Street Scene Day Two

Young Ruffians

The National
These guys were as brilliant as I thought they would be. Clear, crisp and beautiful. Such a sutle energy.

Cold War Kids
I stumbled across the Cold War Kids a year ago when they were touring with the Southern Comfort festival. With them was Girl Talk (brilliant) and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (what happened to them?), I was there to see CYHSY and was grossly dissapointed, like I had been with their sophmore effort. So I ended up being wicked impressed with Girl Talk and loving Cold War Kids.

Jay Reatard - Matador Singles '08

I figured I'd start out strong by throwing up a review my first day on the job. As you will probably pick up on pretty quickly, I have a huge soft spot in my heart for punk rock. Thus, I give you my my shining review of Jay Reatard's collection of singles for Matador records.
All the songs on this collection were released as 7" vinyl singles for Matador records throughout the year. For those who are lacking in decent independent music distributors in their area, those without record players, and those who don't have time to round up 7 random singles throughout the year, Jay has been kind enough to put them all in one easy CD or digital download.
Now, punk rock purists may give me a lot of guff for calling this a punk rock record, but it is one, deal with it. I generally have a hard time listening to much punk rock that was released beyond about 1981, but there have been a few. I prefer to steer clear of any type of revival band and generally favor creativity. Jay Reatard is both. Sure he subscribes to the punk ethos of anger, three chords, and short songs (the 13 track collection runs just shy of 35 minutes). He also, however, brings in some acoustic guitars and synthesizer...and acoustic guitars (a giant punk rock no no).
The collection starts out running with "See Saw," a rousing number that blast through the first verse with simply fun lyrics until you hit the chorus when the drums really blast out with floor times and Jay get's angry "There's really nothing to it and that is all I know!" he shouts. "Screaming Hand" keeps the pace of the album up; and just try not to smile when the pre-chorus comes in yelling "No! No! No! No! No!" The album trucks right on through until about the middle where Jay takes on Deerhunter's excellent "Flourescent Grey" (from their 2008 EP of the same name). The track takes a sound that is reminiscent of David Bowie era Iggy Pop. It's not a good sound for Jay. The album pummels through all the way to the hilariously beautiful finisher "I'm Watching You." This track brings the pace back down while Jay muses on about a lost love, and his feelings towards her now: "You see, to me, you never meant that much!" It assuredly is not a cohesive album as much as a collection of songs (that's what it is, makes sense) reminiscent of The Buzzcocks's "Singles Going Steady." It is, by far, my album of the week.

Introducing Jeffrey Benson

I'd like to introduce everyone to Jeffrey Benson, he is going to join me here on ...and music will set you free, his blog, Sound of the Suburbs has been on my 'check out these bizzles' side bar for a while now. I am lucky enough that he is going to start reviewing and posting on this blog, thus making it our blog! SO WELCOME JEFFREY! - um, at the risk of sounding overly accepting/exited, I am going to say that it is a honor to have Jeffrey here on the blog, his taste in music is flawless and his surplus of musical knowledge far supersedes mine own. However, our musical interests differ every now and then, so it will be nice to have his opinion and knowledge to contrast with mine. Like me, he has a couple of other blogs that I think are worth a look or two, or three: That's My Voice Rising , The Ultimate Jeffrey. I'll let him tell you more about himself through his posts but here is a little bio he gave me of himself: (stole his picture from his facebook with his permission!)

All growing up, I never seemed to fit in anywhere. I tried my hand at countless sports to no avail. My brother, who was 4 years older than me would occasionally bring home albums from various third wave ska and pop-punk bands. That was it for me. While I never got off on a lot of that music, It opened my eyes to a whole new world. I was taking piano lessons at the time, and my mom, to encourage me to practice, bought me an album a week if I did all my practicing. First on my list was Weezer’s Blue Album. I was 11. I was sold! Music became my life. I tried everything and anything, most of it was fairly commercial at first, but then I started to dig deeper, if just barely. The Aquabats was my first show. Another life-altering experience. Sure it was an embarrassing phase for me, the ska phase, but live music! That was happening! From there my tastes continued to grow and blossom. Fast forward today, 10+ years later; I consider myself to have a wide array of tastes. I love music from 60’s garage rock to pop-punk; americana to crunk rap. I can’t imagine my life without my music collection. I’ve listened to a lot, and played a very little. That is what I base my music criticism on.

Street Scene Day One

Finally, after a month I have some pictures from Street Scene to show off. Most of these slash all of them are not my pictures. So I must give credit to Afton Willis and Michelle Layton. I will try to review as I go with out adding too much useless information becuase lets me honest, if there are pictures why read the commentary?
_______________________________________________

MGMT

Though one of my favorite moments of the weekend was during the MGMT set, these guys were not up to par. They looked, felt and sounded awkward on stage. Granted the sound at this stage was horrible... but MGMT really needs to work on their set, what might have worked in Williamsburge 2 years ago, is just not going to cut it on the festival circut.

The New Pornographers

This was a really classic TNP set, Carl Newman was his typical chatty self and the set was tight and well orchestrated, not much on the improvisational side but very good non the less.

Cat Power

This was one of the more dissappointing parts of the weekend. For Char's 45 min set the sound crew just couldn't get it right. The bass was too loud, vocals only in the monitor, guitar ear piercing. And all the while Char crawling along the stage in her ever natural quorky way.

Vampire Weekend

Let me tell you, these guys have come a long way in popularity since summer 07 at the Modified and last December at an even smaller local club. But there shows are pretty much the same, typical prep-pop/nintendo-pop show. The sing-a-long songs were adequately sung-a-long to; it would be nice to have the band agnolage that by allowing them to take over the singing a little.

The Crew

Afton, Michelle, Rachelle, Preston

Music Hysteria @ Trunk Space, Oct 29th

The band isn't actually Music Hysteria, its a discription! This is a whole mess of great young musicians. Its a good mix of local and um... not really nation acts, but people from other places.

Lake
Olympia
A'cappella / Bossa Nova / Nu-Jazz

Jeffrey Lewis
Portland/New York
Indie / Folk / Garage

Desolation Wilderness
Olympia
Ambient / Pop

Uggamugga
Phoenix
Grunge / Grunge / Grunge

Footox
Tempe
Grunge / Grunge / Grunge

Stephen Steinbrink
Tucson
Visual / Grunge / Minimalist