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Well, it’s not really me doing the soliciting, I’m just asking for a friend. Really I am! What? You don’t believe me? Oh shush! Here, I’ve copied Tim’s email request exactly:
“November is almost upon us again, so it’s time to think about the Contrast Podcast Festive 50. This year it will be on episodes 194, 195 & 196 from the 15th to the 29th of December. So here is what I need you, your friends, the readers of your blog, your milkman and anyone else you know to do:
1. Choose up to 50 (yes fifty) songs that were released in 2009 that you like. If you can only think of 10 .. don’t worry .. I’d still like to know what they are.
2. Send the list to me at contrast.podcast@gmail.com starting with your favourite track at number 1.
3. Do this by Sunday 15th November at the latest .. and try to get other people to vote too .. please!!
4. I will compile a short list of the top 100 songs which we will vote on to be in the top 50 and then start inviting people to record introductions.
5. Any questions? …. good … get thinking!!!”
Now this little project is not just for those of us who’ve contributed to the Contrast Podcast, which if you’re not familiar with you should just hop over there and get cozy right now because it’s a very, very, cool place/thing/space in the internet. No, all you regular shy people can/should participate in this list making too because it’s kind of like statistics… the larger the sample size the better the result (except in statistics it’s not really about the size of the sample but the methodology used to select the sample, but that’s beside the point here, so forget the truth and just go with my little analogy, ok?) Point being, the more people participate the better result Tim gets at the end and the upcoming podcasts are very much more fun! So, make your lists and send them out to Tim. It doesn’t matter if he knows you, if I know you, if anyone knows you at all.
No, it’s not about what you think the BEST songs are, what you think you should choose to look COOL or what band should make it or anything, really; it’s about what songs turn you on, what you like, which, by the way, is the whole point of this blog, ya know? (Well, that’s some first-class writing right there, isn’t it just?!) And by the way, the whole festive fifty idea comes from here, (hint, it has to do with the late, great John Peel.)
Here’s my list. The top 10 are in order; the remaining 40 are kinda sorta from best to least but not really because how can I possibly judge what is my 40th least, best, favorite song??? These are 50 songs that right now I’m crazy about that were released in 2009. Let me know what yours are, eh? (scroll all the way down because you really need to know who Withered Hand is and I’m gonna tell you!)
1. Love in The Time of Ecstasy mp3 – Withered Hand …. buy it here
2. Snake – One Hundred Hurricanes
3. William Henry Miller, Pt. 1 – Meursault
4. I became a Prostitute – Twilight Sad
5. Magicfish – Birdlips
6. White Blank Page – Mumford and Sons
7. Earthly Bodies – J. Tillman
8. Devils Tower – Ice Palace
9. Send Me An Angel Down – Kill It Kid
10. In Your Heart – A Place To Bury Strangers
11. Les Malheurs – Pure Reason Revolution
12. Violet Eyes – My Gold Mask
13. Let’s Go Expo – Cancel The Astronauts
14. Propeller Jet – Phil and the Osophers
15. Pastel – Still Life Still I had to include this new video for this great song, if only because I’m not exactly sure they’re even playing their instruments in it! They sure cleaned up good, hehehe. No really, good for them!
16. Red Candle Bulb – Meursault
17. Religious Songs – Withered Hand
18. Gorilla Meat – Jogger
19. IOWEEOW – The Soil and The Sun
20. Phonebook Pillow – Ice Palace
21. Vampire Lake – The Builders and The Butchers
22. Beard of Bees – Clem Snide
23. The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid – The Decemberists
24. No More Sorry Songs – Greenland is Melting
25. The Sunset – The Bony King of Nowhere
26. Honeymoon – Bombadil
27. Already Gone – Greenland is Melting
28. Outside the Gates – Ice Palace
29. Barcelona – The Builders and The Butchers
30. Clouds – Hudson Branch
31. Hum – Clem Snide
32. Songs in The Night – Samantha Crain
33. Don’t Take Me To Space (Man) – Brakes
34. Harold T. Wilkins, Or How To Wait For A Very Long Time – Fanfarlo
35. Alas My Love – The Bony King of Nowhere
36. Sad Birthday – Bombadil
37. The Rake’s Song – The Decemberists
38. Some Kind of Death – Birdlips
39. A Train Still Makes A Lonely Sound – Black Crowes
40. The Lie – Bad Veins
41. Atrophy – The Antlers
42. Gold and Warm – Bad Veins
43. Dream About Me – The Depreciation Guild
44. T-Shirts – Still Life Still
45. Look Out For Your Wife – Lord Cut Glass
46. Two – The Antlers
47. Flashlight – Super 400
48. Deus Ex Machina – Pure Reason Revolution
49. Crush on You – Brakes
50. Exploding Head – A Place To Bury Strangers
So, who is this Withered Hand? I’m sure you’re all asking, because I’ve not mentioned this band on this blog yet and now I’m telling you it’s my favorite song. What a sneaky bitch I am! Well, ya know sometimes the things that are closest to us are the hardest to share, the hardest to talk about. That’s the only reason I can think of for why I’ve not reviewed this album as well as Meursault’s EP yet even though I listen to each of them at least a few times each week.
Withered Hand is Dan Willson of Edinburgh and a few of his friends supporting him: Neil Pennycook (of Meursault), who plays banjo and sings beautiful backup harmonies, Alan Thomas (from The Leg), and Hannah Shepherd. Dan often plays solo around Edinburgh, and it seems just as often various and assorted musicians play with him. It’s all a rather incestuous little musical community over there as far as I can tell! Either way, Withered Hand is a project I’ve been following for about a year now because Dan’s songs speak to me. His voice is high and sometimes creaky and trembling and you guess that he feels like maybe he can’t sing very well but that’s the key to the charm of Withered Hand. It’s not put on; I can’t imagine his producer saying, “No, we need less confidence in that third verse there!” (or if it is, he’s fooled the fuck outta me! Bravo, Dan!) But more than his voice and what I think of it, there are his songs and the melodies that capture your attention. At first glance you might think they’re simple, but listen how choruses hesitate just enough to appear not exactly when you want them to, how verses go on one stanza too long or end all together too quickly. Then again, tracks like “Religious Songs” are built like old fashioned folk tunes… with convoluted, sometimes filthy lyrics, of course. I am no expert on this thing they call anti-folk, but maybe this is why Withered Hand is in this category. All I know for sure is that it captivates me. I never grow tired of hearing it.
As folk songs go, these tell some great stories. Of course, if you know me you know I totally relate to Dan’s references to religion throughout Good News and to the sort of scars that it leaves on those of us who’ve been raised in it strictly, may I say, (for me at least) terrifyingly? His humor, (“How does he really expect to be happy when he listens to death metal bands?”) and equal parts sarcasm delivered with such bittersweet delivery makes this record my favorite. No, strike that. You have to add all the bits about love, of course. Nobody can win me over with lyrics that are just about surviving hellfire and damnation (and evangelists, in my case). There’s love, memory, longing, and oh so much melancholy desire. “For The Maudlin” is a heart-rending tune that if you’ve ever been in a relationship, I think you’ll understand. But even when he sings about what I assume to be happiness, I still hear a melancholy desire. Maybe that’s me, I’ll grant you that. But I also think it’s him, ….his voice, his guitar, the way it all sounds is as if it’s pleading with the universe to be happy, to stay happy. And yet, I wouldn’t be surprised to meet him and find him to be a pleasant person. That’s the way it goes with musicians ya know. They write it all out of their system sometimes. I never read other reviews of an album before writing mine. What you get is my view, my opinion on it. There’s plenty out there of this album and many of them from folks who know Dan, so I encourage you to go read them all. From all accounts, I’m betting he’s a lovely person.
Good News is a gem. It’s an album that I listen to over and over because I hear in it all the things I’ve mentioned, as well as so many little phrases that make me smile, “And you’ll lose your looks, I’ll lose my religion, we’ll be God’s tiny carrier pigeons, and never return” “I don’t really know what the wine is for, cause if it was Jesus’ blood wouldn’t there be more?,” and “Did they teach you shit at school like we’re all wonderful?” And for all the quips, Dan also lays out some honest truths – things we all feel, all of us, at times, sharing that self-deprecating way of explaining our world. Beyond the lyrics, Good News has beautiful instrumentation, full of banjo that is top-notch and both acoustic and electric guitar and at times drums. Don’t forget those melodies, well actually you can’t. The reason that “Love in the Time of Ecstasy” is my #1 song is because of that melody. It is pure genius, repetitive and when you hear it you think to yourself, “haven’t I heard this before somewhere?” It’s immediately familiar but entirely new. What a gifted man Dan Willson is. And it bears mentioning that for what I guess most folks will call an “emo” record (god I hate that distinction) this is certainly not all morose and slow. On the contrary, the music is nicely paced and listening to it over and over does anything but depress me. Do I need to spell it out for you any more clearly? Obviously you need this record if you want to continue to unlock the secrets of Tart’s psyche, xoxo
And yes, I do believe with all my heart that the answer is YES when Dan asks, “Isn’t gray hair just the first light of a new dawn?”
The wonderful, and ever-resourceful Peenko, over in Glasgow, has posted some lovely live tracks by Frightened Rabbit off of BBC Radio 1′s Rob da Bank show. Included in those three tracks is this new song, Nothing Like Youfrom the forthcoming album, due out March 10, 2010, entitled The Winter of Mixed Drinks.
It’s a loud, clattering number with a lot of the noise we’ve come to love from the FRabbit, but also I’m hearing some nice guitar work. All in all, it’s only served to make me completely ravenous for the new album. You’ll notice at the end, a bit of Scott chatting about their upcoming tour of the UK as well.
2. And Friday night’s offerings: Brazos and White Denim, whose album Fits has everyone raving, and rightfully so!
3. And on Sunday you’ll find me at Lincoln Hall to see J. Tillman. I’ve been waiting for this for a long while. Ever since hearing his latest album, Year in the Kingdom, I’ve been quite smitten with it. Just ask anyone in my vicinity. I’ve played it for anyone who’s been in my car or my bed. There’s a lovely video interview with him over here at RockFeedback TV. I wish I had an embed feature for you, but alas, I couldn’t work that out at the last minute. So you’ll have to click over. But it’s worth the trip. Of course, I’ll tell you all about the show next week, m’dears.
4. Last night I had a chance to catch My Gold Mask at Schubas! They were fresh back from their gig at Sheena Beaston/The Culture of Me’s CMJ Party and we got to gab a bit about their trip to New York. What a time they had! It’s so great to hear how other bloggers are good people and wonderful to bands! So a big shout out to those awesome New Yorkers!!! And of course, Gretta and Jack were fantabulous last night. Their set has really come together, and the additional new songs are just making the whole thing gel. I haven’t heard them in a while, (too long!) and the change is really noticeable. It’s not like they were ever bad, it’s just that now they’re really smooth on stage and gave a great show last night to a fun, all-ages crowd. “Violet Eyes” and “Bitches” were especially hot! And no, Jack doesn’t use a flange pedal, it’s all just him, manually I caught a little bit of Bengal Lancer’s set as well. They’re a brother/sister fronted four-piece with a kind of indie, post rock, lots of dissonance in all the right places, sound. Their drummer, Jay is amazing!
More later, I’ve got loads to tell you about and two more interviews that have been just itching to get on these pages! xoxo
yeah I stole the pic from the Lemur Blog, so sue me!
I’ll tell you right from the start, this album was love at first listen. BrazosPhosphorescent Blues is full of surprises. Martin Crane’s voice soars on that first phrase inDayglo and all the rest of those words come tumbling out in such a way that I long to learn all of them by heart. There’s just enough shimmy shake and banging on the keys to make me conjure up a sunny day in the back yard with gang of friends. “We Understand Each Other,” my favorite track, takes on an entirely different but equally pleasurable quality. The whole collection of songs brings to light a talent for phrasing and creating a melody that repeats just the way it should in just the right number of times. Seriously, this album spans the range from easy, tranquil, melancholy songs like “Avignon” to more insistent, quirky little numbers like “Tell” which stick in my head for days. In terms of having something for everyone… Phosphorescent Blues is perhaps the album of 2009. I’m hard pressed to come up with a record that offers as much variety of styles and yet keep its unified sound. Brazos, as a band, have given us a brilliant debut, and Martin Crane, for all his effort, has compiled a helluva trio at last.
There’s a lot of piano on this. It offsets Crane’s blue-eyed soul inspired vocals nicely. And yet when the guitars and drum/cymbals come in, that too is perfectly natural sounding. It’s jazz-like, it’s modern, it’s not tied to the typical rock and roll rhythms I expect. A few songs use the same formula: a nice slow, repetitive build that ends in a widening, increasingly louder chorus. I forgive them this formulaic approach for the simple reason that it works because they’re smart enough to do simple things to alter it for folks like me who don’t know much and don’t think about it too hard. By changing keys and adding and subtracting instruments (drastically) these ten songs really do not sound alike even though more than a few are structurally similar. There’s not a lot of vocal harmonies. I didn’t miss it. There also isn’t any searing guitar solos or intricate finger picking or banjos or mandolins. This is straight up alternative indie rock, right out of Austin. And it’s simply gorgeous, my darlings. So get out and see Brazos while you can, on this short tour. And enjoy this album, I know you will. By the way, that last track, “For So Long Now,” will just blow you away with it’s poetic, lyrical, beauty and yes, I’m gonna say it… awe, xoxo
Tracklisting
1. My Buddy
2. Kid
3. The Observer
4. Avignon
5. Pues
6. Day Glo
7. Tell
8. Downtown Boys
9. We Understand Each Other
10. For So Long Now
pre-order Phosphorescent Blueshere, directly from the artist
Tour Dates
11/03 – Jackpot – Lawrence, KS
11/04 – 400 Bar – Minneapolis, MN
11/05 – High Noon Saloon – Madison, WI
11/06 – Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL
11/07 – Grog Shop – Cleveland, OH
11/09 – Horseshoe Tavern – Toronto, ON
11/10 – Il Motore – Montreal, QC
11/11 – TT the Bears – Cambridge, MA
11/12 – Music Hall of Williamsburg – Brooklyn, NY
11/13 – Kung Fu Necktie – Philadelphia, PA
11/14 – Rock N Roll Hotel – Washington, DC
11/16 – The Basement – Nashville, TN
11/17 – The Bottletree – Birmingham, AL
11/18 – The Earl – Atlanta, GA
11/19 – The Social – Orlando, FL
11/20 – Cafe Eleven – St Augustine, FL
11/22 – One Eyed Jacks – New Orleans, LA
Deastro, a.k.a., Randy Chabot, released Moondagger in June and it has been haunting my car stereo for months now. It’s 14 tracks are still mesmerizing me, along with the various remixes and releases I’ve collected since then by this prolific artist. I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it, the single most intriguing element of Deastro’s music is the variety of sounds that he incorporates into a unified whole of incredible fantasy. As one London review noted, he has the “epic swagger of U2, the intimacy of Badly Drawn Boy, the bleepedy bleepness of Aphex Twin.” That made me smile even as I hate those name-dropping, all-to-easy reference points. But please do go check out what all the fuss is about for yourself. You can find Randy on MySpace, facebook and on these pages here, and here.
I had the opportunity to chat with Randy by phone on Thursday, in preparation for his new tour which starts here in Chicago this week. I’ve not done a phone-in for quite a while and thought to myself that it might be a bit boring and mundane. But oh no, my darlings! I have a hunch that no conversation with this man would ever be boring! I found him to be engaging, intelligent and very funny, in a dry sort of Midwestern way. He was everything that he appeared to be from videos and other interviews I had read: no pretenses, no persona, no withholding what inspires him or what his honest experiences have been. He was charming in every way.
I always try to get the toughest question out there at the start because you never know how long you might have with an artist. They might called away, or they might simply get sick of talking to a nosy blogger. So I explained this to him; it’s a bit awkward at this stage in the process but we muddled through.
“One of the reasons I really wanted to talk to you is that I’ve heard you describe how you feel you channel a kind of energy while onstage, how there exists a level of energy above and beyond the performer. And I’ve attempted to explain this to musicians myself and failed. But I think you might be able to help me out, if you would be so kind.” I go on a bit, (maybe a bit too long), about how performers and audiences feed off one another, there’s a give and take in the interaction. But at the heart of it all exists some current of intangible creativity that an artist is open to, that they make themselves open to somehow.
“Well yes”, he replies without hesitation, “it kind of takes away from the idea of individual genius really. But I feel like you don’t really make anything new actually, you just build on the bricks set by the artists before you. Which is not to say that you don’t work at it or accomplish anything, but more that the creativity is based on collaboration.”
And as I’m nodding my head in agreement (which of course he can’t see, I’m on the phone, duh!) he continues to talk about how you feel that creative energy which is larger than the individual and even as it’s surging through you at that moment onstage, you also feel such a connection with everyone around you, that the meaning of it all, the community of creativity is what is at the center of all art. We take a much needed breath here. This has started off on a heavy foot! My brain is racing with ideas, however we’ve not really warmed up to one another yet. But I’m wondering if this is why his work is in constant motion, a constant process of remixing both his own music and that of others who inspire him. I never quite understood the “remix” like this before and I really like this angle on it instead of the more commercial aspect of churning out a new product in order to gain some economic profit in an easier, faster way.
I ask him about his new record, I’ve heard that it’s mostly written if not already completed and there are rumors that it will be quite different from the fantastical, light and intricately created Moondagger.
“It’s darker in it’s message, a little more serious” he tells me.
“Serious in terms of it’s lyrics too?”
“Well..getting back to the beginning, classical ideas about beauty and stuff, calm,… beautiful art for a while” he says in a relaxed tone. He’s happy about this change, I can tell.
“So how many songs do you think you’ve got in the bag for this next record?”
“I don’t know. I never really know. I’m always writing songs. I wrote basically a full-length with the band this fall. And that’s done. I don’t know what to do with it, probably not do anything with it honestly, probably record it in my basement it as b-sides and release it. I’m putting out so much music this year I don’t want to overplay it. I’m kinda gonna take a break and I want to go back to studying other people’s music after this record is done.”
“You give a lot of music away on your blog.” (Did you know that Deastro has a blog, dear readers?)
“I’m really into making music on the spot. Sometimes I get a bunch of coffee and write a record in like two nights and see what happens, usually it’s really fun.”
“I love that you have a blog,” I tell him, “and some people know about it, but it doesn’t seem like lot of people know about it and folks make comments and you answer them. How cool is that!?!”
“Ha, thanks, well, yeah, I definitely want music to be more personal and I’m always gonna give away my more creative stuff.”
“I love digital media” he continues, “but at the same time artists should be paid… music should and will get more local and I’m excited about that. It’s just evolving….Musicians have always been an instrument of accelerating culture and most of the musicians of this generation are good people.”
And we discuss the importance of community and how musicians are just part of a larger force of young people helping to bring communities together as they face hard times. The DIY attitude that began in the punk and indie scene prepared us for much of the community organizing that kids in their 20s are now doing in places like Detroit and Chicago and we agree that it’s cool to be involved in it.
I know that Randy has a commitment to his community. It’s something he’s talked openly about before. In his visual art he expresses his views on how society undermines communities. The album covers, and the cassette tape covers that you can see and purchase via his blog are beautiful collages and drawings that show loads of symbolism that simply scream out two words to me: social violence. There’s ragged points and sharp teeth and vicious monsters with gaping mouths, all poised to devour colorful, beautiful, serene nature and social order. Randy’s art is an obvious display of a battle between good and evil.
“A lot of my art is about suffering. I want it to look insane. I like throwing one or two words in monster text so you understand kind of where I’m coming from. A monster saying “feed me,” a super anorexic monster or a super obese monster to play on those themes of people who have too much and people who have too little…individualism to the extent that it’s not healthy, where it makes people feel isolated. Especially in capitalist society, that’s always in danger of happening because it’s kind of the goal. You have to be a shark. And I don’t want to be a shark.” Hunger Pains mp3
I couldn’t agree more, as any of you who know me could guess. And the more we talk the more I think he realizes what a kindred spirit I am.
“I definitely feel like my art symbolizes violence and how crazy evil itself is. That’s why I draw lots of teeth and so on.”
Well, it’s not really me doing the soliciting, I’m just asking for a friend. Really I am! What? You don’t believe me? Oh shush! Here, I’ve copied Tim’s email request exactly:
I caught a little bit of 
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