Mp3s: An Unfortunate Gothic Archies Event
Posted on November 21, 2006 at 1:09 pm | No Comments
It is plainly obvious that Mr. Lemony Snicket simply does not like children. The proof is not only in the terrible trials he puts the Baudelaire children through in his now-finished, 13-part “A Series of Unfortunate Events” books, but in the fact that he left hundreds of them in the lurch last month at the high school in Natick, Massachusetts. Mr. Snicket was scheduled to appear on-stage alongside Mr. Daniel Handler and Mr. Stephin Merritt (aka The Gothic Archies) to not only read selections from his writings, but to make the musical duo a trio by adding much-needed percussion to songs inspired by those same unfortunate events (which appear on the recently released “Tragic Treasury“). But the scribe never arrived.
Fortunately for the 800 or so in the crowd (which appeared to be comprised almost entirely of kids, their parents, and, uh, me), after phoning Mr. Snicket to discover his whereabouts, misters Handler and Merritt carried on without him, apologetically entertaining us with a few of the afforementioned songs and words. A potential disaster was averted thanks to these two supremely talented gents, with no thanks to the absent author.
Here, then, is the aural evidence of that evening, along with a few photos and some links below. Notice the conspicuously empty chair between our hosts…
Daniel Handler & Stephin Merritt
aka
The Gothic Archies
Live at Natick High School
in Natick, Massachusetts
October 16th, 2006
01. Allison Morris – “An Introduction” (spoken)
02. Daniel Handler – “I Wouldn’t Applaud If I Were You” (spoken)
03. The Gothic Archies – “Smile, No One Cares How You Feel“ (song)
04. Daniel Handler – “The Ridiculous Lie” (spoken)
05. The Gothic Archies – “This Abyss“ (song)
06. Daniel Handler – “Something Of A Disaster” (spoken)
07. The Gothic Archies – “Shipwrecked“ (song)
08. Daniel Handler – “Two Volunteers” (a reading)
09. Daniel Handler – “Scream And Run Away“ (song)
10. Daniel Handler – “Warm Feelings” (a spoken farewell)
Some related Handler & Merrit links…
The main Lemony Snicket site, his Wikepedia entry, and the official site for The Gothic Archies – “The Tragic Treasury: Songs from a Series of Unfortunate Events“, where you can stream tracks from the album. Hit up the Gothic Archies MySpace page to stream some songs as well, and use the links on this page to purchase the album from a variety of retailers. The unfortunate event above was sponsored by The Wellesley Booksmith, and the introduction was from their children’s book buyer, Allison Morris. For all things Stephin Merritt, the only place you need visit is The House of Tomorrow. Sub-sites can be found there for his Magnetic Fields, The Future Bible Heroes, The 6ths, and of course, The Gothic Archies. I may very well have missed this fine performance were it not for this timely post at the Phoenix’s music blog, On The Download. Their books blog, Word Up, wrote up their own review of the evening right here. Talk about worlds colliding: Stephin appeared on Fox’s “Good Day Atlanta” as part of the promo tour for “The Tragic Treasury”. He chats a bit and performs “Smile, No One Cares How You Feel“. Many more performances of songs from “The Tragic Treasury” can be found over on (where else) YouTube.
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.
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?