The Weezer Time Machine

As a woman, hearing the word "you" repeated so many times over the course of an album primarily about how terrible and hurtful and disastrous it is to interact with any woman, anywhere, ever, induces a deep and primal irritation.

But maybe you have to be a girl to notice it. -- Sady Doyle on Weezer's Pinkerton in her essay Rivers Cuomo Messes You Up Forever

"I didn't think girls liked Weezer." -- Some Dude, standing next to me at a Weezer show

"I love you so much, I love you sooooo much. Ooh ooh, ooh ooh." -- Weezer, "Jamie"

EDIT: Drew tweeted some important corrections to me re: this blog entry. It has been updated as per his specifications. (I would have updated it sooner, except I didn't know about them until I went home to eat lunch and was greeted by him saying, "Didn't you see my tweet?! Your piece is full of factual errors!!!" (this is mostly a paraphrase, by the way.)) Drew was also disappointed that this blog entry didn't encourage people to listen to Maladroit.



On Friday January 7th, Drew and I drove to Chicago for the Weezer Memories Tour Driven By State Farm, a two night event (I reiterate: driven by State Farm!) that involved the band playing both the eponymous "Blue Album" and Pinkerton in their entirety over the course of two performances. Each album was accompanied by a "Greatest Hits" set and a brief presentation on the History of Weezer, Driven By Karl Koch. And I am going to try to figure out how to talk about it.

So, I'm a casual Weezer fan. I had the Blue Album growing up and I had Pinkerton, too. When the Green Album came out, I had a mad crush on Brian Bell as seen in the "Hash Pipe" video and dreamed of him endlessly during my drafting classes. Unfortunately, beyond Bell's eternal dreamboat status, it turned out that the Green Album didn't have much to offer me and I haven't bought a Weezer album since (though my mom did buy Make Believe when that came out, if that counts for anything.)

Drew on the other hand? Drew is a rabid Weezer fan. Awhile back when I wrote that piece for Tiger Beatdown on Rivers Cuomo and Liz Phair and how we have gendered expectations for song writers, especially when they are writing about sex, I made a joke about Drew being a source because he has an honorary PhD in Weezology. Except if that was a degree you could get? Drew would have it. He would graduate Magna cum Laude from Weezer U with a PhD in Weezology and graduate certificates in Karlification and Matt Sharp Studies. He knows so much about Weezer that it gives me a headache and makes me bored. And me? I'm like, "I just want to see Rivers Cuomo jump on a trampoline and hear them play 'Surf Wax America*'"

Totally Unrelated: I know I won't be able to work this in anywhere else, so I just want to say this: guitarist Brian Bell is truly an impeccable dresser. I can see why hardcore Weezer fans call him "the sass master**."

It's probably already obvious that I'm not really interested in talking about the technical proficiency of the band (surprise! they are professional musicians and are good at playing their instruments!) What I do want to talk about? The weirdness of being a girl, particularly a girl with progressive feminist politics, in a space built around worship of cultural products that are hostile towards women. (I also want to talk about the weirdness of Weezer in general.)

On the first night of the Memories tour, Drew and I were standing near the stage by a group of guys. One of these guys took a look around the audience and said, "I didn't think girls liked Weezer." Now, I don't know if I'm just being conservative in my estimates of how many women were in attendance that night, but let's just say this: from where I was standing, there weren't a whole lot of girls. And the next night? When the band played Pinkerton? There were even fewer. On Pinkerton night, Drew estimated that he saw four guys for each girl that he saw (this was after I prompted him by asking, "How many girls do you think are here?") In the space where I was standing, I could see a handful of women (maybe 5-7) and a veritable sea of dudes, so it's not even like there was an unusual number of ladies to set off this guy's Lady Alarm. (Which begs the questions: Who do we expect to see at concerts and why? What preconceived notions do we have about who constitutes an audience for a band and where do those preconceived notions come from? Consider: Would this guy stand amidst a sea of ladies at a Tegan and Sara show and say, "Huh, I didn't even think girls listened to Tegan and Sara"?)

Now, in all fairness, as a girl, I can think of a lot of reasons why girls might not like Weezer. The most important of which is the tendency of their songs to include narratives about not liking women because they are selfish lying heartbreakers. Plus there are the songs about wanting to control women, wanting women to be subservient sexual objects, etc. Don't get me wrong -- "Surf Wax America" is all well and good, but "Getchoo"? "Butterfly"? "No One Else"? These are, for me, as a woman, deeply creepy and uncomfortable songs. And yet I was one of 5,000 people singing along with my fist in the air. Of course, there are a handful of reasons why girls might enjoy listening to Weezer, starting with the fact that their output consists almost entirely of incredibly catchy pop songs.

Anyway, although I might be troubled by the lyrical content of some of Weezer's best known jams, I'm (almost equally) troubled by the audience member's assertion that girls can't, shouldn't, or don't consume cultural products made by men that speak to the "male experience." I mean, if there's one thing that women have gotten really good at, for better or for worse, it's living in a culture that more often than not erases the female experience in favor of endless reruns of Masterpiece Dude Theater. To suggest that women can't/don't consume cultural products produced by men is absurd***. It's not like, "I didn't think girls liked Weezer," is nuanced critique or anything. It was just some dude's off the cuff honest observation. And it's one that got to me, because as soon as I heard him saying that, I couldn't stop thinking about how I reconcile my personal politics with the act of listening to Weezer (and liking it!)

Kate recently had an entry on her blog, Her Five Dollar Radio, called "Listening While Feminist", where she addresses the challenges of looking critically at one's own music consumption. Every now and then, Drew calls me out on the ways in which some of the music I consume (particularly hardcore punk and rap) rubs up against my feminist politics. Like Kate, I'm in a place where I'm struggling to reconcile my political beliefs with the cultural products I consume (and enjoy.)

Sometimes art tells ugly stories about who we are as a culture and I think that Weezer songs tell some pretty sad, ugly stories that have the potential to tell us a lot about one type of (adolescent) male experience. While a lot of people look at the Blue Album as a collection of 10 heartfelt geeky pop songs, it's just as easy to see at as a 41 minutes and 17 seconds of an emotionally stunted yearning for love and acceptance. The "ugliness" of Pinkerton, often described as an emotionally "raw" album, is a little more apparent (why hello there, reprehensible racial and sexual politics, full-on Orientalism, etc.!) What's so interesting to me, though, is the fact that although I'm aware that the personal politics outlined in these songs are often diametrically opposed to my own, at my core, I still like them. I want to hear them. I want to sing along to them. It's not because I like the messages encoded within the songs, but because I like the songs themselves, the way they sound, the way it feels to sing them (which begs the questions: Is the whole of a song (music/lyrics/production) a text of its own that can be read differently from "just" the lyrics, "just" the music, etc.? What do we erase from a song when we remove its politics from our analysis of it? Are all songs inherently political or are some songs just songs?)

Aside from the juggling of personal politics and pop/rock politics, the Memories Tour was straight up one of the most surreal concert going experiences I've ever had. I know that there's an element of performance/constructed identities and experiences to every live show, but this was the first time I had been to a show so consciously constructed and performed. Before the shows even began, you had to walk through a lobby where State Farm reps were handing out fake Rivers Cuomo glasses and offering to take pictures of concertgoers with big backdrops of the covers of the Blue and Green albums (former members Matt Sharp and Mikey Welsh were cut out of the covers so that you could place your face where their faces had been.) You were clearly being set up for an Experience from the outset.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, the first half of each night was a ten song "greatest hits" set -- the greatest hits set started with the most current hits and moved backwards in time (sitting cross-legged on the floor of Lora's apartment at craft night the other week, I explained the experience of the greatest hits sets by furiously waving my arms in the air and saying things like, "And then Rivers was like, EVERYONE CLIMB ABOARD THE WEEZER TIME MACHINE! WE'RE TAKING YOU BAAAACK!") This was the part of the night that involved Rivers Cuomo jumping on a trampoline.

In between the Greatest Hits and the Main Event, Karl Koch came out and gave a brief presentation. For those of you who aren't Junior Weezologists, Karl is a longtime friend of the band & has been involved with them for over 15 years now. Karl's role with the band is such that he even has his own WikiPedia page, describing him as "U.S. Rock Band Weezer's webmaster, friend and historian." Karl's presentation consisted of a slide show of rare Weezer photos and fliers particular to the Blue and Pinkerton eras. Having an archival component to the show was really, really interesting in terms of identity construction -- over the past few albums, this "new" Weezer vs. "old" Weezer narrative has really taken hold, so it was interesting to see the band kind of harness that narrative, effectively dividing their show into "new" Weezer and "old" Weezer sets, separated by a stage-setting presentation of "old" Weezer artifacts.

I'm still processing the tension between Weezer and my personal politics (and may never be done doing so), but I feel like a month later, I finally got the Memories tour. The other day, I was sitting at my desk at work, listening to the Blue album, and something in my brain just clicked as I realized, "Shit, I saw this performed." & honestly? I'm not really sure what else I can say about it beyond that.

* Even right now, writing this, I am like "Wait, is 'surf wax' one word or two?" These are the kinds of Weezer questions that Drew never has to ask himself.

** Much like "surf wax" I am unsure as to whether "sass master" is one word or two.

*** This is not to suggest that these cultural products can't be hostile, alienating, or both, just that they are real and omnipresent and many women can and do consume and/or identify with them.

To accompany this totally TL;DR mess, I have ten of my favorite "rare" Weezer songs offered with minimal commentary (rare is in scare quotes only because with the advent of the internet, pretty much nothing is rare anymore.)

10 =W= tracks, (DOWNLOAD)

01. Mrs. Young - recorded by Matt Sharp and Rivers Cuomo, later became "Please Let That Be You" by The Rentals (who in grand Matt Sharp tradition knocked the life out of a beautiful demo and turned it into a beige album track.)
02. Let's Sew Our Pants Together - from the Kitchen Tape Demo, the best part of Rivers wailing, "We made a [liar] of desiiiiiiire." (To me it sounds like they are saying "knot," not "liar," but I am going to trust Drew on this one.)
02. Autumn in Jayne - a live recording of the Rivers Cuomo Band, circa Cuomo in Harvard.
04. I Just Threw Out the Love of My Dreams - Features Rachel Haden (ex-that dog.)
05. Blast Off! - Opening track from Songs from the Black Hole, Weezer's scrapped space opera (post-Blue album, pre-Pinkerton.)
06. Thief You've Taken All That Was Me - Kitchen Tape demo
07. Jamie - Another sweet jam written about Weezer's lawyer, Jamie Young. "Jamie" is a pre-Brian Bell song & features Jason Cropper on the guitar. It was recorded by an LMU student as a project for a music recording & sound engineering class & was assigned a grade of B+.
08. Sheila Can Do It - Another Rivers Cuomo Band live track
09. Tired of Sex - Songs from the Blck Hole demo version, Tired of Sex was re-recorded as the first track on Pinkerton
10. Lullaby for Wayne - Appeared as a live recording on the Weezer DVD, Video Capture Device, as "Lullaby for Pat" (in reference to Patt Finn, not Weezer drummer Pat Wilson.)

10 =W= tracks, (DOWNLOAD)

Live in Oberlin, Guided By Voices

Guided By Voices, "Big School" (DOWNLOAD)
Guided By Voices, "A Good Flying Bird" (DOWNLOAD)
Guided By Voices, "Let's Ride" (DOWNLOAD)
Guided By Voices, "Mincer Ray" (DOWNLOAD)

On Sunday night I saw the Guided By Voices "Classic Lineup" show down in Oberlin. I was really apprehensive about going (I always get nervous before "big" shows), but ended up having an amazing time. The band was tight and they played a near-perfect set. Every single song was a song that I wanted to hear -- though I was especially stoked on all the Tobin Sprout songs that were played ("A Good Flying Bird"!!!) All in all, it was totally worth the $30 ticket price.

I think that when bands reunite, it becomes even easier to view them as being commodities and/or potentially disingenuous in their performance. (Though the "genuine" nature of performance is, of course, negligible to begin with.) But I think it's especially interesting to consider the question of performance as a commodity in conjunction with a band like Guided By Voices. Throughout the show, Pollard frequently reminded people that the band members were from Ohio, that Ohio has a superior drinking culture, and that Guided By Voices is a drinking band. There's definitely an element of performance to GBV's drinking but that performance plays a critical role in the way that the band constructs community within their fan base (example: last night Pollard passed a bottle of tequila from the stage into the crowd and encouraged fans to pass it around amongst themselves.)

Last night's show definitely drew a varied crowd -- it wasn't difficult to differentiate GBV veterans from people who just really liked Bee Thousand from people who had friends that caught them earlier in the day and said, "Hey, are you doing anything tonight? Because if you're not..." The great thing about a show like last night's was that it welcomed people at all levels of interest in/experience with Guided By Voices. Of course, as someone who enjoys (but is not obsessed with) GBV, it may have been easier for me to have a good time. I know my Aunt (who first saw GBV in 1991 and spent the better part of the following 15-ish years attending any show they played within reasonable distance), struggled a little more with the crowd and construction of community than I did. On the way home, she brought up the "feel" of the show and mentioned how disheartening it was that last night's show didn't have the same sense of community as past Guided By Voices shows.

I really wish that I could have been at this show with friends. It had been such a long time since I was at a big show where the crowd didn't make me feel freaked out or uncomfortable. I mean, there were some displays of aggression at the show, but they were (for the most part) comfortable and enthusiastic. It would have been awesome if Jami or Brittany could have been there (on our first Columbus Dream Date, Jami and I were able to realize our dream of driving around in a car with Brittany and Alana singing along with Bee Thousand. Best day!)

The rash of recent indie rock and pop reunions (Pavement, GBV, Unrest, Go Sailor, etc.) also has me thinking about the expectations that people have for bands they grew up with (but have maybe never seen live) and how those expectations play into the experience they have when they attend a reunion show. I know Drew felt let down after we saw Pavement and he felt the same way about GBV last night. But I was thrilled with both shows (ok, so the crowd at Pavement left something to be desired, but the band was great.) I missed the Go Sailor reunion shows (San Francisco, CA and Athens, GA), but I feel like my coming of age was knit so tightly to their music that I'm almost uncomfortable with the idea of seeing them play -- it would just be too much. I'm honestly not sure what you're supposed to expect from a band that's recently reunited. I mean, I expected to see old dudes playing songs that I loved & that's what I got & I thought it was awesome. Maybe other people were expecting something different?

The only real disappointment last night was the $5 pizza Drew bought from the pizza truck waiting outside the venue. NOT A GOOD PIZZA!

Remaining tour dates for the Hallway of Shatterproof Glass Tour can be found here
Everything you've ever wanted to know about Guided By Voices can be found here
Guided By Voices is working on making out of print releases available via download here

Live in CLE (Last Night)

Last night I went to a four-band, $5 show at the Happy Dog, which is probably one of my favorite places to see bands play. Full disclosure: as much as I love going out, sometimes instead of being packed in elbow to elbow with a bunch of people I don't know, I kind of just want to sit down, eat a hot dog, and listen to some music and the Happy Dog is the only place in Cleveland that lets that dream of mine come true. Also, I don't know why, but the older I get, the more skeptical I am about going out, but last night was a temporary break in my bad attitude and a nice reminder that cheap late nights can easily be as fulfilling as nights where I literally fall asleep face down in an English translation of a Norwegian novel, which is actually how most of my nights have gone lately.

Anyway, last night offered up four bands, two local (Library Time and Prisoners) and two touring (Party Photographers from Philadelphia, PA and SPORTS from Rochester, NY.)

I had never seen Library Time before -- they play fractured pop songs held together by synths & a saxophone. To my knowledge, they don't have any releases currently available, but you can stream their song "Africa" on their MySpace and if you like what you hear, they have a Cleveland show set up at the Cool Ranch on Nov. 12th.

Party Photographers were a four piece with a lead singer who looked like Clare Grogan and sang like Calvin Johnson, which is basically all I could hope to dream of re: people who front bands. They were touring in promotion of a new 7" (if they're not playing in your city, you can order it online via their MySpace.)

SPORTS from New Rochester reminded me of Elvis Costello & The Attractions. They were passing through Cleveland on a two day mini-tour and will (I hope!) tour more extensively when their LP is released. I'm currently having non-buyer's remorse over the fact that I didn't pick up one of the CDs they were selling because they were just so solid & fun (definitely listen to "Side Effect of Talk" on their MySpace.)

Prisoners played last & they sounded great. If you're in the Cleveland area & you haven't seen them play yet, you should come out next time they play. They've got a full-length LP out on Smog Veil and their second album is forthcoming. Prisoners have upcoming shows at Now That's Class and the Happy Dog, you can get the dates on their MySpace.

Upcoming Shows at the Happy Dog can be seen here.

Live in Cleveland/Giving It All Away (5)

(Details for the give-away are at the bottom of the post!)

Last night Drew and I headed up to the Grog Shop to catch Best Coast with Male Bonding and local CLE band, Clovers. We had seen Best Coast once before, last April at the Sco, and you could tell that the BC hype machine had been working overtime since then. The tickets for this show cost about twice and much and there were maybe twice as many people there.

This show has some good moments and bad moments. I really enjoyed Clovers' opening set. I had seen them once or twice before at the Happy Dog & they grow on my every time. Their lo-fi surf pop sound was a great fit for Best Coast & the crowd seemed to really enjoy their performance. You can listen to some songs & see upcoming tour dates on their MySpace (Clevelanders -- Clovers will be playing this weekend for Ingenuity Fest & they also have a show in October at the aforementioned Happy Dog.)

Male Bonding really surprised me. I feel like I've been seeing their album cover all over the place, but I never really bothered to check them out. But after last night, you can consider me a convert. Male Bonding blend elements of hardcore and pop & there's almost nothing I like better than punk songs with infectious melodies. Their full-length, Nothing Hurts, is out now on Sub Pop. You can stream tracks from Nothing Hurts on their MySpace.

Best Coast was great -- they played pretty much every single song off their debut LP, Crazy for You (out now onMexican Summer.) The band was just is spirited as they were the last time Drew and I saw them & though they fucked up a few songs, Bethany Cosentino was candid in her stage banter & used those fuck ups as a way to engage with the audience. There was sort of a dark moment where someone in the audience shouted, "Where's Snacks?" (referring to Cosentino's cat) -- she replied, "Back in California," and you could just tell that she did not want to have this conversation and was probably sick of people corralling her into talking about her cat all the time because it's "quirky" or whatever. Things got ugly when the same heckler shouted, "I heard he had a medical condition," and Cosentino replied, "Yeah, he does." People in the audience started cracking jokes about her "sick" cat and she snapped and shouted, "It's not fucking funny, he gets seizures!" (The audience responded to this with a chorus of "My ______ (mom, brother, dog, etc.) gets seizures!" and "Epilepsy! EPILEPSY!!!")

Over the last few months, as Best Coast has become increasingly more popular/visible and this narrative of Bethany "cat lover" Cosentino has continued to grow, I've heard a lot of criticism about Cosentino's lyrics and the way she's focused both her songs and her public persona around cats, weed, and her boyfriend. Everyone says that it's naive or tame or cloying or whatever, but last night reminded me of just how risky it is to sincerely be who you are in a public forum. So you're not afraid to tell the whole world that you love your cat, Snacks? Great, people who don't know you will get drunk and make fun of you because your cat gets seizures.

Give-Away Details

The give-away is closed! Congrats to Miranda! So, as a give-away, I have a souvenir from last night: It's a Best Coast button, 2" in diameter featuring the bear from the California state flag. If you want one, just leave a comment here with the title of your favorite Best Coast song. (I understand that OpenID hasn't been working for everyone, unfortunately because of the volume of spam comments I sometimes get, I do have to have them moderated. If you're unable to post here, feel free to post elsewhere (on your own blog, tumblr, twitter, wherever) -- just e-mail me at heysideponytail@gmail.com with a link to your post.)) As always if you post a link to SP elsewhere, you'll get an extra number when I run the random number generator. I'll leave comments open until midnight on Sunday! This is open to everyone, not just US residents.

Live in Cleveland (Last Night)

Last night Drew and I met up at the Happy Dog for the Burger Records showcase. Drew's friend, Tim, was playing his first show as the new drummer for local garage group The Wooly Bullies. The Wooly Bullies play loud & semi-relentless garage rock -- I say semi-relentless because everytime I felt like there was no stopping their forward momentum, they would fall back into an unexpected moment of softer melody. Seeing Tim drum was great & I'm really looking forward to seeing the Wooly Bullies play around town more. (I think they opened for Harlem a little while ago at Now That's Class -- I wanted to go to that show, but didn't end up making it... Just like I didn't make it to the Woven Bones show at Now That's Class last night.) Suggested listening from their MySpace: "Summer Town" and "Drunk Girls."

The Wooly Bullies were followed by The Pizazz, a trio from Detroit and the only other non-California band on the bill aside from The Wooly Bullies. I feel like whenever I talk about contemporary garage music, I'm talking about how I don't like it. I grew up listening to my dad's old Nuggets records & as far as I'm concerned, garage really doesn't get any better than "Moulty" by The Barbarians. Most of what I hear as far as contemporary garage goes doesn't have a tenth of the spirit of the spoken bridge of "Moulty," but The Pizazz were spirited & fun & mixed garage with surf and pop for a perfect short set. They've just released their LP, Get Out of My House (Drew picked up a copy at last night's show, I'm eager to listen to it!) & you can pre-order from Burger Records. According to the band, the first few people to pre-order will get a bonus LP of early material. Suggested listening from their MySpace: "Ocean Liner."

Cosmonauts were the last band we caught (I had to duck out early because of a big work event the next day) & a great way to round out the night. They had big echoing guitars and (on some of the songs) smooth, booming vocals that prompted me to bring up Danzig (much to Drew's chagrin -- but seriously, listen to "Neon Kids" on their MySpace & if you are the kind of person who occasionally likes to sing along to "Skulls" in the car, then you will probably get what I'm talking about.) My favorite song of their set was their closing number, the name of which I sadly didn't catch. It had gorgeous chiming guitars & was much slower than the rest of their set -- normally I'm not a slow song person, but this was paced just right & was a great song to end the night on. Drew picked up the Cosmonauts' cassette, which you can get online from Burger Records (scanning the cassette tracklist, it looks like the song I'm thinking of might have been "Stephanie.") Suggesting listening from their MySpace: "Neon Kids."

We had to duck out before the last two bands played (Cum Stain and Conspiracy of Owls), so I sadly can't comment on their sets. Anyway, for an unplanned night & a $3 cover, I had a great time. The Happy Dog has a couple of other great shows this week -- on Thursday they're hosting Bill Fox (of The Mice) and on Friday Young Mammals, Prisoners, and Cloud Nothings will be playing. I'll maybe be at Thursday's show & will definitely be there on Friday. On a food note: I highly recommend the Happy Dog's tater tots -- their homemade ketchup is awesome & so is the saffron aioli!

The Wooly Bullies on MySpace
The Pizazz on MySpace
The Cosmonauts on MySpace
Burger Records

Live in Cleveland (Sunday Night)

"All of our songs are about sex or creepy stuff or creepy sex, which makes dedicating them to people sort of hard." -- Kip Berman, prior to dedicating a song to a friend at Sunday's show

Sunday night Drew and I went to see the Pains of Being Pure at Heart along with Surfer Blood and Hooray for Earth at the Beachland Ballroom. We had seen the Pains twice before (both shows were last summer, one was here at the Beachland Tavern and the other was across the country in Portland, OR, where we were visiting my friend, April), but we had never seen Surfer Blood & Hooray for Earth was new to us in general.

The show was really fantastic, maybe the best I've seen so far this year? I wasn't sure what to expect from Surfer Blood's live show -- April saw them in PDX and said that they were great, but they had also recently retweeted a lot of things from people at shows saying, "Surfer Blood sucks," so, you know, I wasn't really sure what to expect. Fortunately, they were awesome! I know that I am kind of prone to making weird connections (like that period I went through a couple of months back where I was convinced that every band I listened to sounded like the Human League), so I'm assuming that no one will be surprised when I say that I spent most of Surfer Blood's show thinking that their lead singer/guitarist, JP, reminded me of Martin Fry from ABC, which I mean in the most awesome way possible. Seriously, I bet Surfer Blood would do an amazing cover of "All of My Heart" or "Poison Arrow". Anyway, the band played at least 8 songs off of their album Astro Coast (including "Twin Peaks," "Anchorage," and "Fast Jabroni") plus one new song prefaced with the directive, "You better not fucking YouTube this." But somebody taped it at their Allegheny College show back in March and then put it on YouTube, so you can listen to "I'm Not Ready" here -- I'm listening to it now and am getting back into that headspace where I'm thinking about the obvious connection between Surfer Blood and ABC -- I really think it's in the vocals.

Anyway, bottom line, Surfer Blood was fantastic! I seriously almost didn't want them to stop playing -- I probably would have stood there and watched/listened to them play their album again. The whole set made me really wish that I had a time machine and could go back to that night I was visiting friends in Columbus and we were driving around town doing things that we would want to do on our respective dream dates (like: getting bubble tea and fried tofu, playing arcade games, driving around town singing along to Guided By Voices) because Surfer Blood was there that night and I foolishly decided not to go when what I actually should have done was gone with my friends because it was Dream Date Day and that would have been a great end to it.

The Pains came on shortly after Surfer Blood finished playing & tore their way through a ten song set. The majority of their songs were from their debut album on Slumberland, which is awesome, but I always hope to hear some more 7" b-sides or tracks from their EPs. They did play "103" and "Higher Than the Stars," both non-album tracks, and they came back after their set for an amazing rendition of their eponymous track, "The Pains of Being Pure at Heart," from their first EP. This may have been the highlight of the show for me, actually. The band was joined onstage by members of Hooray for Earth and Surfer Blood and the whole scene was just really goofy and joyous and heartwarming. If I actually knew how to review anything and if last night's show was a movie, I would totally be calling it the feel good film of the year. It was just really apparent that all three bands had a strong sense of mutual respect for each other, that they all liked each other's music, and were having a really good time touring together, & that final song just struck me as being really emblematic of all that.

The Pains had a new single with them on tour, out as of today on Slumberland (US) and Fortuna Pop (UK) records. You can stream the a-side, "Say No to Love," on the Pains' press page. The single is fantastic and I really suggest buying a copy. (It's also pressed on beautiful seafoam green vinyl, if that kind of thing makes a difference for you, and each 7" comes with an mp3 download code.) In addition to playing the new single, the band also played a new as-yet unrecorded song called "Heaven's Gonna Happen Now," which is one of two new songs they've been playing recently (the other is "The Heart in Your Heartbreak," which wasn't played at Sunday's show.) When he introduced the song, Kip made a joke about how it was going to be on their "greatest hits" album "in February" & a Slumberland press release for the Say No to Love 7" mentions that after this tour, the band will be returning to the studio to record their second album, so maybe February is worth noting on your calendar if you're a fan of the Pains.

Remaining US shows for all three bands are as follows:

8 June — Memphis, TN – Hi Tone Cafe
9 June — Birmingham, AL – Bottletree Cafe
10 June — Tallahassee, FL – The Engine Room
11 June — Orlando, FL – Club at Firestone
12 June — Miami, FL – Grand Central
13 June — Jacksonville, FL – Jack Rabbits
15 June — Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
16 June — Washington, DC – Black Cat

After their US tour concludes, the Pains will be heading overseas where they're headlining this summer's Indietracks festival in the UK. Surfer Blood is going global with dates in Australia, Japan, the Netherlands, the UK -- all over the place!

Get the new Pains single direct from Slumberland or direct from Fortuna Pop.

Surfer Blood's LP, Astro Coast, is available on vinyl and CD from InSound.

Hooray for Earth pre-orders and reissues are also available at InSound.

& while I'm in the process of piling up links down here, I really recommend reading this interview with the band on The Alternate Side. It's a little dated (back from when the Pains played SXSW), but really great.

Live In Cleveland (Last Saturday)

Before I get started, I pulled the winner for the Go Sailor 7" this morning! Child of the Sea, e-mail me at heysideponytail@gmail.com with your address so I can send it to you!

Saturday night was a benefit show at the Beachland Tavern for the (recently renamed) North Collinwood Alley Cat Project. Prisoners played along with local band Rainy Day Saints and touring band The Kyle Sowashes (who won my heart when they covered "The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory" by Guided By Voices.) It was a great night & I'd love to write a lot about everyone, but for the sake of brevity, I'm just going to focus on Prisoners.

Full disclosure: when Drew first started playing with Prisoners, I wasn't exactly wowed. I had seen them once before (at the Blue Arrow for the 7" release show) and left feeling sort of whateverish and then they kind of fell off my radar. I remember thinking that they sounded a lot like The Replacements and also like I wanted to just go home and listen to Gaze or something.

I am a first impressions kind of person -- I have a lot of knee jerk reactions and am regularly declaring that I "hate" things (as in, "I hate the Lost finale," "I hate the song 'Perfect Day,'" "I hate everyone all the time" (ok, that's not something I said, but Kate said it while we were eating lunch today and I could totally identify) etc.) I almost never revise these initial reactions. I mean, I've honestly been sitting here for the last three or four minutes trying to think of a time I've changed my mind about not liking something and I can't think of an example.

But, I'm starting to change my mind about Prisoners. When Drew started playing with them, he had a CD-R of the album and a live bootleg that he would listen to in the car while trying to learn his parts. I was not into this. I still remember getting in the car to go copy zines before the Chicago Zine Fest and groaning when I realized that he had left a Prisoners CD in the CD player. It was frustrating to have my regular regimen of car songs (Bee Thousand, Exile in Guyville, and Strumpet interrupted.) But I left it in and on the way back, one of the songs caught my ear and I actually got a little mad at myself for liking it because I am not into retracting my opinions and having Drew give his patented "Drew's always right" speech (FYI: "Drew's always right is pretty much the full text of this speech.)

Anyway, last night was a tipping point for me, in the kind of way where I am going to have to listen to Drew tell me that he's always right, because Prisoners played an amazing set at the Beachland Tavern and I had to listen to like a zillion people talk about how great they were and accept that they were right. It was an awesome set. I've seen them a couple of times since Drew starting playing with them and they get better every time, but last night was definitely a marked improvement from the last time I had seen them & I'm actually (get this!) really looking forward to the next time I get to see them (which will probably be on June 7th with The Jacuzzi Boys, since I'll be out of town for their show on the 28th.)

Their full-length LP is due out on June 19th (there's going to be an album release show at the Blue Arrow), but you can already buy copies from Blue Arrow Records or direct from the band at shows. They've got upcoming shows at the Beachland Tavern and Now That's Class and there's a midwest tour in the works, too. You can see tour dates and sample songs on their MySpace.

Live in Cleveland (Last Night)

Last night I went up to the Beachland Ballroom to see Local Natives and Suckers, who are both on Frenchkiss Records. Local Natives started out the night early, playing a brief in store (4 songs, I think?) at Music Saves prior to the show, but I missed out on that because I was over at Blue Arrow Records helping them get some things ready for next Saturday's Waterloo Feral Cat Project Benefit. But, I heard that the in-store was well attended (around 60 people, which is a lot to cram into Music Saves!) & when I showed up there were still plenty of people milling around (including the band.)

I actually hadn't really planned on attending the Local Natives show. I listened to their album once a month or so ago and it didn't really catch me, but Drew and I were offered the opportunity to go for free, so we thought, "Why not?" &, on the whole, it was a decent decision (aside from the relatively minor setback of missing Lost and having our DVR cut off the last 15 minutes because the broadcast was delayed due to a "weather emergency." ANYWAY.)

A little while ago (maybe a week? a month? longer?) I was listening to stonecoldbikini on WRUW and Christin described a band (I can't remember what band -- if only I had known that this information would become semi-critical to a blog entry in my near future) as "forest rock" and then went on to vaguely elaborate by saying, "you know, dudes with beards harmonizing" (or something to that effect.) Which is pretty spot on for Local Natives (though they're more accurately described as mustachioed (as opposed to bearded.)

ANYWAY -- they certainly aren't bad, it's just that the whole "dudes with beards harmonizing/forest rock" thing isn't something that I've really developed a taste for yet. But, I think that in a lot of cases, it can be nice to go into a show with no real expectations. So that's what I did & here's what I found:

The Local Natives; live show definitely kept my attention in a way that their record didn't. They played a great, brief set (somewhere around 40 minutes, which was just right for me) & surprised me with a cover of "Warning Sign" by Talking Heads (which likely would have been less of a surprise if I had read CLE music blogger Erin's interview with the band over on her blog Dust Sleeve.) The Ballroom was pretty packed, which was great to see, & the crowd clearly had favorite tunes that they were waiting to hear (the band did an awesome job pacing these songs throughout their set, so when it seemed that the crowd's attention was beginning to wander, they were pulled back in.)

The opening band, Frenchkiss label-mates Suckers, was also a pleasant surprise. They had a vaguely Animal Collective-ish sound (which is invariably my go to descriptor for almost anything that involves the combo of guitars, electronics, and yelping) & by the end of their set it seemed like they had really won the crowd over.

Local Natives and Suckers are midway through their tour. You can view remaining tour dates & sample songs on their MySpace (a handful of the remaining tour dates are already sold out, so if they're coming to your town & you want to be there, you may want to consider buying tickets in advance.)

Live in Oberlin (Last Night)

Best Coast Tour CD-R (DOWNLOAD)

Last night Drew and I went down to Oberlin for the Best Coast show and I'm so glad that we did. It was definitely the best $5 I've spent on a recent night on the town. I was a little hesitant about another night at the Sco after the bad experience Drew and I had when we saw Girls/Dum Dum Girls, but it must have just been the crowd that Girls drew. The audience for the Best Coast show was much smaller & on the whole, uncomfortable invasions of my personal space decreased by about 100%, which was much appreciated.

The opening band, Geffika, was a duo (drums & guitar) that played some pretty heavy, sludgy rock. Their music wasn't really my style, but I did like the last song that they played -- it felt much faster compared to the rest of their set & seemed more like a hardcore punk song. Even though I wasn't super into Geffika, I really appreciated having the experience of seeing them play. Even though I try not to be, I'm (in many ways) very limited in what I listen to, especially when it comes to music made by women, so it was really cool to have an experience that forced me outside of those limits. It was also cool to know that Jessica, one half of Geffica, is Bethany's childhood best friend. One of the main things I appreciate about independent music is the idea of communities as opposed to scenes & I feel like seeing Geffica and Best Coast play together really reinforced that for me.

Best Coast played an awesome, awesome set! Bethany had a gorgeous sonic blue Fender Mustang with a tortoiseshell pick guard (I don't know why, but I've been really into noting people's gear lately) & her band was spot on. I loved the interplay between Bethany and Bobb Bruno & their drummer was awesome too!

They played a long set of short songs (if that description makes any sense) including a couple of covers, songs from their 7"s, and a bunch of really wonderful new songs that have me super stoked about their rumored upcoming full-length.

All of the Best Coast vinyl is long sold out (I feel lucky to have what I do!), but the band was selling CD-Rs of their current discography decorated with Lisa Frank stickers. While it's not my typical policy to share full releases, I've ripped and uploaded my CD-R since all of BC's vinyl is way out of print (and currently being trafficked on eBay for more than 5 or 6 times it's original sale price -- something that I feel very strongly about, in the "HEY, THAT'S WRONG" sort of way) & since not everyone will be able to see Best Coast, I'm sharing this. That said, if you have the chance to see the band, please support them and buy a shirt and/or a CD-R. It's worth it!

For those of you who are new to the Best Coast party, Best Coast started out as Bethany Cosentino's bedroom recording project -- fuzzy guitar pop inspired by California, cats, and weed. Bethany writes some beautiful songs and I love the way her music sounds with a full band. She's released a handful of all now sold out 7"s with Art Fag, Black Iris, & some other labels and has a rumored full length album on the horizon.

If you want to sample a song before you commit to downloading the tour CD-R, here's the video for "When I'm With You" (the A-Side from a 7" released on Black Iris.)



ALSO: Of course, the day I publish an article on Liz Phair vs. Rivers Cuomo (see here), Drew decides to wear a Weezer shirt to the Best Coast show & Bethany says to him, from the stage, between songs, "I like your Weezer shirt," and after the show even goes so far as to say, "I wasn't trying to be a bitch/make fun of you when I said I liked your shirt, Weezer rules!" She then went on to explain that she learned how to play "Keep Fishing" for this tour, but that her bandmates didn't, so they haven't been covering it. Oh Rivers Cuomo, can I go a single day without you playing a pivotal role in my life? Probably not.

Best Coast Tour CD-R (DOWNLOAD)

Live in Oberlin (Last Night)

Last night was a rough one. Drew and I drove out to Oberlin to see Girls and Dum Dum Girls at the Sco, an on-campus venue in Oberlin's student union. I was really looking forward to the show -- we had seen Girls twice before (once in Portland opening for the Pains of Being Pure at Heart and once in Cleveland opening for Los Campesinons!), but we had never seen a show where they were headlining. We had also heard that they had added a keyboard player to their line up, so I was interested in hearing how that changed their sound. I was also super stoked to see Dum Dum Girls. I've been listening to them a lot over the last six months or so but had never had the chance to see them live until last night.

The opening act, Leisure, sounded like something my mom would listen to while making Sunday brunch.* The lead singer landed somewhere in between Robert Smith & the dude from Spandeau Ballet & they were heavy on keyboards and jangly guitars, which are things I normally like a lot, but for some reason they just weren't doing it for me last night. Maybe I am just destined to hate on opening bands? I hope not. The crowd was very thin during this portion of the show, but as their set started to wind down, the venue began to get really crowded.

Dum Dum Girls were great -- they started off slow with their cover of "Play With Fire" from the Jail La La 7" & then proceeded to pretty much play all the hits. I was especially happy to hear "Catholicked" and "Yours Alone." I had it in the back of my head that it would be nice to hear "Ship of Love," but they didn't play that one. The band was fantastic though. They sounded great, they played a great set, they seemed really nice, etc. I loved their Silvertone guitars Towards the end of their set (maybe the last two songs?) the crowd started to get weirdly aggressive, though (really crushing in towards the stage, moshing, etc.)

Girls played a fantastic 13 song set that included the bulk of the tracks from their debut LP, Album. Their stage presence was right on & it was just fun to watch them play. Honestly, they get better and better every time we see them. Unfortunately, I started to have a really hard time with the crowd during their performance. Everyone was packed in super tight, a lot of people were being unreasonably aggressive, & people who weren't moshing were talking super loud and playing with their iPhones and Backberries. I'm not a huge fan of having to ward off unwarranted physical contact and I had to do that a lot last night. It was like some weird exercise in fighting off my inherently punk instinct to spit on people who invade my personal space at a show.**

It's hard, because I really don't want to make this about the crowd -- I feel like these experiences should ultimately be about the music & both Girls and Dum Dum Girls played an amazing show to an awful audience last night, which is admirable, but also terrible because, seriously, I think people who take the risk of putting themselves out there in such a public way should at least be treated with respect. (Also, can people not repeatedly scream out requests? Or is this a thing that has to happen? I feel old and crotchety for having these complaints, but I would really rather listen to a band play through their set without each song being punctuated by some dude shrieking, "Play ___!!!" but maybe that is just me.)

In fact, I think a big part of it is just me. On the way home Drew and I were talking about how we both staunchly situate ourselves within the "No Fun" camp. I mean, I hated college kids back when I was one and working full-time in higher education hasn't done a whole lot to facilitate a change of heart. So, being packed in with like 300 college kids is basically one of my worst possible nightmares. On top of that, I am secretly a 15 year-old sanctimonious straight-edger who has an unreasonably short fuse for the ways that people are prone to heckling bands and encroaching on other people's personal space while wasted.

Also on the way home, I was talking with Drew re: my thoughts on Japandroids (who we saw on Tuesday night) and the idea of "dude bands" drawing a particular audience which results in a particular atmosphere at their shows. I think if you were to compare Japandroids to Girls, while both are all-male ensembles, most people would walk away with the conclusion that Japandroids are a dude band and Girls aren't, and while the Japandroids show certainly attracted a large number of straight-up bros, the Girls show attracted an extreme number of the even more insidious "hipster bros," the majority of whom didn't seem to have any concern for making sure their actions reflected a desire for everyone at the show to both have a good time and also feel safe. At the Japandroids show, I was near a group of bros who were very friendly and very courteous, and also took the time to talk to the people around them (mainly petite girls who had elbowed their way up front so that they could actually see the band), saying "Hey, I really love this band and am probably going to get really into it, but if I get too close to you or if I bump into you or anything like that, let me know so that I can back off." It would have been SUPER COOL if some of the dudes at last night's show had shown similar concerns instead of assuming that they could grind all over me.

Anyway, Dum Dum Girls have their first full length out on Sub Pop (you can read my thoughts on that here & Girls are still riding high on their LP Album which came out on True Panther Sounds. They're still touring & if they're coming anywhere near you, you should definitely, definitely catch them. Don't let my crabbing stop you!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the keyboard player is a good addition for Girls.

* In case you are wondering: My mom's typical Sunday brunch music includes stuff like Weekend, if that helps you piece their sound together.
** An exercise I had limited success with.

Live in Cleveland (Last Night)

Japandroids, "Young Hearts Spark Fire" (DOWNLOAD)
Japandroids, "Wet Hair" (DOWNLOAD)

Last night Drew & I went to the Grog Shop to see Japandroids & it ruled! I was still vaguely bumming about the show we saw the other night and was worried about tonight being another bust, but Japandroids were fantastic. Drew had to work, so we missed the first opener (Two Hand Fools) and arrived at the very end of the second opener's set. The second band, Jaguar Love (ex-members of the Blood Brothers & Pretty Girls Make Graves), just wasn't my thing (or Drew's, for that matter), so it was no big deal that we only heard them play about two songs.

The main opener, Avi Buffalo, was from Long Beach, CA & has an album coming out on Sub Pop later this month. Honestly, and I feel kind of like a jerk for saying this, I feel like I don't legitimately remember enough of their short set to really describe their sound, which is why I will never be a music journalist. BUT, a perusal of the "About" section of their webpage reveals that they view their music as being analogous to Lou Barlow, Bob Pollard, and Bill Fox -- which is something I just didn't hear. Maybe it's because I'm so steeped in GBV songs that I wouldn't recognize their subtler influences on a band? Do I just think a song needs to be a cover of "Gold Heart Mountaintop Queen Directory" to sound like a Bob Pollard song? Whatever. They were nice kids & clearly very enthusiastic to be playing, though they seemed a little shaky. (I don't blame them, it was their first show on the tour & Cleveland crowds can be pretty hard to read sometimes.)

ANYWAY, what I am really talking about here is Japandroids, who ruled. They played their entire album, Post-Nothing, along with a couple of other songs. For those of you who aren't already familiar with Japandroids, they're a two piece (guitar and drums) from Vancouver who play exceptionally enthusiastic rock music. The first time I heard their album was sometime last summer when Drew & I were driving up to the Chagrin Falls area to pick up a bike. The car windows were down and the first track on their album, "The Boys Are Leaving Town" (which also happened to be the first song they played last night), sounded awesome. I really wish that I had better descriptive writing abilities, because I feel like a jerk for wanting to use words like "intense" or "powerful" or "soaring guitars," but seriously. All of those things.

Something I've been thinking about a lot lately (perhaps as a result of all the riot grrrl revival talk) is the idea of dudes in music & music that reflects a distinctly male experience & how that music (supposedly) exists as an oppositional force that alienates women from participation in music scenes. I feel like a lot of people I know would classify Japandroids as being a "dude band" -- I mean, they are two dudes and they do write songs about girls and beer and there were an awful lot of bros with their fists in the air at last night's show, BUT I also feel like it's worth mentioning that I don't know that I necessarily buy Japandroids as a dude band. I do think that there's a universality to what they're doing & even though last night's audience was predominately male, I don't think that's suggestive of their music being "dude-specific" & totally foreign to female experiences. I'm not really interested in entering into heavy critique mode right now, but gender politics in music and the supposed universality of dude music & intimate specificity of female music is something I've been mulling over lately & last night's show had me thinking about it again.

Japandroids are continuing their tour in Champaign, IL tonight. For more dates and info, check out their webpage. If you're a fan & have worn out your copy of their album, they have a new release of old releases called No Singles coming out at the end of this month. You can pre-order it here. No Singles compiles the 2 5-song EPS that Japandroids released before signing to Polyvinyl. My closing thought on the show: one thing that Japandroids have in common with Miles Kurosky is an excellent t-shirt selection.

Finally, a thought TOTALLY UNRELATED to any of the above, I was listening to Stone Cold Bikini on WRUW this past weekend & when "For Tammy Rae" came on I found myself thinking, "At this point in my life, I think I would really appreciate a shoegaze version of this song."

Japandroids, "Young Hearts Spark Fire" (DOWNLOAD)
Japandroids, "Wet Hair" (DOWNLOAD)

Live in Columbus (Last Night)

Last night Drew and I drove down to Columbus to see the xx and jj at the Wexner Center for the Arts. I never really planned on being negative on this blog, I mean, if I listen to something and don't like it, why on earth would I waste time writing about it? BUT, I'm trying to make an effort to write about the majority of the concerts I go to (mainly so that I don't forget I've been there.)

So anyway, Drew and I bought our tickets for this show way back. I think the xx was still riding the hype of being on some "Best Albums of the Year" lists & jj hadn't gotten that awful review for jj no 3 on Pitchfork (not that that matters, I mean, who cares what Pitchfork thinks? But still, it was harsh.) I had never really listened to either band, but Drew was interested in going & I was feeling a little more adventurous in terms of concert attendance, so we got tickets. Later on, I developed an affinity for jj's Human League-ier sounding tunes, as noted here & started to look forward to the show.

jj's set started out with Elin playing two songs (one of them was "Are You Still in Vallda?") on the acoustic guitar with no accompaniment. It was a sweet way to start out the set and it made me think that maybe some of the recent live reviews I'd read about jj were, perhaps, unnecessarily harsh, but then it was all downhill from there. I don't really know what to say -- I guess, watching jj perform was a lot like watching someone do karaoke. The entire set was, more or less, Elin singing along with the album. For the majority of the songs there was no one else on stage with her -- unless you count the projected images of running caribou and Elin rolling joints. It was just kind of a bummer. Jaokim came out with a guitar for a couple of songs and sort of mimed playing it -- then he went and sat on the far end of the stage behind some speakers for the rest of the set. I don't know, the whole thing was just weird and kind of depressing. Elin's voice was lovely and I still like their music, but can't imagine ever wanting to see them live again. (Side note: when I initially wrote about jj, I mentioned my main affinity for them being that they reminded me of the Human League -- imagine my surprise and delight when the between set music was extended dance mixes of songs from the Human League's album, Dare.)

Compared to jj, the xx was tremendous! They were dynamic and very together and also extra, extra polite and friendly, which is something I really appreciate in a band's stage presence. Unfortunately, their music just really wasn't my thing. While watching them I found myself thinking, "The xx would play a really, REALLY good set at the Bronze," and then I thought, "How unusual that I should think that? I just saw a band and thought that." I mean, I've probably only seen a few Bronze-esque bands in my lifetime. How strange to see two within a week of each other? So, this morning I'm doing some googling and (surprise!) it turns out that the Big Pink and the xx actually toured together. A Bronze Band Roadshow. Anyway, while technically proficient, the xx just didn't do it for me. The crowd was super into it though -- lots of girls with digital cameras singing along to every song.

I was extremely surprised when Drew tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I wanted to leave before the band came out for their encore. Drew NEVER does that. He STILL complains about shows that he had to leave early in high school. In the years that we've been going to shows together, we've only ever left one show early prior to last night. (Side note: last night Drew kept saying how he had no clue the xx was so popular and that the crowd they attracted was very different from what he expected, which led me to say, "I bet one of their songs was used on a tv show that's popular with college girls." Drew said he didn't think so, but a quick perusal of the xx's WikiPedia page says they had a song used on Grey's Anatomy, so, you know, there's that.)

So yeah, it was just kind of a weird night out. But tonight we're going to see Japandroids and tomorrow we're going to see Girls and Dum Dum Girls, all of which will probably be much more our speed.

Live in Columbus (Last Night)

"An Apple For An Apple," Miles Kurosky (DOWNLOAD)
"Dog In the Burning Building," Miles Kurosky (DOWNLOAD)
"Silver Lining," Beulah (DOWNLOAD)

Last night Drew and I drove down to Columbus to see Miles Kurosky, who you might likely remember from his work with Beulah. We don't go down to Columbus for shows very often because it's a two and a half hour drive and we're lucky to make it back home before two, but the Miles show was completely and totally worth it & was, I would venture to say, the best show we've seen in Columbus so far. So, I will refrain from crabbing about spending too much time in the car, missing Lost (for the second week in a row!), and continuously squandering my paychecks.

Anyway, we started off the night with dinner at Dirty Frank's with some of Drew's pals before heading to the Basement for the Miles show. As we got closer to the Basement we started to get a little apprehensive because there were people everywhere and signs for "Special Event Parking" all over the place. It turns out that there was a Tegan and Sara show happening at the venue next store, so there were what seemed like thousands of people (all with eerily similar haircuts) milling around... and maybe about 30 people at the Mile show. Miles addressed the disparity between the two shows during some in between songs chatting, saying that he was texting his wife about it & how he was feeling kind of down about the Columbus show apparently being the smallest show they've played yet, until his wife said, "You wouldn't want those kids and their haircuts at your show anyway," which I thought was both funny and sweet.

I know that sometimes it can feel like a downer for an artist to play to a small crowd, but coming from the perspective of someone out in the crowd, I love small shows. I think that part of it is just that I seem to have bad luck with crowds -- I always seem to be significantly shorter than whoever wants to stand in front of me, if people get rowdy I tend to catch an elbow in the chest or a foot in the head (which is what happened when we saw Modest Mouse in Columbus this past summer), or I get a significant amount of beer splashed on me. So, it was really, really awesome to be at a show where none of those things happened & I instead got to enjoy an awesome band playing an awesome set to a crowd that was obviously enjoying the experience of being there.

Miles was touring in promotion of his recent solo album, The Desert of Shallow Effects, a gorgeous ten song pop romp that I think pretty much anyone on the planet could enjoy. The songs on Shallow Effects seem to come from a story-telling sort of place & are both lyrically and musically rich. Every song has a distinct texture to it & when you listen to the album, you really feel like you're listening to something -- that probably seems like a weird, empty thing to say, so I hope you can figure out what I mean. The band played the bulk of Shallow Effects and closed the night with a number of Beulah covers, including "Emma Blowgun's Last Stand" from Beulah's album, "When Your Heartstrings Break." The band was wonderful with a really lush, full sound. Every song had beautiful vocals and great melodies, both things that made Shallow Effects and Miles' work with Beulah so appealing.

After the show, Miles stuck around to talk with fans, so Drew and I decided to say hello. Honestly, I can't imagine a friendlier, more courteous guy. We talked for easily 15 minutes or so -- which is a long conversation to have when you know you might have to have similar conversations with the rest of the audience & Miles was very funny, very gracious, and all around likable. He mentioned that he expected this to be his last tour, which made me extra glad that we had made the drive down.

Miles is midway through his US tour & you can see his remaining dates here. If he's coming anywhere near you, I highly recommend taking the time to see the show. I also recommend picking up a copy of The Desert of Shallow Effects. It's currently out on CD and the vinyl will be available in mid-April. (If you're able to catch Miles on tour, they're selling copies of the vinyl on the road.)

Not related so much to music, but still related to the general topic of Miles Kurosky: the shirts that Miles is selling on this tour are some of the best I've seen at shows recently. According to Miles' website, shirts should be available on the site in mid-April. If you are the kind of person who likes to buy band t-shirts, these ones will not disappoint.

If you like what you hear on The Desert of Shallow Effects, be sure to check out Beulah too. Miles still maintains a Beulah website where you can order Beulah albums and t-shirts. You should also check out the Beulah documentary A Good Band is Easy to Kill.

Lastly (not related to Miles, but still related to music), if you're in the Cleveland area & you don't have plans tonight, the Strange Boys are playing at Now That's Class with a bunch of local bands. Drew has just started playing with Prisoners, a local Cleveland group, & his first show with them is tonight. If you're a fan of garage rock, this is probably a good use of your $5.

"An Apple For An Apple," Miles Kurosky (DOWNLOAD)
"Dog In the Burning Building," Miles Kurosky (DOWNLOAD)
"Silver Lining," Beulah (DOWNLOAD)

Live in Cleveland (Last Week)

"Mind Meld," Kitten Forever (Download)
"Voodoo," Kitten Forever (Download)

So, last Friday I had the complete and total pleasure of seeing Kitten Forever play at the Blue Arrow on Waterloo. Kitten Forever is a 3 girl punk rock band from Minneapolis & I feel like it's sort of a cop-out to borrow from their MySpace page to describe their sound, but the description they have up there is so on, so who cares? I mean, it's not like I have any journalistic integrity to compromise or anything. So, Kitten Forever sounds like crabby baby cats, later Bratmobile, the Gossip without the southern twang, and Husker Du's "New Day Rising." How does that not sound like the best possible combination of things?!

Here are two semi-related (but maybe not really?) things that I really liked about Kitten Forever:

1. The only instruments they use are drums & bass -- In many ways, one of the big things that gets me hung up on doing something like "being in a band" or "playing music in public" or even "playing music with other people (or by myself) in the privacy of my own home" is that I get caught up in what I think you "need to have" in order to make music. Even though a lot of the music I enjoy listening to is way simplistic & stripped down when it comes to fancy gear, when I imagine the way I think things should be, I always think of things I don't have or don't know how to play. Seeing Kitten Forever play was like taking a crash course in, "Oh hey, real people make music and they make it all the time and they make it with what they've got and with who they like" and it was awesome to be reminded of that.

2. Their music simultaneously reminds me of stuff I lived for listening to in middle/high school, without seeming tired -- I've been seeing this whole whirlwind of "riot grrrl revival" talk on the internet (I am just going to use that blanket term "internet" because when I talk about things like "tumblr" and "the feminist blogosphere" Drew makes fun of me) & while I'm generally opposed to all of the "revolution grrrl style 2010" rhetoric for reasons I won't get into here, it was really awesome to hear new music that fit in with that canon without sounding played out and insincere.

Kitten Forever's most recent release is their Magical Realism EP on UF Records. They also have an album, a single, and a cassette that you can order directly through them (see their MySpace page for ordering info.)

Kitten Forever is just one of many out of town bands that the Blue Arrow is hosting. If you're in the area, I highly recommend coming out tomorrow to see Hop Along & Lithuania! The show should start around 7.

"Mind Meld," Kitten Forever (Download)
"Voodoo," Kitten Forever (Download)

Live in Cleveland (Last Night)

"Dominoes," The Big Pink (Download)
"At War With the Sun," The Big Pink (Download)

Last night Drew and I went to the Grog Shop to see The Big Pink. I had to teach until 8 and Drew worked until 9, so by the time we got there we had entirely missed the local opener (Hotchacha) and the touring opener (A Place to Bury Strangers) was at the very end of their set. I wasn't super invested in seeing either group and was still secretly crabby about having to miss Lost, so it didn't impact me all that much, but Drew left vowing to never work on the same night he planned to go to a show.

I'll be honest -- I knew basically nothing about The Big Pink prior to last night. I had downloaded their album a few months ago because Drew said he liked it and it kept showing up on "Best of" lists for the year, but I listened to a few songs and then deleted it, filing it away as "boring music." In all fairness to The Big Pink, I was probably just not feeling it that day, because I really liked what I heard at their show last night & also, I have a tendency to write off almost anything as boring.

In some ways, it was nice to go out having basically no idea what to expect. I think I ended up enjoying the night much more that way. I definitely left the show wanting to give their album another (more attentive and, uh, complete) listen (and have listened to it twice today). Their music is very different from the sort of thing that I normally listen to (Mirah is basically "the thing I normally listen to"), so I also got to feel good about myself for going out & "expanding my horizons."

Here are two television related thoughts I had about The Big Pink while at last night's show:

1. "They probably would have played a killer set at the Bronze on Buffy the Vampire Slayer." This is something I occasionally think about bands from time to time*. Sometimes, on very rare occasions, I will think this about a band that has actually "played" at the Bronze (for example, Rasputina**)

2. "I bet the kids from Skins would listen to this band." There is a very large chance that I thought this because A) The Big Pink are from England, which is also where Skins takes place, B) A pivotal moment in Skins season two was scored to a Crystal Castles song and I like to lump all vaguely electronic bands together, and C) Drew and I spent most of the night uncomfortably close to a couple who basically made out for the entire set and unwarranted public make-outs in club environments always make me think of Skins.

One thought I had about The Big Pink while at last night's show that is unrelated to television:

1. "Some of these songs remind me of The Human League." I guess I just think that about everything now.

* Weirdly (?) this happens only with the Bronze and not any other fictional venues. For example, never in my life have I seen a band and thought, "I bet they would play a great set at the Bait Shop!" (from The OC.)

** Okay, Rasputina is probably the only band I have ever seen in real life that has also played a fictional set at the Bronze.

"Dominoes," The Big Pink (Download)
"At War With the Sun," The Big Pink (Download)

Bunnygrunt

Where Eagles Dare pt. II (Bunnygrunt)
Alone in My Principles (Bunnygrunt)

Last night I saw what will probably be my last concert of the year -- a Bunnygrunt in-store performance at Used Kids records in Columbus. I've never seen Bunnygrunt before, but they're a long-time favorite of my. I thought about not going, but my boyfriend said I should ("When are you going to get the chance to see Bunnygrunt again?") and I'm glad that I did. They put on a wonderful show & were joined by an accordion player for their last two songs, which was unexpected, but really sweet.

I'm assuming that Bunnygrunt took their show on the road to promote their new album, Matt Harnish & Other Delights, but it was a GBV tribute show that brought them to Columbus. Unfortunately, I didn't make it to the GBV show (I've seen a few GBV shows in my time, but just don't think I have the stamina to make it through 10+ bands playing their favorite GBV songs -- though I can't help but wonder what a Bunnygrunt version of "Let's Ride" or "My Valuable Hunting Knife" might have sounded like).

I've uploaded two Bunnygrunt songs & my reasons for choosing them have a lot less to do with Bunnygrunt and a lot more to do with my outside interests -- "Where Eagles Dare pt. II" (while a sweet song in and of itself), speaks to the still 15 year-old part of me know for bellowing along with my favorite Misfits' HITS FROM HELL and "Alone in My Principles" strikes a chord because I have seriously seen That Thing You Do upwards of 30 times and picturing Steve Zahn ("There he goes, off to write that hit song Alone in My Principles") never fails to bring a smile to my face.

ANYWAY, I sure am glad that I went to see Bunnygrunt last night. You can see a running list of concerts I attended in 2009 here.

Where Eagles Dare pt. II (Bunnygrunt)
Alone in My Principles (Bunnygrunt)

Sufjan Stevens

Joy! Joy! Joy! (.mp3, Mediafire)

When my boyfriend told me that Sufjan Stevens had announced a show at one of our favorite venues, I had mixed feelings about whether or not I wanted to go. I was concerned that the venue would be oversold, resulting in wall-to-wall hipsters with digital cameras (not too far from what the show ended up being like) and I was also worried that I just didn't like Sufjan that much anymore. (My peak Sufjan listening years were probably 2003-2005, with a brief resurgence in the summer of 2007 when one of my housemates and I would spend hours lying on the dirty, carpeted floor or our miserable sublet listening to "The Dress Looks Nice On You" on repeat.) But, tickets were only $15 and the show fell pretty close to my birthday so I thought, why not? And, you know what? It was a pretty nice night.

The show was an almost even mix of new and old songs -- the newer songs were, I think, a shock to many of the fans there. I mean, the opener was 11+ minutes & a lot of it was a severe, guitar-driven noise collision. So, you know, people who were there for the soft banjo tunes ended up being a bit thrown. While my boyfriend and I were walking back to the parking lot after the show he said (he's not much of a Sufjan fan at all), "I didn't know Sufjan was such an interesting guitarist," so, I guess you can take that for whatever it's worth.

Personally, the new songs left me feeling sort of cold (probably because of their length & structure, honestly, I'm a 2-3 minute, verse-chorus-verse sort of music fan about 90% of the time, so it's not at all surprising that I wouldn't respond to something sonically and structurally unconventional). I did like the last new song that he played quite a bit. It was called "Too Much Love" and it reminded me quite a bit of "Joy! Joy! Joy!" (easily my favorite song off of A Sun Came! & the song I've chosen to post here & now). You can hear "Too Much Love" (& see a live video of it) over at I Guess I'm Floating. "Too Much Love" was played as the first encore and we left before the second, if there was a second.

& I guess that leaving is the second (and smaller) part of this story. I found out that a friend of mine passed away this past Wednesday and while we were not especially close, I found myself reeling with small memories and to hear songs like "Casimir Pulaski Day" and "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands" was, honestly, a little much for me. But, "Joy! Joy! Joy!" is an oldie & a goodie & is celebratory in spirit. I think it meshes perfectly with the new song & yes, yes, I'm glad that I went.

Joy! Joy! Joy! (.mp3, Mediafire)