Human Out of Me
Posted on September 28, 2006 at 11:47 am | No Comments
My social calendar, such as it is, has been a little too packed since my return from Chicago… feel like I haven’t had a single moment to adequately rest up, or write about anything. I’d hoped for a little slow-down after such an insane (and yeah, insanely great) weekend, but my can’t-miss-it compulsion hasn’t allowed for it. Sure, it’s my own busy fault, so this is more of an explanation than a complaint.
In just the past couple weeks I’ve caught Bottomless Pit with Shearwater & Magnolia Electric Co., Eric Bachmann with Richard Buckner, and tried to see Asobi Seksu play at Tufts. Saw a couple preview movie screenings (The Science of Sleep & The Last Kiss, but just missed out on the mobbed Borat MySpace preview), and headed down to Providence, Rhode Island to check out the Comedians of Comedy (Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, Eugene Mirman, Morgan Murphy, and surprise guest Fred Armisen). We drove to Jersey for a good friend’s wedding, spent some time exploring the beautiful Rutger’s Garden with Amie & Neeners, and found a discarded backpack behind our Motel 6 that contained a wedding dress and a dozen balls of yarn. Patrolwoman Herrera of the East Brunswick PD is on the case. Cutest cop I’ve ever seen.
You can check out photos from a few of those haps (but sadly, none of officer Herrera) at my Flickr page, and the Jersey shots will appear soon.
A couple of shows you must be made aware of:
Rose Melberg is coming to town. Yes, she of the angelic voice, she formerly of Tiger Trap, the Softies, and Go Sailor. She’ll be playing as part of the honorable N.E.S.T. music fest (The Northeast Sticks Together) at O’Briens in Allston on Sunday, October 15th with Pants Yell! and Reports (both of whom I’m also psyched to see). That there’s a do-not-misser, so show up early ‘cuz there’s no advance tickets.
And then there’s this total score: The Upright Citizens Brigade. Here in Boston. At Great Scott. Yes. The UCB Touring Company will be appearing there on Friday night, October 13th. Hot dayum.
Do yourself a favor: Stop reading, click this link, and listen to four new songs from Bottomless Pit. BP is the post-Silkworm outlet of Tim Midgett and Andy Cohen, with the shit-hot rhythm section of Chris Manfrin (ex-Seam) and Brian Orchard (.22). The foursome played those songs during their too-short set here a couple weeks ago, and they’re all keepers. Can’t get enough of them, matter of fact. While their songs page has the tracks streaming, any tech-savvy surfer can sniff out the direct link. Ah hell, here’s one of the Tim-fronted numbers for you, if only so the song will show up on mp3 aggregators and reach more ears…
The others are the Andy-sung “Dead Man’s Blues” and “Dogtag“, and another Tim song, “The Cardinal Movements“. Go. Listen.
For the curious, here’s their setlist from their appearance at the Middle East on September 15th…
1. The Cardinal Movements
2. Dead Man’s Blues
3. Leave The Light On
4. Dogtag
5. State I’m In
6. Lily White
7. Winterwind
8. Human Out Of Me
File those new song titles away, you’ll be hearing them again.
I’m just gonna try and breeze through the rest of this post, as I’m in a rattling rush…
Greg Dulli and his Twilight Singers have been performing a live cover of Massive Attack’s “Live With Me” for awhile now, and they’re releasing a studio version of it on their next EP, titled “A Stitch In Time”. It ended up becoming a duet with ex-Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan, and you can now stream it on the Twilight Singers’ MySpace page.
Metal Hearts have unveiled a new song called ‘91‘ by way of a live performance clip on YouTube. As much as I loved the band before, it appears the addition of a second guitarist has made them even better. Really looking forward to their next studio effort.
Another song released via MySpace: Ida has a new cover of John & Beverly Martyn’s “Road to Ruin” on their page. It appeared along with some great news: That they’re at work on their next full lengther. That news is lessened by learning that their tentative October live date at the MFA Boston fell through.
Waitaminute… how did I not know there was some new Ned’s Atomic Dustbin released in June? Old skool! It’s a digital-only release called “Hibernation“, and the single has the title track, another new one called “Ambush“, and the umpteenth remix of “Kill Your Television” (for the people who don’t remember Ned’s, I guess). I’m listening now, and it sounds like they’ve been living in a world where time has simply not moved since the early 90s (not necessarily a bad thing).
But what’s the deal with only putting 30-second previews of the songs on the Ned’s MySpace page? Badly played, N.A.D.s. Well, at least they put a full 16-minute podcast up there as well. Fun with thick Brit accents! The new songs are played in the podcast, by the way, and you can grab a direct mp3 of it here (14.5 MB).
Stream the upcoming Portastatic album, “Be Still Please“, at the Merge site. It’s an excellent collection of songs, and I’ll be doing a giveaway of both the disc and tickets to see Mac & co. when they come to play Great Scott on October 12th.
More fine new music: The Sea Navy have finished their second album, titled “Oh These Troubled Times”, just in time for the record release show on October 5th out in Seattle at the Sunset Tavern. Check out two songs from the disc, “Heard of Irish Ponies” and “Arctic Advice” at their MySpace page. For the uninformed, the trio is comprised of ex-Ivory Coast singer/guitarist Jay Cox, Andrew Rudd (ex-Aqueduct) and Stuart Fletcher (ex-The Sorts, Sea Tiger). TW Walsh (The Soft Drugs) also helped out with bass and engineering duties on the recordings.
Singer/guitarist Martin Carr (Boo Radleys/Brave Captain) is traveling to the U.S. this fall, and is planning on playing some New England shows in mid-November with Corin Ashley of The Pills. According to Corin, it’ll be a “semi-acoustic, low volume thing”, and here are the dates…
Corin Ashley & Martin Carr
Fall ’06 Northeast Tour:
Thursday, Nov. 9th @ the Manhan Cafe in Easthampton, MA
Friday, Nov. 10th @ Great Scott in Allston, MA
Saturday, Nov. 11th @ Soundfix Records, Brooklyn, NY
Wednesday, Nov. 15th @ The Annex, NYC
While Carr just officially retired his Brave Captain solo-moniker, Corin has released his debut solo album (“Songs From the Brill Bedroom”), which you can grab via iTunes, or sample with some mp3s over at his MySpace page.
Corin was actually nominated for a few Boston Music Awards (male vocalist, local album, local song), which were apparently awarded last night. Results here. While I’m not a fan of “music as competition”, it’s nice to see Mission of Burma, C4RT, Aberdeen City, Lucky 57, and a certain Mr. Gammons got nods, at least.
Those BMA’s are part of the NEMO fest thing (which either stands for New England Music Organization, or Northeast Music Organization, depending on who you ask or where you google), which is happening this weekend here in Boston. I’ve been aware of the conference/festival since it started 10 years ago, but it’s never really been up my alley, so to speak. Generally not enough bands playing I dig (although this year there are a few more than usual), and I’m not exactly a panel-going kinda guy, even back in my naive days of pimping my owns bands. Wrongly perceived or not, the non-live-music portion of the event has always seemed a little too packed with the biznizz-cheeze aspects (and people) of the “music industry” (*shudder*) for my tastes, so I’ve never felt compelled to either attend or get involved.
Well, this year I’ll be there, and it’s by the kind invitation of Mr. Duffy from the excellent Donewaiting music blog and Sunken Treasure record label. He’ll be moderating one of the many panels happening over the weekend, one titled “Music Blogs: Fanzines of the 21st Century“. The Almanac apparently qualifies me to appear on said panel, so I’ll be there to share my… um, well, whatever comes outta my mouth. If any wisdom lies therein, cool, but my primary motivation is to spend some quality time with my fellow blogger panelists, a couple of whom I’ve met and admire (Jay Breitling of the Clicky Clicky Music Blog, Brian Murphy from False 45th), and the rest who I’m looking forward to hanging with (including Robert, Paul Irish of Aurgasm, and Dany Sloan from Exitfare). Post-panel beverages are a must.
So if you’re into having the six of us fill up 90 minutes of your time, or even joining us for those after-beers, be at the Boston Center for the Arts at 539 Tremont Street this Saturday, September 30th. Our panel runs from 1:45pm-3:15pm in something called the Black Box at the BCA. Come one, come all, ask us awkward questions, heckle us from afar.
Oh, and to make it official, here’s the description from the NEMO site:
“These days, music bloggers are finding themselves more and more in the spotlight of national media. But who are these people? Meet some of the area’s top music bloggers as they discuss legal issues, blogging philosophies, how they select music and more.”
Wait, I think that means I have to come up with some kind of “philosophy”. Uh oh.
[Live MP3s] James Kochalka Superstar in Cambridge – August 2006
Posted on September 27, 2006 at 1:19 pm | No Comments
September’s been a banner month for the two sides of James Kochalka, both the cartoonist and the musical Superstar: His band’s long-delayed Rykodisc album, “Spread Your Evil Wings and Fly“, was finally released on September 12th, just a few days after he was honored with his first-ever comics industry Harvey Award. During the September 9th ceremony at the Baltimore Comic-Con, James was granted the 2006 “Best Online Comics Work” title for his daily diary strip, American Elf.
But as good as AE and his printed comics work is, this here post is about his music, which I’ve been all-too familiar with since his days in the casio/saxophone/JK combo Jazzin’ Hell back in his (and my former) hometown of Burlington, Vermont. (trivia: Jazzin’ Hell included Philistines Jr./Zambonis member and ace Interpol/The National recording engineer Peter Katis, as well as Thicker Magazine main-man Eric Bradford). After a few years fronting Jazzin’ Hell, James eventually started releasing songs under the prescient name of James Kochalka Superstar, an umbrella under which James has invited a long list of friends to record and perform. (more trivia/disclaimer: I was fortunate enough to have been one of these random members, in a short-lived live lineup that included Colin Clary, Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hutz, and Pistol Stamen of the Pants. We were not, some would say, ‘the tightest’ incarnation of JKS, but we sure put on a show).
JKS’ songs actually have a fair amount in common with his comics work: deceptively simple and insidiously catchy, childlike wonder combined with the subtle (and not-at-all subtle) hints of naughtiness. It’s kids music for grown-up kids: kinda goofy at times, insightful at others, and occasionally all at once. There’s no middle ground with James’ stuff… you either dig it or you don’t, much like other bands that get name dropped in his reviews (TMBG, King Missle, Ween, etc.).
After several albums on a variety of small labels (including the 1995 Dot Dot Dash debut, “The True Story of James Kochalka Superstar”, 2000’s “Carrot Boy the Beautiful” on Sudden Shame, and the self-released “Don’t Trust Whitey” in 2001), James inked a deal with Rykodisc that started with the release of a best-of compilation, last year’s “Our Most Beloved”. While Ryko initially seemed reluctant to nail down a release date for a follow-up of all new material, that changed quickly once his song “Hockey Monkey” (co-written with the Zambonis) was chosen as the theme song for the Fox sitcom “The Loop“. The amped up exposure not only put “Spread Your Evil Wings and Fly” on their fall release schedule, but resulted in the four-song iTunes-only “Hockey Monkey” EP.
To mark the unveiling of “Spread Your Evil Wings and Fly”, James played a few stripped-down shows with his bandmate (and frequent American Elf cameo canine, and Icebox Records co-guy) Jason ‘x-12’ Cooley on guitar. They ended in New York after stopping in Philly, but the first show was here in Cambridge, MA on Friday night, August 25th with comedians Neil Hamburger & Morgan Murphy, and the World’s Greatest Sinners. Despite the fact that JKS was on first, the placed was packed from the get-go. Here’s their entire set…
Live at The Middle East Upstairs
Cambridge, MA
Friday, August 25th, 2006
01. Ringo Starr
02. Magic Finger
03. Fascist Bikes
04. Even The Clouds Get High
05. Why Is The Sky Blue?
06. Wash Your Ass
07. Rainbow Love
08. Mummy Song
09. Bad Astronaut
10. Don’t Confiscate the Beat
11. Britney’s Silver Can
12. Cocaine
13. Hot Penis story
14. Hockey Monkey
15. Old North End
16. Monkey vs. Robot
Some Kochalka-quality links…
the fine print… If anyone has an issue with this live set being made available, just say the word (email link on left). 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.