Under The Gun
Posted on November 14, 2006 at 8:29 pm | No Comments
A personal challenge: Let’s see if I can actually finish up a post during my lunch hour. Bits on Kristin Hersh, the Shins, Wheat, Silkworm and more follows…
Throwing Muses / 50 Foot Wave frontwoman Kristin Hersh will be releasing her next solo album, “Learn To Sing Like A Star” in late January 2007 on Yep Roc in the U.S. and 4AD elsewhere. Last month she stopped into Seattle’s KEXP‘s studio to play a few of the new numbers and an old TM song while she was in town for a solo show to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the debut Muses record. A stream of her four-song performance is archived on KEXP’s site right here, during which she debuted “Winter“, “Under the Gun“, “Sugarbaby“, and played 1986’s “Soul Soldier“. For a taste, here’s one of the new tracks as an mp3…
Go check out the rest, and have a look at the album artwork and tracklisting at Throwing Music. Really looking forward to that January 23rd release date.
A couple weeks before that we’ll get a preview in the form of a single for the song “In Shock“, which will include three non-album tracks: 2 new Kristin songs (“Window Pane” & “Blackstone“) along with an “eerie, dark version” of an Appalachian folk song called “Poor Wayfaring Stranger“.
In the meantime, make sure you bookmark or subscribe to the feed for Kristin’s blog over at Throwing Music. Some of her entries are as thought-provoking as her lyrics can be. Portland, Oregon’s Powell’s Books invited her to contribute a guest post (entitled “Korporate Konsumer Kulture” to their blog recently as well, so give that a read.
Kristin also took part in Powell’s most recent “Bookcast“, reading one of her best blog entries for an audience, and performing acoustic versions of her song “Beestung” and the Muses brilliant “Delicate Cutters“, each with brief spoken intros. Here’s a direct link to the spoken blog mp3 and “Beestung”…
Check out all the rest right here.
“Phantom Limb“, the first single from The Shins‘ upcoming “Wincing the Night Away“, has been unsurprisingly getting tons of radio play, especially on Sirius’ Left of Center channel and KEXP. Curious to hear more (and as someone who doesn’t do leaks), I made sure to check out their November 3rd live performance on KEXP when they were in NYC for CMJ (initialization overload). They played “Kissing the Lipless“, “Girl Inform Me“, “Turn A Square“, and “Pressed in a Book“, but just two from the out-in-January disc: “Phantom Limb” and “Australia“.
For just two more days you can listen to the entire Shins session by going to the KEXP streaming archive, selecting November 3rd from the dropdown, and entering 1:26pm into the time boxes. Click go, choose your media type, and you’re off. If you miss it, here’s the excellent “Australia“…
While the glorious Silkworm rightly called it quits after the tragic death of drummer Michael Dahlquist last year, their official end could actually be marked as December 6th, 2006 when the 12xu label releases their final recording, the EP titled “Chokes“. Six tracks: five originals and a cover of Dylan’s “Spanish Harlem Incident“. The originals were all tracked last year by Steve Albini, and the cover is actually a live recording from a New Year’s Eve 2000 show by the Crust Brothers, which was Silkworm plus Mr. Stephen Malkmus. Fittingly, Dahlquist sings lead on that one, a perfect bookend to the released output of one of the best bands there ever was.
12xu has made the first track from the EP available for download…
Mp3: Silkworm – “Bar Ice“
Damn it’s good to hear that man behind his drum kit again. The definition of bittersweet.
The rollercoaster ride of a career that Boston (ok, Taunton) band Wheat is on keeps going as they finally release some new music in the coming months. First up is a five song EP titled “That’s exactly what I wanted…exactly that“, which you can pre-order at Empyrean Records so you get it when it’s released on December 15th. If you order up before this week finishes up, you’ll get the mini-album plus “a limited-edition, hand-numbered, silkscreened poster, and t-shirt”. Wheat fans, go get ’em. The band has made one track from the EP available…
Next year comes the full-length follow up, “Everyday I Said a Prayer for Kathy and Made a One Inch Square“.
You could spend a mighty long time navigating the bands official site (which includes lots of buried lyrics for lots of random songs, including for the song above), which you might as well do while you download a wealth of shows (and albums!) over at the Wheat Live site. If you’ve never heard “Hope & Adams“, I can only envy you for the first listen you’re in for. Great, great stuff.
An absolute live audio goldmine: A free online streaming archive of old King Biscuit Flower Hour & Fillmore live shows has been created at Concert Vault. 300 live soundboard-sourced shows, many of them classics, all just a few clicks away from your ears. You can stream whole shows or individual tracks, up to you. Just create a free account, log in, and click the “concerts” button to see a list of the 300 shows that are already up, and get over there quick before it disappears or they start charging… it just feels too good to be true free.
Here are some direct links to a few of the shows I’ve been listening to today (you’ll have to register first for them to work), including a couple recorded decades ago here in Boston…
The Alarm, Metro, Boston, MA, 07/01/1983 Black Sabbath, Convention Hall, Asbury Park, NJ, 08/05/1975 Blondie, Paradise, Boston, MA, 11/04/1978 The Cars, Palladium, New York, NY, 09/22/1978 The Cure, Ontano Theatre, Washington DC, 11/16/1984 Elvis Costello & the Attractions, San Francisco, CA, 06/07/1978 Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Fillmore East, NYC, 03/06/1970 Duran Duran, Hammersmith Odeon, London, 11/16/1982 The Fixx, My Father’s Place, Roslyn, NY, 11/30/1982 Fleetwood Mac, Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ, 01/15/1975
And I’m not even halfway through the alphabet (ok, yes, I skipped ahead for the Neil Young). So get listening. If you’re not in the mood to search around, just fire up their Vault Radio player and you’ll get a playlist of random live tracks streamed for you.
To save you a little digging, here’s one of the songs you’ll find in there, a relative rarity from that amazing 1984 set from the Cure. While the song “Forever” has often been performed live, it’s never played the same way twice. Clocking in at over 9 minutes, this is probably the only time I’ll be able to use the descriptive phrase “goth improv jam”…
Jordan Jeffares of Snowden (who return to Boston in a couple weeks to play Great Scott with iForward, Russia!) made a solo AOL/Spinner Interface appearance last week, performing ultra-stripped down versions of four songs. While the full set won’t be posted until early December, they’ve made his version of their debut album’s title track available a little early. Head over here to stream “Anti-Anti“. Actually, since Jay asked so nicely, here’s the track for ya…
Hit up this link in a few weeks for the rest.
Greg Dulli’s Twilight Singers have made a new/old song available to stream on their MySpace page. “The Lure Would Prove Too Much” was actually recorded back in 2004 for their latest album, “Powder Burns“, but was ditched because it “didn’t quite fit”. The band is in Boston at the Paradise next week tonight with the Stars of Track and Field. I can’t make it, so enjoy it for me, willya?
Killer Boston-area show alert: The Evens are coming to town. The four-fisted machine that is Fugazi/Dischord guy Ian MacKaye and drummer Amy Farina are playing at the Massachusetts College of Art‘s Pozen Center ( 621 Huntington Ave.) on Friday, December 8th. Doors are at 7, the one-band show starts at 8, it’s all ages, and a mere five bucks (thank you once again, Mr. MacKaye). No advance tickets for this one, only at the door, so if you’re late you may be fashionable, but you also might not get in. Check out the stylin’ show poster right here.
Partake of some tracks from the Evens over at this fan-run MySpace page, or head to the Southern Records site, where they’ve made a song from their new album, “Get Evens“, available for download…
So y’know how I said at the top of this post that I wanted to finish it during my lunch hour? That was a week ago. Yeesh. And, of course, a bunch of the stuff I wrote about popped up on other music blogs in the meantime. Good thing I don’t get paid for this, eh?
Mp3s: The Long Winters in Allston, MA
Posted on November 13, 2006 at 12:01 am | No Comments
Thanks to this show, I can now pinpoint the exact date I became an unabashed fan of The Long Winters, as opposed to the casual admirer I’d been since their second record, 2003’s “When I Pretend To Fall“. While my appreciation for the songs of John Roderick & his Seattle mates was upped much further when their third album, “Putting the Days to Bed“, arrived from Barsuk this past July, it wasn’t until six weeks back that I really and truly got ’em. As the last note of their set faded on that last day of September, I made a beeline to their merch table to fill in any gaps, nearly amped enough (but not quite flush enough) to blow some cash on all the vinyl versions, which they noted were all now available there for the first time. So tempting for a wax-junkie, but I instead opted for their debut disc, 2002’s “The Worst You Can Do Is Harm“. Glad I did, as a couple of my faves from the set below reside there. It’s always refreshing when a band’s live show is evenly balanced between the old and the new.
Also refreshing? A frontman who is as genuinely engaging as he is talented. I’d heard tell of Mr. Roderick’s coherently goofy on-stage wit, and he definitely brought it with him to Harper’s Ferry that night. The banter entertained nearly as much as the songs themselves, and none of it forced, all of it delivered genially and sincerely. The guy’s as comfortable as can be up there, even as he’s good-naturedly insulting an audience member’s misguided fashion sense. If I ever get sick of the the band’s songs (and even with the amount I’ve listened to all three discs since the show, there’s no danger of that), the Long Winters’ live show ensured I’ll be seeing them again when and if they return to our coast…
Here’s their set…
Live at Harper’s Ferry
Allston, MA
Saturday, September 30th, 2006
01. intro
02. Rich Wife
03. banter 1
04. Shapes
05. banter 2
06. (It’s A) Departure
07. banter 3
08. Carparts
09. banter 4
10. Honest
11. New Girl
12. banter 5
13. Hindsight
14. banter 6
15. Scared Straight
16. Cinnamon
17. banter 7
18. Nora
19. banter 8
20. Blue Diamonds
21. banter 9
22. Jazz Jam
23. Stupid
24. Fire Island, AK
25. banter 10
26. Pushover
27. banter 11
28. Unsalted Butter
29. banter 12
30. Medicine Cabinet Pirate
Some Long Winters linkage…
Their own site, MySpace page, Wikipedia entry, and Barsuk Records page. Baby, You Got a Stew Goin’! was at the Bowery Ballroom show in NYC (the night before Boston),and offers up some words and pictures. And from that Bowery show, here’s a video clip of the improvised “Blues Jam“, which mutated to a jokey jazz jam the next night. I fear what other flavors of jam they opened up at subsequent shows. Official video action: Fire Island, AK (also on YouTube), and the unedited version of older vid “Blue Diamonds” (quicktime). Mp3: The Long Winters – “Pushover“. A few mp3s from their previous discs are available here at Barsuk, and here at their own site. Just a couple weeks ago the band played a few songs on NPR’s World Cafe. Stream live versions of “Teaspoon”, “Honest”, and “Fire Island, AK” from this page. Check out this excellent John Roderick interview that PopMatters shared last month. The band spends the rest of this month in Europe before a homecoming gig in Seattle on November 30th.
again with the fine print… If anyone has an issue with this live set being made available, just say the word (contact info in the ‘nac faq). Recorded with a Sony ECM-719 mic and a Sony MZ-RH10 minidisc, converted to .wav and then edited to 192kbps mp3s. Mp3s are made available for a limited time, and are not reposted once removed.