus of his music gaze, has it become more tunnel-visioned than it used to be due to listening to so much obscure music. For lots of reasons, a major one being my own knee-jerk reaction to any hint (whether intended or not!) of disdain for popular music and/or the “average joe,” we all got rather off topic and fancy footed around the question of whether popular music and average taste reflected a lesser quality of engagement or appreciation of music in general. (That’s my own analysis of the conversation over there, and only for the purposes of jumping off from that point on, here. No, I don’t want to beat a dead horse!)
So what does determine music taste? How does your taste change? Does everyone’s taste change as they mature? I think these are fair questions, even interesting ones. I can give you a sort of social analysis of what some believe … or I can be less boring and just tell you how it happened for me. Well, that’s an easy decision, isn’t it? And I think my story will reflect which theory I subscribe to in the end.
I grew up with big band music actually, with Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Duke Ellington, and Tommy Dorsey. My dad was a fan of 1940s and 50s music, having lived through it, and even though I came along in the sixties we still played the records on Saturdays. Alongside that were Nat King Cole, Lena Horne, Doris Day, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. The other side of the coin, musically, was old style Country and Western. You know, the good stuff like Conway Twitty, Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, and of course, the god of gods in our record collection, Johnny Cash. It really wasn’t until I was 13 or 14 that I paid much attention to the radio and popular music other than some folk and some funk from the time that my older siblings were obsessed with.
But when I hit 14 my world sort of exploded in many ways and music was a huge part of that. I began to read some pretty heavy political theory (I’ve always been a reader, read anything I could get my hands on) and I began picking out the music I wanted to hear and using my teensy allowance to purchase it. So, it being 1978, the first album I bought (vinyl, of course) was Sgt. Pepper. What? You thought I’d say the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever? Well, yeah, I bought that too, but later on. No, at that point I was a huge Beatles fan and I decided that Sgt. Pepper was to be my first album of theirs because it had “A Day In The Life” and that was the. best. song. ever. I was obsessed with the sixties and totally gutted that I had been born twenty years too late and 3,000 miles away. There’s nothing like 14 year old angst, coupled with a political awakening, really. The second album I bought was Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols, but that one I had to save up for and I hid it from mom and dad.
So, I filled my head with every Beatles song ever recorded, with all of the early Rolling Stones, the Faces, the Yardbirds, the Who, Simon and Garfunkle, etc. It all went quite well with what was easily found on the radio at the time: The Allman Brothers, Thin Lizzy, Meatloaf, Steve Miller Band, Jimmy Buffet. I didn’t go searching for much other than the older music of the Beatles’ era, the rest I just let drift into my ears as I lay in bed at night with the radio on real low, hoping my parents wouldn’t discover me still awake on a school night. And the only way to really seek out older music that wasn’t played on the classic rock or oldies station was to scour record stores. For that you needed a ride, I didn’t grow up in a big city. So I was at the mercy of my best friend who had an older sister with an 8-track player in her VW Beetle, those were heady days! Continue reading Wherein a Tart gives an explanation of her musical taste…
German Hip Hop on this blog? Well sure, why not! Do I need to remind you again what a dilettante I am? I don’t know much about hip hop but, I listened to quite a bit of it when it first began, back in the days of The Sugar Hill Gang and then on to LL Cool J and Queen Latifah. So I guess that gives me as much authority to give my lofty opinion on the genre as much as any other type of music. Which isn’t saying much! I do hope you don’t come to this blog for any real music critique or serious ranking of specific albums against some standard of what is “good.” I only share with you what I like and tell you why, it’s the thing I feel I can do as a non-musician with limited knowledge of popular music in this corner of the blogosphere. And I’m very grateful for your input, darlings… please do feel free to tell me when you think I’m full of shit!
Now back to the Ancient Astronauts, who are Kabanjak and Dogu hailing from Cologne, Germany. I’m intrigued with We Were To Answer, the bits I’ve heard of this eclectic album remind me of that early hip-hop style, but with a generous twist of modern noise, rock, jazz and god-knows-what else thrown in for good measure! I’ve been promised a review copy for next week, I’ll let you know what the rest of it is like. For now please enjoy Came Running and anticipate the album, coming out June 9 on Switchstance Recordings. Ancient Astronauts have collaborated with Bootie Brown and Imani of legendary hip hop group The Pharcyde, Azeem, Tippa Irie, Bajka, Phat Old Mamas, Ulf Stricker, Raashan Ahmad and Entropik for thier debut; it promises to be interesting at the very least!
photo credit: Martin Morsch
… I mean the part about the titties of course. 
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