Via Audio

Via Audio is the brainchild of three music students from Berkley and through touring and EP-recording they’ve been able to catch the attention of members of indie rock veteran bands like Spoon and Death Cab for Cutie. Chris Walla and Jim Eno obviously felt like the world needs some more good indie guitar pop, and with their help the band will soon release their first full length, Say Something.

Before that though, the band is prepping for their CMJ showcase and buzz tells me that they are something to hear live. “We can Be Good” and “Modern Day Saint” have been rising pretty high on my play count the last couple of days, and I think you’ll enjoy them as well.

MP3 Modern Day Saint
MP3 We can Be Good

Via Audio’s Myspace

Happy Halloween!

Page France Live @ Schubas + 2 New Songs

This was my first concert at Schubas in Chicago and the venue lived up to the hype, as did the blog-favored performers – Page France and Anathallo.  Schubas is a very intimate venue with great sound and environment.  If you haven’t seen a show their yet, it’s quite the experience.

I’ve loved Page France ever since I heard them early this year and I’ve acquired everything they’ve ever put out since then, so you can imagine my anticipation for seeing them live for the first time.  Michael Nau, the lead singer of Page France, took the stage with an acoustic guitar and a hat he had found at Schubas a year earlier; he was joined by Whitney, Clinton, and Jasen on the Keyboards, Drums, and Bass respectively.   The band started off with Chariot which was amazing live and they extended the song with a third verse that I wish I had written down the lyrics to.

Michael’s voice is very unique and I had doubts that it would sound the same live as it does on record, but the vocals came through crystal clear.   The keyboardist/back-up vocalist Whitney was almost too adorable and the marching band-like percussion sounds were perfectly executed by Clinton.   The band swooned us with “Jesus”, rocked out during “Elephant”, and ended with a one-two punch of “Antarctica” and “Windy”.

Michael Nau is renowned for writing lots of material (there’s about 20 unreleased songs that you can find from him just accessing his various myspace acccounts) and on Friday Night he played three songs that I had never heard before.  They sounded like they would fit perfectly on the Pear/Sister Pinecone EP’s that came out earlier this year.  I recorded two of them and I’ve uploaded and embedded them on Youtube below.  The audio quality is fantastic and this will hopefully give you a great idea of what the new album (which I’ve heard is already recorded) will sound like.

MP3 Chariot
MP3 Antarctica (My Beloved Home)

I also have a full recording of a new Anathallo song and will post that with my review sometime this week.

James Eric is bringing covers back…

I got an email from an anonymous tipster about an Chicago artist named James Eric and his acoustic cover of JT’s Sexy Back. I’m a big fan of covers of any kind, so this is right up my alley and I was pleased to see that James Eric has huge variety on his site, all of which he pulls off wonderfully.

There’s some classic covers like “Where Is My Mind” and “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” as well as a great selection of indie covers from Flaming Lips, Neutral Milk Hotel, Wilco, and Sigur Ros. Huge props for covering one of my all-time favorites, Stay (Faraway, So Close) by U2. Nearly all the covers are stripped down and his vocal range on the covers is pretty amazing (he can hit Jonsi’s high notes and also sound like Jeff Mangum). Here’s the Sexy Back cover and four others that I liked:
MP3 Sexy-Back (JT Cover)

MP3 Untitled #1 (Sigur Ros Cover)
MP3 Waiting For Superman (Flaming Lips Cover)
MP3 Two-Headed Boy (Neutral Milk Hotel Cover)
MP3 Stay (U2 Cover)

Go to James Eric’s MP3 page for the rest…

There’s also sexy-back cover by the Changes that’s floating around but I can’t get to due to ezarchive crappiness. If anyone has it and wants to send it over I will love you…

Johan – Walking Away

FYI: For one reason or another, I saw my website on Windows Internet Explorer and I just about puked all over the screen. The site looks fantastic in Safari and Firefox and even looks OK in Mac IE, but everything is completely screwed up in Windows IE. Firefox/Safari users are in the majority now on this website (about 65% of my visitors) so fixing it isn’t the highest priority right now, but I will do it when I can. In the meantime though, start using a browser that works – Mozilla Firefox

I received this awesome video in my inbox yesterday and I have to share it with you before I head off to see the Anathallo/Page France show in Chicago tonight. The band’s name is Johan and they are an artsy power-pop band from Amersterdam. Their video for “Walking Away” is an amazing clip that consists of one long scene completely in reverse.*

It’s reminiscent of Coldplay’s “The Scientist” clip except without any cuts, but it also reminds me of U2’s amazing video for All I Want Is You. Both videos are very artistic and shot in black and white. They also both focus on a non-band member, and have a cameo where the band walks through the scene. The cool thing about Johan’s cameo is that they’re walking through the video forward which means they would have been having to walk backwards while filming (seems obvious, but took me a couple times to catch). Pretty freakin’ cool if you ask me. The video download is below and make sure to download the band-approved MP3 while your at it.

MOV Walking Away
MP3 Johan – Oceans

*Download the video, play it in Quicktime, and choose the option Loop Back and Forth (if you have it). You’ll see the video in reverse first then as it was originally shot.

Flogging Molly – Live @ Canopy Club

I went to see Flogging Molly this weekend, which I understand is very un-indie of me, but I had a great time. I haven’t listened to their music much but I think it takes a good amount of talent to take the basic idea of Irish folk music (fiddles, accordians, flutes, banjos, etc…) and to create a cataloge of punk songs from it that don’t seem horribly repetitive.

They’re also lots of fun and if you’re Irish, nearly irresistible. After seeing them I realized that the last three bands I had seen live all featured both accordian and violin, which is sortof odd.

The crowd, dominated by ISU students, loved the show and I quite enjoyed myself also when I wasn’t being thrashed around like a pinball in the mosh pit… or maybe that was the funnest part. Either way, the lead singer was cracking jokes during the whole set and the band as a whole had great stage presence. The opening band Zox, was pretty enjoyable as well. If you’ve never experienced Flogging Molly’s music and think you might enjoy some celtic punk rock then you might want to listen to a couple of tracks below.

MP3 What’s Left of the Flag
MP3 Drunken Lullabies

Myspace

I took a video of one of one of the band’s best songs and set closer – “What’s Left of the Flag.” You can watch it below. The picture to the left was taken by my friend Nick Duncan who has a completely awesome photo gallery here.

Nellie McKay

Nellie McKay is an artist I’ve seen here and there on the blogosphere but it wasn’t until this week when I got her (two disc) album in the mail that I gave it a proper listening.  With 23 songs you’d expect alot of filler, which is partially true but there’s quite a few gems in “Pretty Little Head” also.

The first song that really caught my attention was the third track “There You Are In Me” which is a lovely piano ballad pushed along by Nellie’s very intriguing singing style.  “The Big One” is the first single from the album and is a mixture of jazz and hip hop stylistically, it’s a very quirky track and one that I only liked after a couple of listens.  Perhaps the most immediate song on the two discs is “Columbia Is Bleeding”, which starts at slow and dreamy but at the :45 mark develops into a  fast paced and just plain freakin’ cool melody that continues through (most of) the rest of the song.  Nellie’s made a fair share of television appearances in the last year and is probably going to take over the world soon, so I’d catch onto her now.  Here’s some MP3’s:

MP3 Columbia Is Bleeding
MP3 There You Are In Me
MP3 The Big One 

Myspace

A Hawk and a Hacksaw

Seeing A Hawk and a Hacksaw live is nothing short of Eastern European gypsy party. Part of this can be attributed to the fact that they record with a real Gypsy brass band from Romania called Fanfare Ciocarlia, but the band, led by former Neutral Milk Hotel drummer Jeremy Barnes, only have two people at their disposal during their live show and come up with some creative ways to create a traditional and exuberant musical experience.

Jeremy plays the accordian while banging on drums with his legs, feet, and head (which holds an attached drumstick). The other touring member Heather Trost played her heart out on the violin. I took a video of one of their songs and the performance which is both somewhat humorous (due mainly to Jeremy’s head crashing into cymbals) and also extremely cool. Check it out and download a couple sample tracks from the band.

MP3 GaDJe Sirba
MP3 A Black And White Rainbow

+/- {Plus/Minus}

My first exposure to +/- (Plus/Minus) was the surprisingly good soundtrack to Wicker Park (which also featured Mogwai, The Shins, Mates of State, and Broken Social Scene). The song, “All I Do” had a very dreamy post-rock quality to it that I liked. Plus/Minus’ new album, Let’s Start a Fire has a couple songs that are in this same vein, but most of them are a much more pop-oriented type of electronic chamber pop, that’s probably better suited for today’s musical climate (considering the Postal Service’s success). They’re guitar style is something I’d also associate with Seattle scene bands (e.g. Minus The Bear) but these guys are from New York City.

“Steal the Blueprints” is the first single from the album and it’s a song that I’ve been playing and replaying for much of the year (probably because for a long time it was the first song on my iTunes Library list). The song is extremely catchy and has a fantastic build-up at the beginning.
“This Is All”, “Fadeout” and “Leap Year” are three other songs that are really superb. It’s very good chill-out/homework music which is something that fits my needs perfectly right now. The album comes out tomorrow but you can get it at emusic today!

MP3 Let’s Steal the Blueprints
MP3 This Is All (I Have Left)
MP3 Leap Year

Myspace

Marie Antoinette Contest Winner Announcement Post!

The contest was to come up with a historical figure and pick a post punk / goth rock / new wave song that you would put on the trailer for their biopic. The prize is a Marie Antoinette prizepack including a poster, the soundtrack, nail polish, and other goodies. I’ve gone through all the choices and listened to the songs and I can say that you made some really good choices.

It would be a crime not to pick a Talking Heads song since they were the arist chosen by the most amount of people, and the Lo‘s entry of “Talking Heads – Road to Nowhere (George Washington)” definitely stood above the rest. Not only is a great song but there was a ton of thought invested into the choice: Here’s the MP3 and an excerpt of what she said:

MP3 Talking Heads – Road to Nowhere (George Washington)

“The lyrics can be read as Washington’s pep talk to his troops before battle….The road to nowhere is the potential that if they fail, either in battle or by losing to the British, they will be killed….”There’s a city in my mind” is the vision for a democractic republic.”

The marching beat in the song, as well as the gospel choir makes it a fantastic choice for a trailer. Great work Lo, you’ve been sent an email! There’s quite a few other entries that I liked, you can listen to 5 of them below and read a lyric excerpt that I think fits the character:

MP3 Depeche Mode – Enjoy Your Silence (Vincent Van Gough)
“Feelings are intense / Words are trivial / Pleasures remain / So does the pain”

MP3 Devo – We’re Through Being Cool (The Crusaders)
“Were through being cool / Eliminate the ninnies and the twits / Going to bang some heads ”

MP3 Phoenix – Napoleon Says (Napoleon Bonaparte)
“I would be your Bonaparte / Don’t even care ’bout what Napoleon says”

MP3 Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime (Sadaam Hussein)
“You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack / And you may find yourself in another part of the world….and you may ask yourself how did I get here?”

MP3 The Smiths – Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want (Henry the 8th)
“Havent had a dream in a long time / See, the life I’ve had / Can make a good man bad”

Marie Antoinette opens tonight, I’ve heard (mostly) good things and will definitely be checking it out.

opens tonight, I’ve heard (mostly) good things and will definitely be checking it out.opens tonight, I’ve heard (mostly) good things and will definitely be checking it out.

The Bird & the Bee

I’ve talked about Inara George and her fantastic album “All Rise” a couple times before on this site and I even saw her live opening for Nada Surf and Rogue Wave earlier this year. She has a new project with producer Greg Kurstin called A Bird and a Bee and I think it could be her best work yet. The songs on their EP have a electronica/dance quality to them and jazzy influence that suits Inara’s vocals wonderfully .

Before the two began making music together they covered Jazz Standards which is undoubtedly where the inspiration for “I’m A Broken Heart” comes.  The song is downtempo and features beautiful vocals that make the tune sound as fresh as the rising orchestra and horn solos make it sound ancient.  By contrast, “Again & Again” and “F*ckin’ Boyfriend” are upper songs that will be perfect in the spring after their debut record is released. Keep your eye out for this duo.

MP3 I’m a Broken Heart
MP3 F*ckin’ Boyfriend

Look for their EP “Again and Again and Again and Again” in stores on Halloween.
Myspace