Blog: Trust Me on This

I suppose a thank-you to Ezra Koenig is in order. I listened to my first Ra Ra Riot song last night because I had heard that their sound was similar to that of Vampire Weekend, but better in some ways. I've heard a great deal about Ra Ra Riot in the last year or so, but for some reason I didn't listen to them until now. The first song that I heard, "Dying is Fine," made good on the comparison. I'm impressed, very impressed, by them. And I'm not surprised that they're signed to Barsuk. Their sound is [...]

• Ra Ra Riot - Dying Is Fine

I watched a good four hours of the Olympics last night - my many fangirl crushes include Michael Phelps, though I think his taste in music (rap) is deplorable - and there were a few indie music moments worth mentioning: First, "You're a Wolf" by Sea Wolf was in a (Nissan?) car commercial that played several times during the NBC primetime broadcast. Good for you, Alex Brown Church! The song-to-product disconnect between wolves and cars is approximately equivalent to the discontinuity in the M&M's commercial that featured "Such Great Heights" by the Postal Service, and of course not [...]

I don't usually like the solo projects of members of bands that I like. But it's unsurprising that Death Cab for Cutie is the exception to this rule, even as their last two records as a band have diverged from the near-perfection of Transatlanticism and the stunning songs on We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes . And though Ben Gibbard's foray into electronic pop with The Postal Service deservedly exploded on the music scene a few years back, it's Chris Walla's debut solo album, Field Manual , that I'll be raving about [...]

• Sing Again

I'll do a very brief concert recap since I'm exhausted and did a fairly thorough job last night. Tonight's show was miles ahead of last night's show in Williamsburg - at this rate, if I go to see We Are Scientists for a fourth time (yes, I will), it's going to be exponentially even more mind-blowing. Keith and Chris were in fine form tonight, and the stage banter was superbly witty - sharper than last night - with references to James Joyce, repeated wisecracks about the Killers. The crowd was better, more willing to start dancing or clapping [...]

I went to see the Long Winters on the spur of the moment. I knew, of course, that they had a show scheduled for the 31st - I knew this even when I bought tickets to see We Are Scientists two nights in a row. I had decided not to go (that's how deep my commitment to "Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt" runs...), partially because I can only recognize seven Long Winters songs out of three albums, and I had forgotten that the third album existed, actually. But then, while glancing through a newspaper, I learned that (a) [...]

After catching the Long Winters show in Battery Park earlier in the evening, I headed over to my favorite venue, the Music Hall of Williamsburg, to see We Are Scientists for the second time. The last time I saw them was at Baruch College in September, and it was a "festival" with four opening bands (as you might remember, that night was when I encountered Robbers on High Street). I picked the raised platform on stage right for the simple fact that I had been on the left, dead center, at the last show. I caught the entire [...]

Ah, Fionn Regan. You made me try to read Saul Bellow, but I won't hold that against you. I fell in love with Fionn Regan last year, and it was terribly easy. I listened "Put a Penny in the Slot," paused, and listened to it again. And again. And again. And then I wanted more. This was months before Fionn signed to a U.S. record label, and at the time, it was basically impossible to find a physical copy of his album, The End of History , in the States. Fionn's voice and his guitar [...]

How many effusive posts about Margot & the Nuclear So & So's can I write? The answer, it seems, is three. I mentioned that I snagged Margot's new Daytrotter EP last night at the show. Well, you can download the entire EP for free at Daytrotter.com (just follow the link!), and I would exhort you to do so, because "Broadripple is Burning" is on the EP, and how many different ways are there to say that I love that song? Margot on Myspace (the band's profile photo, as well as the [...]

This video, made by The Human Giant , is set at the Other Music store on West Fourth near Lafayette. It spoofs the stereotypical pretentious, Pitchfork-reading, L-train-riding New York hipster in all the right ways... it's hysterical, whether or not you've been to Other Music before. In my experience, Other Music employees have always been nice... and sober (the staff at Kim's in St. Mark's Place is another story). I go there all the time; it's right across the street from NYU. I think that the last album I [...]

You knew it was coming: I've spent the last week hyping the Margot & the Nuclear So & So's concert that was at the Bowery Ballroom tonight. And it was amazing. Am I right, or am I right? I arrived sometime before the second opening band, the Silver State, started playing. Margot's violinist, Erik Kang, was manning the merch table, and he sold me an EP and a green t-shirt and was super nice to everyone who had questions about Animal and Not Animal . I saw Emily Watkins [...]

I should be leaving for the MARGOT concert soon, but I couldn't resist watching this new video, for "Impatience" by We Are Scientists (on the Brain Thrust Mastery album). Oh, it's hilarious. They always are. As a side note... unless police officer #2 is Max Hart in disguise, I wonder why the new band members aren't in the videos?

I'm going to see Margot & the Nuclear So & So's at the Bowery Ballroom tonight, and I can already picture myself writing a concert recap and uploading photos at 3 a.m., and then waking up a mere five hours later to go to work. So, in hopes that I will either forestall the obligatory post-concert recap until I get to work tomorrow morning, or at the very least that I will not have to spend quite so much time trying to articulate how much I love Margot & the Nuclear So & So's, here is a pre-emptive post - [...]

Up until this spring, the phrase "sea wolf" would have prompted me to think of Jack London and the inadvisability of sailing with dogs on board. Yes, wolves are running rampant in indie music - Wolf Parade, Wolfmother, Wolf Eyes, Patrick Wolf, Peter and the Wolf, etc. - but I've never been bitten by one of them before, so to speak. I wish I could remember how I was introduced to Sea Wolf or why I listened to "Winter Windows" - I do remember that that song was the first I listened to, and it made me think [...]

It's no secret that I'm a huge fangirl for Ambulance LTD/Marcus Congleton. What can I say, really? Marcus is an amazing guitarist to watch, and he has an even more amazing voice. I've said again and again that his voice sounds inexplicably more beautiful in live shows than on recordings - usually the opposite is true; usually, the silence of a studio booth enhances the voice more than the chatter of the crowd and the amps all turned up to eleven. But my live recordings of Ambulance (I haven't found anyone else's, unfortunately) don't manage to capture the essence of [...]

An update: all photos from this blog are now available in a flickr photostream, http://www.flickr.com/photos/m usicrex/ . Unfortunately, I don't have time to tag my photos or to upload additional ones, so the photostream will not include any photos that aren't already on this site.

I love cover songs - I think it's fascinating to see which songs musicians will take it upon themselves to learn. As a non-composer, I exclusively play cover songs on the guitar, and my choices are generally unsurprising yet unexpected (though the constraints of my limited talents probably guide my song selection more than anything else). Oh, there are plenty of great bands that cover other great bands, but I am always more touched when the band being covered is one that I've never heard before. (Conversely, if one of my favorite bands is being covered by a [...]

I'm not a fan of Broken Social Scene (nor am I a fan of Feist). I have to confess that I'm also ignorant of Pavement and Stephen Malkmus as well. So when I went to the Village Voice's Siren Music Festival today, I stayed for only two sets. First up on the Stillwell Ave stage: Film School. My cousin Monica, who accompanied me, first commented that the sound was uncommonly loud. I had to admit that it was mildly deafening within fifty feet of the stage. I barely recognized the one song that I like enough to know [...]

I have done a number of ridiculous things in the name of concertgoing. One might say that my decision to attend NYU last year was partially a result of the lures of the indie scene. How could I resist? This was the land of CBGB, the Knitting Factory, the Bowery Ballroom, the Mercury Lounge, Northsix. Every band stops in New York. CMJ descends upon the city every year. There are so many bands playing every night that I pore over the daily listings in the L magazine, the Village Voice and the Onion to make sure that I'm [...]

I was in love with Death Cab for Cutie when I was a sophomore in high school. They were the first "indie" band that I listened to. I remember how everything else followed - Nada Surf and the Long Winters, because they were label-mates on Barsuk; the Postal Service, because Ben was in that, too; Rilo Kiley, because Jenny Lewis sang on some of the Postal Service tracks; the Shins, because they were on Sub Pop with the Postal Service... I made up a game called Six Degrees from Death Cab for Cutie. I played it with friends, [...]

I went to see Spoon at the Prospect Park Bandshell in Park Slope last night. I had been exhausted from switching rooms in my building, and the various pressures of my new job, my research work and my internship. Once the show started, I was really glad that I had come. There was a reason that I bought tickets in April, after all. Fortunately, it was neither raining nor insufferably hot out. I missed the first opening band, Jay Reatard, but I arrived a good half an hour before White Rabbits even started playing. I'd heard White Rabbits [...]