Favorite Live Shows of 2007

I had so much fun making my Favorite Live Shows of 2006 list that I decided to do it again this year. I’ve seen more amazing live shows this year than I ever have before, but it was these 15 that stood out. Make to sure to follow the read more… link to see the whole list, and visit Pictures For Kids Who Can’t Read Good to check out all my concert pictures from this year. If you’re looking for the full reviews check the left sidebar under “Live Freak Gasoline Fight Accidents”. Enjoy!

15. Hot Freaks presents: The Rosebuds/St. Vincent Club Deville/Mohawk Lounge (Austin)

Picture by Frank from Chromewaves

Those bloggers sure know how to put on a fantastic show. I don’t remember too much from the night (care to guess why?) except that I met Annie Clark and Kelly Crisp after the show and at one point I attempted to dance onstage (note the picture above for photographic proof).

14. The Mountain Goats/Bowerbirds Canopy Club (Urbana)

I’m very much looking forward to Heretic Pride in February. The new songs came off great live.

13. Of Montreal/Grand Buffet/MGMT Canopy Club (Urbana)

I don’t think it’s possible not to be entertained at an Of Montreal show. Even though it didn’t quite compare to the epic Pitchfork Fest performance, it still was an extremely enjoyable night.

12. Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s/Page France/Headlights/Canada Courtyard Café (Urbana)

I like every band on this line-up and seeing them all together was a wonderful thing. That being said, it was Page France that really came through with their performance to make this show awesome.

11. Broken Social Scene presents Kevin Drew’s Spirit If… Canopy Club (Urbana)

An incredibly odd and memorable show. Made me appreciate the Kevin Drew solo album much more and re-acquaint myself with some of my favorite BSS tunes. Encoring with “It’s All Gonna Break” nearly 20 minutes after their set officially ended was amazing.

Click the below link to see my top ten!

Leaves In The River

I realize that I’ve been slipping quite a bit in my time between updates on this blog but just because I have 4 final projects due next week and my computer is still at Apple getting a new hard drive, doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten about this blog. It’s just been harder to knock some time out of my day to think about music lately (I’m still listening to music obviously, attempting to think about and review new music is a different story). Hopefully, you the readers, can bear with me until my classes have winded down and I have some more time to dedicate here. One album that I would like to recommend that I think deserves some more attention is Leaves in the River by Sea Wolf (the moniker of singer/songwriter Alex Brown Church).

Earlier this year, I talked up Get To The River Before It Runs Too Low, the debut EP from Sea Wolf and said the band has “a full length coming out earlier this year, and if this EP is any indication, it’ll be one to mark your calenders for.” Well, I was never that good at marking my calendar and the album’s September release date went by without acknowledgment from me, but after seeing the album pop up on a couple year-end lists I decided I need to get a hold of it (luckily I found an unopened copy in my pile of promo CDs). The appeal of the band to me is the well-crafted and intricate detail in the songs and a dark, forlorn emotive quality that continues to remind me of some of Conor Oberst’s more accomplished works. The biggest standout on the album is “Black Dirt”, which begins stripped-down and foreboding, before delivering with a jangly, dissonant guitar solo and a string arrangement that gives the song it’s haunting atmosphere. “You’re A Wolf”, a carry-over from the EP, is equally as stirring and acts a centerpiece for the album. Leaves in the River and Get To The River Before It Runs Too Low are available at Dangerbird Records, the band’s label.

MP3 Sea Wolf – Black Dirt
MP3 Sea Wolf – You’re A Wolf

Top 25 of '05: Revisited!

Thanksgiving is over and you all know what that means. It’s end-of-the-year lists season! Just as you’d expect from any good blogger, I’ve begun work on my lists and I’ve decided that before I go forward I should revisit the past a bit. While I think I was in a pretty good state of mind for my best of 2006 as I really wouldn’t change much about those lists, my top 25 albums of ’05 list is, to put it nicely, a bit flawed (Seriously, We Are Scientists, Franz Ferdinand, and the Stubbs the Zombie Soundtrack in the top 10? What was I thinking!).

I’m blaming my poor list-making skills on my inadequate blogging experience at the time and the fact that many of my favorite albums from the year I didn’t hear untill after the fact. I also lacked a top 25 songs list in ’05, so you’ll find one of those in this post (albeit unranked) with some MP3 downloads. So sit back and remember the good old times when Facebook was only for college students, Arrested Development was on the air, Pluto was still a planet, and YouTube parodies of Brokeback Mountain were all the craze.

() notes previous rank. HM = Honorable Mention

25. LCD Soundsystem – s/t (unlisted)
24. Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning (#13)
23. José Gonzalez – Veneer (HM)
22. The Go! Team – Thunder Lightning Strike (#20)
21. Rogue Wave – Descended Like Vultures (#3)
20. Architecture in Helsinki – In Case We Die (unlisted)
19. Broken Social Scene – s/t (unlisted)
18. The Rosebuds – Birds Make Good Neighbors (#16)
17. Kanye West – Late Registration (unlisted)
16. Page France – Hello, Dear Wind (unlisted)
15 .The New Pornographers – Twin Cinema (#14)
14. Sigur Ros – Takk (#9)
13. Okkervil River – Black Sheep Boy (unlisted)
12. Spoon – Gimme Fiction (unlisted)
11. Of Montreal – The Sunlandic Twins (unlisted)
10 Bloc Party – Silent Alarm (#4)
9. The Decemberists – Picaresque (#2)
8. The Mountain Goats – The Sunset Tree (unlisted)
7. Jens Lekman – Oh You’re So Silent Jens (unlisted)
6. Stars – Set Yourself On Fire (#7)
5. Wolf Parade – Apologies to Queen Mary (unlisted)
4. The Hold Steady – Separation Sunday (unlisted)
3. Andrew Bird – The Mysterious Production of Eggs (#11)
2. The National – Alligator (HM)
1. Sufjan Stevens – Illinois (#1)

Ordered Alphabetically by Track Name

Jens Lekman – A Sweet Night on Hammers Hill
Stars – Ageless Beauty
Nada Surf – Always Love
The New Pornographers – The Bleeding Heart Show
Page France – Chariot
LCD Soundsystem – Daft Punk is playing at my house
The Mountain Goats – Dance Music
Bright Eyes – First Day of my life
Okkervil River – For Real
Rogue Wave – Love’s Lost Guarantee
The Knife/Jose Gonzalez – Heartbeats
Cloud Room – Hey Now Now
The Rosebuds – Hold Hands and Fight
Sigur Ros – Hoppipolla
Spoon – I Summon You
Wolf Parade – I’ll believe in anything
Broken Social Scene – Ibi Dreams of Pavement
The National – Mr. November
Feist – Mushaboom
Sufjan Stevens – The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is out to Get Us!
Of Montreal – Requiem for OMM2
Andrew Bird – Tables and Chairs
Bloc Party – This Modern Love
Iron & Wine – The Trapeze Swinger
Eagle*Seagull – Your Beauty is a Knife Turned on my Throat

The Mountain Goats – Live @ Canopy Club

I saw The Mountain Goats two years ago at the Pitchfork Music Festival and they put on a fantastic show full of crowd favorites and sing-a-logs, intertwined with John Darnielle’s storytelling and his charismatic stage presence. Last week’s show at the Canopy Club showed a much different picture of the band, opting to play mostly deep cuts from their ever-expansive catalog and showcasing some new tracks. This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy ever second of it, but I think everyone expected him to play “Cubs in Five”, “No Children”, and “The Best Ever Heavy Metal Band in Denton” and none of those made an appearance. In fact only one song off my favorite Mountain Goats album, Tallahasee, was played, the stormy “See America Right”.

Out of the songs we did hear the highlights were certainly the songs from The Sunset Tree. The band played a new, introspective version of “Dance Music” and “Love Love Love”, a personal favorite of mine, and closed the first set with “You and Your Memory” and the exuberant, crowd participatory “This Year”. Surprisingly, none of the singles from Get Lonely were played, but “Moon Over Goldsboro” and “Maybe Sprout Wings” finely displayed the beautiful mellow side to the band as did “Mole” from We Shall Be Healed. Out of the new songs, the one that Darnielle wrote in Alaska about never leaving your room was by far the most memorable. It was a return to the upbeat, witty songs for the band and featured an awesome drum solo.

Perhaps the biggest surprise from the evening was when the band pulled out “Soft Targets” which Darnielle prefaced by talking about how it was so rare that he had to aquire a copy of it for himself on ebay. The song was wonderful and much of the crowd knew all the words, a testament to the band’s hardcore following. Darnielle was overly modest on stage in his interactions with the crowd, especially in the way he overly thanked everyone after a song.

The only hint of his charismatic nature that I had seen earlier was during the encore song, “Best Houseguest”, where he playfully sang each verse of the song (with lyrics like “I’ve done things in your room you’d be ashamed to accuse me of”) to one of the audience members. While I doubt anyone left the show completely disappointed, the band still left me wanting more. I’m sure when The Mountain Goats stop by again, I’ll be there front and center.

MP3 This Year
MP3 Soft Targets

Go to Pictures For Kids Who Can’t Read Good to see all of my shots from the night.

Say something cinematic or become a tragic figure…

I’ve been having some crazy hardware difficulties this week (my Powerbook is now somewhere in between here and Cupertino) and this coupled with being on a farm in Iowa for Thanksgiving Break will probably make me a bit lacking in the blog updating department for the next few days. Before I leave though, I have to share with you a wonderful guitar pop band from Philly that I discovered this weekend called The A-Sides. Their new album, Silver Storms, is packed full with upbeat tunes with extremely infectious melodies. The swirly guitars and frantic drumming might remind you of The Walkmen at times while the melodies and harmonies clearly show some britpop inspiration.

“We’re In Trees” is my favorite song on the album and it’s first one I would suggest listening to. The ringing guitar riff at the beginning pulls you in and a the bouncy verses keep you hooked. Once you hear soaring vocals of the chorus hits it’s all over: This song completely rocks. Seriously though, stay for the instrumental breakdown mid-song and the Franz Ferdinand-style tempo shift at the end. “We’re in Trees” is quickly climbing up my favorite songs of the year list. Another track I’d recommend is the midtempo, Interpol-like “Cinematic”. Like all of the A-Sides tracks it has melody that will stick with you as well some impressive guitar work and interesting lyrics. Download both of these tracks below:

MP3 The A-Sides – We’re In Trees
MP3 The A-Sides – Cinematic

Myspace
Buy Silver Storms

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-I’m using Leopard now on my dad’s iMac and Spaces by far the best new feature. It honestly blows Tiger’s Exposé out of the water for keeping your desktop organized. Other than that and some fun iChat features that make you look like you’re riding a rollercoaster while you’re video conferencing, I haven’t noticed anything that groundbreaking. If you’re on the fence though, I’d upgrade for Spaces alone.

-I’ve added some new share this icons underneath each post. If you ever feel the urge to slashdot, digg, reddit, del.ico.us, facebook, technorati, google bookmark, or stumble on a post of mine, now you can do so with ease!

The "Best Songs To Play On Phase" Mix

For the last week or so I’ve been addicted to the new iPod game by Harmonix, Phase. If you’re not familiar with any of the Harmonix games, they created both Amplitude and Frequency for PS2 as well as the first two Guitar Heros and the upcoming Rock Band. So basically, if it’s a music video game and it’s awesome: it was made by Harmonix. The newest game is the first where you can actually choose your own soundtrack for the game, which is an excellent idea. The way it analyzes beat algorithms to produce the gameplay is pretty spectacular.

Obviously some songs work better than others on the game (like you’d expect, the gaming engine likes songs with dancey beat more than ambient post-rock). Keeping that in mind, I’ve picked out a few of my favorite songs to play on Phase. If you have iPod with video capabilities, 5 dollars, and some free time (like I said, this game is addicting) I highly suggest you get Phase and try out these songs on it.

MP3 Modest Mouse – Dashboard (from We Were Dead Before The Ship Sank)

MP3 Battles – Atlas (from Mirrored)
This is one of the tracks I was most excited to try and it works splendidly thanks to the complex percussive arrangement that makes you to hit all the offbeats.

MP3 De La Soul – A Roller Skating Jam Named “Saturdays” (from De La Soul is Dead)

MP3 Andrew Bird – Fake Palindromes (from Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs)
The rush of strings in this song is one of my favorite sequences to play in the game.

MP3 The Futureheads – Decent Days and Nights (from The Futureheads)

MP3 CSS – Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death from Above (from Cansei De Ser Sexy)
One of the best examples of the game perfectly matching the music.

MP3 Mates of State – For The Actor (From Bring It Back)

MP3 Spoon – Finer Feelings (From Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga)
I don’t think I’ve played one Spoon song on Phase that doesn’t work. This one’s my favorite though.

MP3 Girl Talk – Bounce That (From Night Ripper)
Easily the best song I’ve played on Phase. The song changes exactly at every checkpoint and somehow the game keeps up with all of Girl Talk’s beats. Night Ripper should be packaged with Phase.

Keep in mind that all these songs work best when played on “Hard”. If you enjoy the music support the artists and buy their albums.

Broken Social Scene / Kevin Drew – Live @ Canopy Club

Last week’s Broken Social Scene concert (the last of their tour) was by far one the weirdest and most memorable I’ve ever experienced. I arrived at the scene about 5 minutes before the band started playing and still easily found a place up front. I think the confusing show title: Broken Social Scene presents Kevin Drew + Monday Night + overpriced tickets kept alot of people away, which is unfortunate because they missed a show they wouldn’t have easily forgot, I’m not sure you could call it a GREAT show, it was definitely enjoyable though. One thing you can’t disagree on is that the band started out completely on their game. The first 5 or 6 songs were fantastic. My favorite song on the new album, “Lucky Ones” started the night and everyone sang along to “Yeaaaahhs”. The band then kicked ito “Cause=Time” which is a constant battle with “Anthems” and “Dreams of Pavement” as my favorite from the band and they killed the song.

Some of the best songs from Sprit If… were played up front also such as “TBTF”, “F-ked Up Kid”, and “Safety Bricks”. Perhaps the biggest highlight though came when the band shot into “Stars and Sons”. The guitar riff that underlies the song was hugely amped up making the song much noisier and more energetic. “Superconnected” was another of the band’s older songs that took on a complete new meaning for me live. After the midpoint in the show, the band started playing some longer, more transcendent numbers and a couple random songs from guitarist Brendan Canning and American Analogue Set. There were some great moments though packed in such as the raging “Backed Out On The…”, the fast version of “Major Label Debut” , and an extended, haunting “Lover’s Spit”.

As for the crowd interaction and stage banter, Kevin Drew seemed to get more and more incoherent and awkward as the night when on. Some of his babbling onstage was hilarious (like when he wrote a country song on the spot about how boring Urbana is or sheepishly admitted to buying his sweater at Banana Republic with his grandma). Other times though he just came off as an a**hole. In what was one of the most confusing stage moves ever, once the band had already left the stage Kevin stayed at the mic talking to the crowd about some pretty head-scratching stuff while throwing out phrases like “there’s alot of white people in the crowd tonight… with beards”. The funniest part of the evening came during this when someone shouted out ‘Shoreline!’ to which Drew said “Do I look like I’m about to bust into ‘Shoreline’ right now”.

One song that he did sing a bit of on request was Wham!’s “Careless Whisper” which was really funny. Evenutally some people started to leave and Drew actually called them out as to why they’re leavin’. Umm, maybe cuz the band stopped playing 15 minutes ago? Totally weird. After what seemed like a half hour of this slightly amusing situation and one impromptu drum solo on Drew’s part, the whole band came back on stage for an encore performance of their self/titled closing epic, “It’s All Gonna Break”. It was a frickin’ sweet way to close the concert, but I imagine if the band shortened their set and cut out much of that confusing stage banter, the show would have been altogether more solid.

MP3 Lucky Ones
MP3 Stars and Sons

Go to Pictures For Kids Who Can’t Read Good to see all of my shots from the night.

Love Like Fire / Facebook Music Blogs App

I was just recently introduced to San Fransico indie rock up-and-comers Love Like Fire through the song “From A Tower”, an endearing power-pop group that falls somewhere in between Rilo Kiley and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. After listening a number of times to “From A Tower” I found out that the band made more songs (whoa!) and they were also great (Yesss!). In fact, I think after listening to “S.O.S.” and “Unlighted Shadow” they’ve become my favorites from the band. For some reason the band is unsigned, but they seem to be doing well for themselves DIY-wise as I’ve seen the band featured on a few notable blogs.

Love Like Fire has a great dynamic going: guitar riffs with equal amounts of crunch and buzz, rolling drums, and strong, passionate vocals from Ann Yu. You can hear a strong influence from new wave bands like The Cure and Siouxe and the Banshees in their songs. From what I’ve heard, the band absoutely kills live so if you’re on the west coast check them out sometime and hopefully for the rest of us they’ll schedule some midwest/east coast dates very soon. Until then, You should definitely download all these tracks and listen to them.

MP3 Unlighted Shadow
MP3 S.O.S.
MP3 From A Tower

Myspace
Buy the E.P.

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Thanks to everyone who’s joined this blog’s offical Facebook group. It’s almost at 200 members which I think is pretty cool. Another way you can support this blog, or any music blog, or just help spread music that you like is by adding the new Music Blogs Facebook App created by the nice folks at Yahoo. Once you do you can stream music from any music blog of your choice on your Facebook Profile. I realize that no one likes it when you fill your Profile up with a bunch of crap, but I think you’ll find that this App is a keeper. Give it a try by clicking here.

Also, the Music For Kids Who Can’t Read Good group wall has been a bit deserted lately, so why don’t you shake things up a little by posting your top 5 albums of the 2007 for everyone to see.

Spitzer

I’m probably going to be laying low this weekend, due to some issues with our apartment company freaking out about parties (Apparently while I was at Sunset Rubdown last Saturday someone ripped the front door off of our apartment complex). But for those of you who are gonna have some fun this weekend and our tired of choosing between Justice, Simian Mobile Disco, and old Daft Punk albums, here’s something new to spin (courtesy of igif).

They really have everything going for them to become the next big d.a.n.c.e. act: Spitzer are from France, Spitzer are a duo, Spitzer pump out some of the sickest electro bass-pumping jams that your ears can physically handle. Seriously, put “Kapersky” or “Disco Biscuits” on at your next house party and I can guarantee that within 30 seconds you’ll have at least 10 people say to you “who the hell is this? I love it!”*.

MP3 Kapersky
MP3 Disco Biscuits

Check out the band’s myspace for a couple more

*actual responses may vary

Newsflashes: Saturday Looks Good To Me, The Onion, Cliffs of Dover

I’ve been listening to the new Saturday Looks Good To Me record in my car and it’s fabulously awesome. I first heard the pop collective when they open for Mates of State a few years back and I enjoyed the retro poppiness of it but nothing really grabbed me. Fill Up The Room, though, has more memorable melodies in the first four songs though, then most bands can attempt in a full album. It’s a hugely enjoyable listen. Perhaps my favorite track is the sugary-sweet and endlessly catchy “Hands in the Snow”. Pitchfork called the song “disappointing” citing that it’s a “light, fluffy, precisely metered B&S tribute” but interestingly enough, the Belle & Sebastian influence and it’s floating-on-air melody are a couple of the reasons why I love the song. Download here and make up your own mind about it:

MP3 Hands in the Snow

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I’ve just recently become a regular reader of The Onion and it’s quickly become my favorite humor website. Whenever I’m bored at work or anywhere really I go on and check some of the archived articles and have a hearty laugh. Here’s five of my favorites with one of the best lines from the article written below.

Matchbox Twenty Finally Finishes Watering Down Their Long-Awaited New Album
“The release has been eagerly awaited by Matchbox Twenty’s enormous fan base, composed of American record buyers who have a limited interest in music but enjoy the act of shopping.”

Mexican Scientists Perfect Copying
“Signs could be printed saying, ‘Have your picture taken with this donkey painted like a zebra—only 30 pesos,’ Padilla said. ‘In theory, there is no limit to the number of donkey-painted-like-a-zebra acts which could utilize such a sign.”

Mom Finds Out About Blog
“In an e-mail sent to Widmar Monday, Lillian reported in large purple letters that she was ‘VERY EXCITED :)!!!’ to find his ‘computer diary,’ but was perplexed that he hadn’t mentioned it to her.”

If The Heat Doesn’t Kill The Elderly, I Will
“The heat has struck hardest among the elderly, dozens of whom have died of heatstroke, heat exhaustion and dehydration. If you, like me, are a right-thinking person, your mind recoils in horror at this fact: The old and decrepit are dying by mere dozens?”

Area Man Likes To Compare Circle of Friends To The Cast Of Lost
“I’m the provider,” he said, likening his role among his friends to that of Locke, the island’s hunter and tracker. “Last Super Bowl, I made quesadillas for everyone, and it was totally like Locke coming back with the boar, me marching in with all that food. My friends didn’t think I could cook. It was definitely a ‘Don’t tell me what I can’t do!’ moment.”

MP3 The Shins – Know Your Onion

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I never had heard the song Cliffs of Dover by Eric Johnson until I started playing Guitar Hero 3 and now I can’t get enough of the track (which I finally beat on expert this week). It’s such a jovial, delightful song and it also has one of the most insane guitar solos I’ve ever heard. I dug up this video of Eric Johnson playing the song at Austin City Limits and it’s seriously a thing of beauty. Check it out below.

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Also while you’re youtubing watch the Office writers (many who are also cast members) having a good ol’ time at the writer’s guild strike. While it sucks that this strike affects The Office, I would actually go berserk if the upcoming LOST season was disrupted.