At the Wexner Center, even the most lively bands have a hard time getting the crowd physically moving. It's certainly nice that the venue's Mershon, Black Box and Performance Space audiences are reverent and attentive, but for some of the more frenetic concerts, the Wex can sometimes feel a bit too stiff. Man Man took that challenge and came out on top, working the crowd into an absolute frenzy with its boisterous brand of circus rock. The Philadelphia band--whose members go by Honus Honus, Chang Wang, Sergei Sogay, Cougar and Pow Wow--played in its trademark [...]
Another good weekend for live music in Columbus. Donewaiting.com has a good post about everything going on, including the New Pornographers/Okkervil River show I'm sad to have missed last night. As an addendum, Monday night American Music Club will play Cafe Bourbon St., and Tuesday night is Yeasayer and Man Man at the Wexner Center, which I'll be covering.
Vacation makes me lazy, so here are some 1-sentence reviews of stuff I've been listening to recently that haven't received the typical lengthy, overly analytical treatment I usually undertake. From the looks of it, I guess I've been generally disappointed with some of the recent releases. (Disclaimer: Some of these are just quick first impressions, so I reserve the right to completely change my mind later.) Peter Moren - The Last Tycoon Ho-hum singer/songwriter fare from one of the Peter, Bjorn and John dudes (guess which one?); [...]
It's a blessing and a curse for a band to have a great live show. Otherworldly stage performances rarely translate well onto record, where studios are adept at stripping bands of their intangible charisma. Man Man occupies that perilous position, with a carnivalistic live show in which the Philadelphia band has been known to dress in white and wear war paint while using all sorts of instruments and non-instruments. It's eye-catching and exhilarating, what a PR flack would rush to call not just a concert, but an "experience." (The experience is coming to the Wexner Center April 15 [...]
Throw Me the Statue Tuesday evening at Skully's started off horribly. Doors opened at 9 pm for the free Throw Me the Statue show, and I arrived a little before 10 pm, catching most of the first opener, I Against the Tower . I'm not sure who decided to pair this band with TMST, but it made no sense. I Against the Tower attempted to rip off Taking Back Sunday but didn't come close. The guitars drowned out every other instrument, and that was actually OK because all the singer did was flop [...]
Columbus is certainly still feeling the effects of Little Brother's closing, but it's nice to see other venues attempting to pick up the slack recently. These are/were some noteworthy shows just from last Thursday to this Tuesday, and I'm probably forgetting a couple: Thurs: British Sea Power, The Basement Lewis and Clarke w/ The Black Swans, Surly Girl Aids Wolf, Cafe Bourbon St. Friday: Xiu Xiu w/ Thao Nguyen and El Jesus de Magico, Skully's The Kyle Sowashes w/ Miranda Sound, Andyman's Saturday: Dave Fischoff, Cafe Bourbon St. Prezens, Wexner Center Tuesday: [...]
Recently I was listening to Psychedelic Horseshit through headphones, and halfway through the song there was no sound coming through the right earbud. Normally, this would cause me to check my headphone connection to see if the jack had become partially unplugged. But I didn't. I just assumed it was purposeful, and I didn't realize it was a faulty connection until the next song started. The fact that I didn't check is telling. Horseshit's sound is messiness to the max, the exact opposite of a headphone album. On the band's Siltbreeze full-length, Magic Flowers Droned, and [...]
Adam Duritz, the face and voice behind Counting Crows, has mastered the art of sad-sack rock. He proved that on the band's debut, August and Everything After , now a '90s classic that would probably be cited as an influence by more bands if they weren't too hip to admit it. There aren't many singers in mainstream rock who can lament like Duritz. But on August 's follow-up, Recovering the Satellites , the revamped band proved it could rock, too. There were still slow numbers like "A Long December," but with the addition of new [...]
I don't like Bruce Springsteen, and I'm in the vast minority on this. I can't really explain why, because I like bands he has heavily influenced--Arcade Fire, The Hold Steady, etc. I just find his music, well, cheesy. It doesn't do anything for me. But I found a kindred spirit. Apparently a woman in Australia stabbed her boyfriend, Kevin Watson, because he didn't want to listen to the Bruce. The woman, Karen Lee Cooper, is quoted in the article as saying, "I mean, who doesn't like Bruce Springsteen?" Kevin Watson and I obviously don't, and I [...]
While every fish fry and high school basketball game was canceled on Friday night due to the Blizzard of 2008, CAPA decided to go ahead with the Punch Brothers concert at the Southern Theatre. To be honest, I wasn't excited about driving downtown in the quickly accumulating snow to cover the show. But it turns out CAPA was right, and I was wrong. Those who ventured out had the privilege of witnessing a bluegrass quintet with limitless talent. And besides, despite the testimony of overexcited TV news crews, the roads really weren't that bad. Mandolin virtuoso [...]
The new album from What Made Milwaukee Famous is called What Doesn't Kill Us , but it probably shouldn't be. According to Friedrich Nietzsche and Kanye West, the common way to complete the album title's epigram is "makes us stronger." The implication doesn't really work, because whatever didn't kill this band also neglected to make its sophomore album stronger. WMMF hails from Austin, not Milwaukee; the moniker is likely from the Jerry Lee Lewis song of the same name. The band released its debut, Trying to Never Catch Up , on Barsuk in 2006 after self-releasing [...]
Three things I learned about this 20-inch snowstorm: 1. Our driveway is absurdly long. 2. We need two shovels. 3. The Whigs' Mission Control is a fairly solid 3-star album, but it's a four-star shoveling album.
Once upon a time, in what feels like a different lifetime, I went to a North Carolina beach with some college friends for spring break. We piled into the car with beach clothes, towels, sunscreen, Easy Mac, Ramen Noodles and copious amounts of alcohol. When we pulled up to the house we rented, the sun was shining and the waves were breaking gently onto the white sand in the distance. All that was missing from the postcard image were cartoon letters across the sky saying, "Welcome to Nags Head!" But after exiting the car, something was very wrong [...]
It would have been a colossal waste of talent if Annie Clark, who goes by the stage name St. Vincent, had been content to remain in her support roles for the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens. On Clark's 2007 solo debut, Marry Me, she showcased a knack for crafting orchestral pop that's a bit too trippy for an iPod commercial--St. Vincent is perfect for those who like a chanteuse more quirky than Feist but not as operatic as My Brightest Diamond. Not coincidentally, those two artists played the Wex recently, but Sunday night St. Vincent topped them both [...]
After Justin Vernon split from his bandmates in DeYarmond Edison, he had a lot to think about, and like so many artists before him, he chose the route of self-imposed solitude to work out his issues. In a Thoreau-esque move, Vernon retreated to his father's remote cabin in his home state of Wisconsin and spent the winter there. He did all the usual rustic, outdoorsy things during his time in the woods: chopped wood, hunted deer, ate deer, etc. But he also ended up writing and recording some songs under a new moniker: Bon Iver, which is purposefully [...]
I'm a U2 fanatic, so when I found out U2 3D was coming to Columbus theaters, I had to see it. My wife and I ventured out in the slush last night to Easton AMC's IMAX to check it out. Honestly, I was excited, but also a little skeptical about the film. "3D" conjures up images of blue-and-red glasses with cardboard frames from cereal boxes. But this was nothing like that. It was truly amazing. I can now say I know what it feels like to be in the front row of a U2 concert (and [...]
Here's my Vampire Weekend live review running in The Other Paper today. I had no time to write this, so it's not my best work, but it should at least give you a taste of what the show was like. Oh, and the buzz doesn't appear to be slowing down. VP graces the cover of this month's Spin . (Photo from the show by Kim Rottmayer of Picturethesound.com. View the full set here .) "All the hoopla over Vampire Weekend, this year's most talked about buzz band, is a bit baffling. While it's not [...]
In the mid '90s the Mountain Goats released a series of lo-fi boom-box recordings on cassettes. Many of the songs featured only singer/guitarist John Darnielle, who became known for his highly literate lyrics, prominent ultra-nasal vocals and frantic guitar strumming. Some things have changed drastically since Darnielle's days of tape hiss. The passion, the anger, the heartbreak and the cinematic storytelling with larger-than-life characters are all still there. But along the way, starting with Tallahassee in 2002, he abandoned the homemade aesthetic and started making studio-grade headphone albums filled with subtle layers of sparse instrumentation that [...]
I've never cared too much about Valentine's Day, and my wife doesn't take it too seriously, either, which works out well for me since I'll be spending the evening with Vampire Weekend at the Wexner Center. Hopefully it's not one of those situations where she says she doesn't mind, but in reality has visions of roses and dinner by candlelight. For those who do embrace the day of candy hearts, here's a fitting V-Day track from the Drive By Truckers' 2006 album A Blessing and a Curse . mp3: Drive By Truckers [...]
So I listened to this album again, thought about it some more, then listened some more. Here's the "official" review I came up with, which will be in the The Other Paper on Thursday: Arcade Fire is the elephant in the iPod when you listen to British Sea Power's Do You Like Rock Music? , so we might as well talk about it. It's so impossible to avoid that on the first few listens I had a hard time giving the band much credit. After all, since Arcade Fire released Funeral in 2004, its influence [...]
Don't just do something, stand there
[LISTEN] Gotye (Passion Pit Remix)
Big Boi & Theophilus London (feat. TRE LUCE) - 'She Said OK'
