Daytrotter posted their Bon Iver session yesterday. The version of “Lump Sum” is magnificent. “Flume” and “Re: Stacks” are really good. And I’m going to pretend that version of “Creature Fear” doesn’t exist.
Gorilla vs Bear posted one of my more favorite hip hop tracks in a while: “The Prayer” by Cleveland-based Kid Cudi. It’s off of a mixtape and the sample he raps over is from those sometimes Walmart-loving Seattlites Band of Horses.
In case you missed it, John Vanderslice posted a teaser video of recording from his next album a couple weeks ago:
Anyone’s Guess posted this really funny video called “Everyday Normal Guy Rap Song”. Watch out! Explicit lyrics! (Audio NSFW.) It’s got some pretty quotable lines: “I’m pretty good at making spaghetti sauce, motherfucker!”
Did you know there was such a thing as the Bay Area Indie Festival? Hard Rock Chick pointed to an SF Weekly article that accuses the promoter, 3 Udders, for being a disservice to the local scene for still not having paid bands from last year’s festival. The promoter says the article is not fair, but admits that he hasn’t paid bands. I don’t know, I think if you’re not paying bands then you’re not exactly helping things. (Also, I find it funny that he accuses the writer of having “very little knowledge about how the music industry works” and then complains that the SF Weekly ran the article while he dilly-dallied on getting them more info. Here’s how the print publication industry works: deadlines.) The promoter also cites this rebuttal if you want a different biased opinion.
Slate has an interesting piece about Jay-Z weaponizing Oasis’ “Wonderwall” when he covered it at Glastonbury (which was a response to the fracas that ensued when Noam Gallagher said that Glastonbury was for guitar-based music.) It also dives into all the subtle and not-so-subtle things people are saying with cross-genre covers. Is Ben Gibbard being serious, like he says, when he covers Avril Lavine’s “Complicated”? Read on.
Three different friends independently sent me this video in the last few days, so it seems people are pretty into the idea.
It’s a UK band called the Get Out Clause that apparently filmed their video with 80 of Britain’s CCTV cameras and then got copies by invoking the Data Protection Act. Edit it all together and–boom–done.
It wasn’t the first in the style, though. The Frames, which includes everyone’s current favorite indie wunderkind Glen Hansard (of Once fame), also shot a video in this manner, but apparently just using the cameras at a friend’s workplace, a post office.
This is an action packed post, kiddos. Brace yourselves!
The Morning Benders, talking through tin cans; photo by Adrian Bischoff
The Morning Benders (myspace) release their debut album, Talking Through Tin Cans today on Plus One Records. They’ve got a pretty kickin’ deal going that if you buy their digital album, you get it, plus some b-sides, and a ticket to their CD release show either in SF or LA. The LA release show is at the Echo on Thursday (May 8th) and the SF show is at 330 Ritch on Friday (May 9th). More about the deal here. You can also get more info about the shows here.
You can also check out a free in-store at Virgin Megastore downtown (2 Stockton St) tomorrow evening at 7pm. Be sure to get there early so you can get a spot close.
All the songs I’ve heard from Talking are really good. I’m pretty excited to hear the whole thing.
I sat down at a recording studio and music offices in the Mission with Chris Chu, the Morning Benders’ songwriter, singer and guitarist, last week to catch up and ask him a few questions as the album release approached.
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Adrian Bischoff of ipickmynose: Are you excited that the album’s finally coming out?
Chris Chu of the Morning Benders: Quite. Quite.
A: It’s been a while since you recorded it, right?
C: Yeah, it’s been a while. I think that’s sort of what happens.
A: It’s been … eight months or something… last August.
C: Yeah. August. So it’s been a while.
A: Have your opinions of the album changed since then? Or the songs?
C: Um, yeah, definitely. I guess I haven’t listened to it in a while. That’s what happens, you know. You obsess over it for so long, you don’t want to ever listen to it again. You get over that after a while and you can put it on again and be more objective about it. It’s cool. I mean, everything we’ve gone through is a learning process. I’m the sort of person who’ll look back and think about all the things I would do differently or want to change for the next time and that sort of thing…
A: Is that what happened with the EPs? Because you recorded some of those songs again.
C: Yeah, the EPs were definitely a learning process because I was recording them and that was my first time ever recording, so I was just learning that for the first time. I sort of knew going into them that those weren’t going to be what I had intended them to be because we were really limited. We were really limited, obviously. What we had was just whatever was around my house.
When we got into the studio that was what was so cool about it. We got to flesh out the songs how I wanted in the first place.
A: I read somewhere that one of the EPs–I forget which song–but the second song you ever recorded was on one of the EPs.
C: The first song I ever recorded was “Grain of Salt”. And it took me like three times. I have a bunch of versions of it. We’ve actually been talking about–because that song’s not on the record, but we still like to play it. So we’re thinking about putting out an EP of just “Grain of Salt” recordings because there are so many different versions of it.
A: That’d be awesome. You should get some other bands to cover it as well.
C: Yeah. That’d be cool. I didn’t think of that. That’s a good idea.
A: I’ll expect a royalty check.
C: [laughing] Yeah…
I recorded acoustic demos but that was just like putting a mic up and hitting record. But the first time I tried to record a band or a song was “Grain of Salt” and I did it piece-by-piece.
A: I mean, historically, that’s not, like, how bands work. People sit in their basements for 10 years and record on a four-track and then finally release an album. Do you feel like you’re–I don’t know–bursting onto the scene quickly?
C: I don’t really think about it that way. I think try to not think about it too much or deliberate too much and just let it happen like it needs to happen. I don’t feel you need to be tinkering away on songs for years and years before you put them out. Because it takes away a lot– I think, some of the spontaneity, some of the early creative hit or whatever–or energy.
So I kind of like the spirit of recording things haphazardly and putting them out. I started writing songs a few years ago, so that was sort of a new thing. Most of these songs are some of the first songs I’ve ever written.
A: Do you think that–obviously it’s a lot easier to record a song and get it out there [now] with the internet, so do you think ten years ago that you’d have been releasing songs as quickly?
C: That’s a good question. I think we probably would. We would have found some way to do it. People have been recording things for themselves for a good amount of time, like you were saying, on a four track. We probably would have done that or whatever was cheaper. It just so happens that recording on your computer or something is the cheapest way, because you don’t have to really buy anything else. Yeah, the internet is obviously a good tool for getting your music out there. That would have been a lot harder or a lot different.
(Find the rest of the interview, a new video and the flyer after the jump.)
Here’s a rather long (7+ minutes) but impressive demonstration of the Direct Note Access technology by Melodyne.
It’s like pitch correction, which is a common place tool in digital recording these days, but instead of only being able to correct and change single notes, it can change any note in a song, whether it’s by itself, in a chord, or in an arpeggio. Technology-wise it’s pretty impressive.
I heard many stories from friends of friends about pitch correction’s overuse these days–singer having each note corrected a 1/4 tone and things like that. It really points to a degradation in talent among “musicians” this days.
Obviously my concern with a system that allows access to each note is a substantially bigger degradation of musicianship. If musicians no longer need to be able to play anything, then what are they there for? To look cool and strut on stage?
On the other side of the coin, though, is this: someone’s going to have to have some sense of musicality. Records don’t just get made by computers (…yet). If the musicians don’t have it, then it may end up being the engineers and producers.
But, if you think about it, that’s not exactly new either. In the Holland-Dozier-Holland/ Spector sort of school of recording, the producers were the creative forces and, while the studio musicians were top notch, neither they nor the performing act was really in control of things.
In the underground music world, I think there is less reason for concern. There always are forces that correct the music when things get too “fake”. Punk was a reaction to disco; lo-fi was a reaction to 80s pop music. I think they’ll always be a segment of the population that demands authenticity from their music and so there will always be some music that delivers on that need.
I found one kid that’s already been bitten by bug. This is Mates of State’s daughter Magnolia doing her version of the song (via the band’s entertaining babble blog):
How old is she? Like 3 or 4? Watch out all you kid bands, this one’s gunning for the charts.
I put it on my January mixtape. And they played it on Conan a little bit ago. I like it’s sound a ton–the vocals, banjo, brushed drums and pedal steel go really well together.
I only have a four song sampler from the album. I like that–how’s the rest of the album? Should I pick it up?
All of the youtube front page has been taken over by Sigur Ros. It has all sorts of things, including entrants to their Minn Heima contest (people making videos to Sigur Ros songs), like:
There are a few good shows this weekend. I have a dilemma trying to decide who to see.
Friday night Liam Finn (myspace and yes, related to some guy) is playing at the Bottom of the Hill. Originally the bill was supposed to also have Pela (myspace) on it as well but there was an accident involving falling hand-first onto a pint glass. I was excited to see Pela, but I’ve been enjoying Finn’s I’ll be Lightning and he had an intense performance on Letterman (below) so I think it’ll be a good show nevertheless.
Also on Friday is a solid local bill at the Independent with the Heavenly States, Citay and the Botticellis. For the Heavenly States, it’s their CD release show (for Delayer). I’ve been listening to that CD and I’ve been enjoying their flavor of upbeat indie rock. I’ve also seen the Botticellis before and they were good.
Finally, on Saturday you can see Mount Eerie
and AF Jamison at a school auditorium. The All-ages Movement Project and Club Sandwich present the show. (I’ve only had good experiences with the Club Sandwich shows). It at Enola Maxwell High School Auditorium
655 De Haro (in Portrero Hill). Tickets on a sliding scale starting at $7 (and you can buy tickets online).
Last year’s Mt Eerie show was one of my favorites of 2007, so I’m pretty excited about this one. Before that show, my first Mt. Eerie/ Microphones show, I didn’t really understand those bands’ recordings, but now they makes more sense.
They are a London-based band with roots in Glasgow and, in a story that sounds similar to Belle & Sebastian’s, a beginning in a Glasgow college’s music course. As far as their sound goes, I’d compare them to the often upbeat orchestrated pop of Belle & Sebastian and also a lot of the girl groups of the 60s, like Dusty Springfield, Motown, Phil Spector groups and the like.
I’ve really been enjoying their album the Great Unwanted which I got off of emusic a couple weeks ago. Check out a couple of their songs.
“Lips are Unhappy” is the clear single. It’s a very friendly introduction to the band. The chorus is just pure pop, almost overwhelmingly so. The break down, with its odd offbeat “shake shimmy shimmy, shake shake shimmy shimmy” is really what makes me love the song, though.
“One Kiss Don’t Make it Summer”, with its guiro and strings, has more of the hallmarks of a 60s girl group song. It has great soft-verse/ full-chorus contrast.
There’s video on UGO of Eric Bachmann (Crooked Fingers, Archers of Loaf; myspace) doing live versions of “White Trash Heroes” (originally a song by his previous band, Archers of Loaf), “There’s a Blue Light” (originally a song by his current band, Crooked Fingers), and “To The Races” (on his solo album of the same name).
All the versions are a bit odd–you’d expect an acoustic version of “White Trash Heroes” to be odd, but the others are as well. They’re good, but just not what you’d expect. He also does an interview where he talks about choosing to live in a van for a while and recording To the Races in a deserted hotel on the outer banks of North Carolina at 2 or 3 in the morning.
He’s not touring in the Bay Area anytime soon, but readers in the North East can catch him opening for Neko Case.
New and Used Records point out this catchy video to me as “crossing the line between Sam Cooke and T-Pain”. Funnily enough, this song was number 1 in the US (and other countries) for four weeks and I hadn’t heard it.
It’s “Beautiful Girls” by Sean Kingston, a 17 year old from Jamaica/ Miami. It’s pretty derivate and repetitive, but he’s got a nice voice and the music works well. Oh and the chorus is super catchy.
I’d like to hear more of his stuff. I hope whoever his future producers are lay off of the auto-tune, though. There are a couple spots in the song where it’s really obvious. In other points of the song, he slides between notes quite gracefully, so it seems that he doesn’t need the pitch correction too much.
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Posted in SF bay area, blogs, gossip, industry, rant, video by adrian at 2:35 pm
