Four long years after their previous tour, Wilco are in Australia! Although I have been a fan for ages, I had never had the opportunity to see them live, so when I heard that they were coming back to our shores I was overjoyed.
Although Glenn Richards from Augie March did a solid job as support, my anticipation meant that I couldn’t really concentrate too much on his set. He only really got my attention with the Augie March tracks, but having said that he has to be one of the better local musicians around.
Opening with ‘I am trying to break your heart’ Wilco came out strong and only lost my attention during their first encore when they played ‘Spiders (Kidsmoke)’, which has never really been a big favourite of mine. Overall they tended to lean towards a combination of songs off Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost is Born, and showcasing a few new tracks also. It would have been nice to hear a few more songs from Being There or Summerteeth, though I was very pleased when they launched into ‘Kingpin’.
Jeff Tweedy seemed to be enjoying himself also, he was very chatty and a lot funnier than I imagined, though he did seem to have a preoccupation with pirates, something that the crowd responded well to.
Playing two encores and clocking in at just under 2 hours, the show was definitely worth the hefty pricetag. It seemed like every hipster in Melbourne had showed up for their piece of Wilco, and they were definitily not disapointed!
All in all it was a great show and I eagerly await their return.
News that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are touring should prompt everyone to… you know, clap their hands say yeah.
Ok, so Alec Ounsworth is whiney, so he slurs his lyrics, but really when it sounds so good who cares? I must admit it took a few listens for me to fully appreciate their first (self titled) album, but once I did, I didn’t want to listen to anything else.
In Australia towards the end of May to promote their most recent release, Some Loud Thunder this is one band that should be on your list.
If, like me, you did not go see Love is All at the East Brunswick last Feb… Here it is, recorded. Hooray!
And speaking of the East Brunswick: My Disco are playing there in a few hours. I’m going to go out on a limb and say they’re the best band in Melbourne, heavy, sharp and a complete assault on everything easy and bad about music. At Deerhoof last week they seemed to have pared back their sound even further from the already minimal Cancer material; like funk songs stripped right back to their diamond-hard cores.
If I was my 16 year old self (and thank god I’m not) I would probably slap my 24 year old self for even listening to an album with the word “country” anywhere in it’s description. However, over the years I have developed more and more of an appreciation for country music. Now I’m not talking about Faith Hill or anything, but there are definitely some great alt-country musicians and bands kicking around the place. Wilco for one, is the most obvious, Ryan Adams another (though his extreme prolific tendencies decrease the quality of his oeuvre).
One singer that I have recently come accross is Neko Case. Currently a member of the New Pornographers, Neko Case has in the last few years become better known for her solo work, and rightfully so.
Though I haven’t been able to lay my hands on her studio album, Furnace Room Lullaby, I have been listening to her live album “Live from Austin Texas” quite a bit. Recorded at Austin City Limits in 2003, the album contains a great mix of her own songs as well as covers from the likes of Hank Williams and Bob Dylan.
Highlights include ‘Deep Red Bells’ and ‘Maybe Sparrow’, check it out y’all!
Spending too much time on Soccer instead of Music?
At 1:30 am on Saturday night, I was sitting on a tram into the city, happily making my way home from a party and completely oblivious to the world around me. Until a bunch of emo looking kids jumped on and proceeded to sing numerous Weezer songs that is. Since getting out of my teens a few years ago, I have to say I haven’t really listened to much Weezer. I know they released the Green Album, which had some popular songs on it such as ‘Island in the Sun’ and ‘Hash Pipe’ (which featured a slightly disturbing sumo clip), but since then I really haven’t paid much attention to them at all. Has Rivers Cuomo finally thrown in the towel, gone back to Harvard to do his PHD or something?
Despite their more recent sub-par album offerings, the Blue Album and Pinkerton were great weren’t they? I remember listening to ‘Say it Aint So’ and ‘The World has Turned and Left me Here’ from the Blue Album and ‘The Good Life’and ‘El Scorcho’ from Pinkerton constantly. Weezer seemed like just the thing to play really loudly in the car when you have no where to go.
Thank god that these kids were singing a medley of Blue Album songs.
As I bought my copy of The Arcade Fire’s ‘Neon Bible’ today (read Kentuckys thoughts elsewhere on this page…), I sat for a moment contemplating whether I wanted the regular version or the more expensive ‘deluxe version’.I pondered this for some time and it got me thinking about the value of these ‘purchase incentives’.
The digital age has ushered in a new way of consuming your media, one that is totally devoid of a medium.The digital download has provided a legitimate way of getting to the music without any packaging. People have being doing this since the compact cassette provided a simple way of copying your friends LP’s. So one way for music companies to this is through fancy packaging. I’m not a big fan of fancy packaging for CD’s, it frequently wont fit into CD racks and is easier to damage than a jewel case. Bonus booklets are just too small to give me any real enjoyment and if they have posters then they have been folded so small they are impossible to unfold smoothly. If I want fancy packaging, I’ll buy it on vinyl.
The other way is through the ‘includes bonus track’ sticker. Bonus tracks are an interesting beast.If you really enjoy an album then why wouldn’t you want more of it? An extra track or two might add a reason to purchase the album if you’re already a fan of the band. Unfortunately there is a reason a lot of bonus tracks don’t make the album. Some of them clash with the other songs, some just plain out suck. On the whole they are disrupting to the concept of an album being a homogenous work.
Most albums are well thought out in terms on content and mood, even if not uniting behind some unifying theme.Considerable time will be spent choosing a running order that keeps the momentum going and the listener listening. Then along comes Mr Bonus Track and spoils the effort, like the uncle who wasn’t asked to tell saucy anecdotes at the wedding but does anyway. Even though they are after the album has finished and therefore can be stopped, quite frequently we will let the disc will play on. This isn’t such a problem on vinyl, such as the vinyl release of Death Cab for Cutie’s Plans. In this case the bonus track is on a separate side to the last third of the album and you make a conscious choice to listen to it when you flip the disc over. This is contrasted by the CD version of the same bands ‘The Photo Album’ in which the bonus tracks follow straight after the album.
Bonus tracks fall into a couple of categories.The first is the extra track; something that would have probably shown up as a b-side somewhere along the line, but probably wasn’t even good enough for that. The next is the live version. Sometimes its a track off the album, which can be jarring, as you already heard that song a little while ago, sometimes, its a previous single. The next is song off another EP or album.When I bought ‘Change’ by The Dismemberment Plan It included a couple of extra songs including ‘what do you want me to say?’ from the previous album, ‘Emergency and I’. This was great as I really liked the song and didn’t already own it, but if I had bought the previous album it would have been redundant.
That’s not to say I don’t like bonus material. I like getting more for my money, but I prefer to see the bonus tracks put onto a second disc. CD’s don’t cost a lot to produce, especially when made in volume, so you should be getting something extra for your dollars. This way the bonus material can be played at leisure, as an adjunct to the album or listened to separately.I like mini-albums that are culled from the same session, as Radioheads ‘Amensiac’ was to ‘Kid A’ or Modest Mouses’ ‘Everywhere and his Nasty Parlour Tricks’ was to ‘The Moon and Antarctica’. These were full price releases alongside their brethren, but could have been awesome bonus discs. In all, extra content should not detract from the main listen.A good entrée’ doesn’t overshadow a main course.
As an adjunct, I realise the version of Neon bible I should have bought was actually the Vinyl release, which comes with a free code to download a digital copy (one of the reasons I buy CD’s is the ease of transferring it to a digital medium). Its a best of both worlds scenario for someone like me who loves their vinyl but still embraces the digital life.I’ve seen a number of labels offering this, but generally only in the states.C’mon guys, start shipping down under.
Seriously, there have been a dozen (ok maybe a few) times where I’ve bought a ticket to see a band I don’t really care about with the main purpose of seeing their support act. This has just happened to me
recently, and it begs the question, should support bands be given more respect? Since I am still incensed at the cancellation of Gogol Bordello as support act for Flogging Molly (Truly disgraceful) I am inclined to say yes. It seems like supports are always changing for bands, one week there is one band playing second fiddle, the next week they have been replaced. Doesn’t this piss them off? Or are they just so grateful for the gig that they don’t care?
Personally I think we as the audience should also not be jerked around, especially when a couple of good support acts playing with a great headliner can really make an excellent night of music. We can get just as annoyed about a good support bad being cancelled last minute as much as the cancellation of the headliner.
If there’s one thing that’s a total bummer (ok, not including things like war, rape, torture and genocide – let’s keep some perspective); it’s reading the line-ups to awesome festivals you won’t be able to attend. Take the following:
From the 26-30th of June this year in distant Arendal, Norway goes the Hove Festival. Sure, My Chemical Romance are playing, but so are Interpol, Kaiser Chiefs, Queens of the Stone Age, the Arcade Fire, TV on the Radio, CSS, Bright Eyes, The Hold Steady, Tokyo Police Club, and, um Slayer.
The first bunch of acts for Iceland Airwaves has just been announced, even though it doesn’t start until October 17. The acts you’ll be missing include Bloc Party, !!!, of Montreal, múm and Jenny Wilson.
Most dispiritingly, the All Tomorrow’s Parties “ATP vs. You” Festival runs from May 18-20 in Minehead, England. Confirmed so far are Built to Spill, Shellac, Edan, Slint, Wilco, Les Savy Fav, Modest Mouse, Yo La Tengo, Mogwai, the Thermals, Okkervil River, The Go! Team, Architecture in Helsinki, Trans Am, Sparklehorse and more, but there are a few more acts as yet unconfirmed.
Oh, and the usual ATP weekend runs April 27-29, curated by the Dirty Three this year; it includes Bill Callahan, Low, Joanna Newsom, Cat Power, Papa M, Nick Cave, the Drones, Art of Fighting, an acoustic version of Spiritualized. And Dirty Three.
I’m not even going to get too into the Pitchfork Festival, except to say that Sonic Youth are playing ‘Daydream Nation’ in its entirety on the Friday, the jerks. Daydream Nation! I’m getting another beer.
I was just looking at the Corner Hotel website and couldn’t help but notice that Saturday’s Deerhoof show is not only not marked ‘SOLD OUT’, but not even ‘SELLING FAST’. I mean, c’mon.
But what makes that especially weird is that the indescribably good Melbourne noise machine called My Disco are in support. This is they.
Seriously, this will be so great. It’s $34 + bf, which is a mere $17 + (0.5 x bf) per band, each of them is easily worth $34 on their own.
Kentucky Cocktail 