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2008:08:07:08:00. Thursday. NO!: THE HOLD STEADY (#423, JUL 21 2008).
Stay Positive has three or four additions to the band's catalog of great songs, of which this is the only one I managed to record. The criminally relegated-to-bonus-track-status "Ask Her For Adderall" wasn't even played, unfortunately, but "Stay Positive" and "Constructive Summer" were both superb. On the whole, I think the new album is not quite as good as Boys and Girls in America, but it's still on the inside track to my top album of the year.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:08:06:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: THE HOLD STEADY (#422, JUL 21 2008).
I believe Madison's last Hold Steady set contained all of their then-newest album; by constrast, this show left out a couple of tracks from Stay Positive. Two that I noticed go missing -- "Both Crosses" and "Magazines" -- have musical and lyrical themes in common with this one, but I think this is the best of the three and it made for a nice late-set slow-down.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:08:05:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: THE HOLD STEADY (#421, JUL 21 2008).
Much like their last Madison show, the Hold Steady came out with some oldies and rarities early. "Modesto Is Not That Sweet" may only be available as a bonus track on the Australian edition of their debut album, but it stands with the best of their early material. Tellingly, the crowd was excited when the tune started -- more than a lot of others, this band seems to have integrated their old and new fans and used their pre-fame catalog to great effect in their live shows.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:07:06:08:00. Sunday. NO!: TESTA ROSA (#420, JUN 28 2008).
Testa Rosa played some other new stuff besides "My Sin," but I don't think you can really put this in that category. This is the theme song to a Milwaukee cable-access show about HO slot-car racing, which I assumed at first was a wrong-lyricked cover of "Blitzkrieg Bop." Not really the sort of thing I'd've predicted would be in their set, to be sure.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:07:05:08:00. Saturday. NO!: TESTA ROSA (#419, JUN 28 2008).
Dropped in with the 60's harmony-pop that dominates Testa Rosa's debut are a couple of soft, almost ambient ballads. This one in particular shows off Betty Blexrud-Strigens' voice spectacularly, though I'm not sure the acoustics of the High Noon are quite meant for it.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:07:02:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: TESTA ROSA (#418, JUN 28 2008).
Perhaps the only silver lining of the current high gas prices is that bands who can't afford to tour this summer are instead staying home and putting new music together. This was one of a couple new songs Testa Rosa played at this show, recently recorded and too be released soon-ish. You can check this out at their MySpace page; hopefully next time they're here they'll have a new record.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:20:08:00. Friday. NO!: R.E.M. (#417, JUN 6 2008).
This was one of three album-closers included in the set -- it and "Electrolite" both got terrific receptions, while Accelerate's awful "I'm Gonna DJ" brought the main set to an awkward close. Other highlights included an excellent acoustic arrangement of "Let Me In," the Kurt Cobain memorial from Monster, and a version of "Fall on Me" with Johnny Marr of Modest Mouse (and late of the Smiths) during the encore. All in all, an incredible show and an experience I hope to be able to have again -- here's hoping their next good album and big tour isn't 12 years away. [ #remunited ]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:19:08:00. Thursday. NO!: R.E.M. (#416, JUN 6 2008).
This song is the last one from R.E.M.'s last great album, and the last one from the original line-up era. It's been one of my favorites since the first time I heard it, a terrific synthesis of the Automatic and Monster approaches. In a lot of ways I think of it as a cap on the whole 90's alt. rock era, and listening to Michael Stipe's introduction and the way the crowd reacted to it, I felt like a lot of other people see it the same way. Has it really been 12 years? [ #remunited ]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:18:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: R.E.M. (#415, JUN 6 2008). My first time through Accelerate, I hated this song and nearly let it ruin the album for me. Probably my least favorite R.E.M. song is "Final Straw," the ham-handed Iraq War protest song they released on their website in 2003 (and the only Around the Sun entrant played at this show) and from the opening line I thought this was going to be the Katrina version of the same song. Instead it turns out to be a tight and compelling dirge, and like the rest of the album it doesn't belabor the point. [ #remunited ]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:17:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: R.E.M. (#414, JUN 6 2008).
We were in New York last weekend, and the torrential rainstorm that washed out the second half of the first day of Emily's craft show also delayed R.E.M.'s performance at Jones Beach by a couple hours. The next morning it was all over the news, which leads me to think that they're "back" in a way they wouldn't have been had a 2004 show been delayed. Which is an interesting reminder that it wasn't so long ago that they needed to make a comeback at all -- "Man on the Moon," the Andy Kaufman biopic named after one of their songs and including this then-new single came out in 1999, when it seemed their first Bill Berry-less album was just a blip rather than a herald of several years in the wilderness. Their return to greatness couldn't have been more welcome. [ #remunited ]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:16:08:00. Monday. NO!: R.E.M. (#413, JUN 6 2008).
This is so far my favorite song from the unexpectedly good Accelerate. It combines elements of the both the hard mid-90's and jangly mid-80's versions of the band. In the live set it actually seemed to fit more with the older stuff, and like most of the new songs got a terrific reception from the audience. [ #remunited ]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:12:08:00. Thursday. NO!: R.E.M. (#412, JUN 6 2008).
Though "career-spanning" is a good description of this show -- their second and third songs were both from Lifes Rich Pageant -- it doesn't quite hit the depth of the material they pulled. I had no clue what this song was when they played it, and figured it was either one of the forgettable tunes from Around the Sun or one of the bonus tracks from the deluxe version of the new record. Instead, it's one of the two new old songs (Pageant-era is what I've read) they recorded for their 2003 best-of-the-Warner-era release. It was overshadowed at the time by the single that was released from that compilation, "Bad Day," which they played later in the set. [ #remunited ]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:11:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: R.E.M. (#411, JUN 6 2008).
I don't think I could overstate how important R.E.M. were to my musical taste-development as a tween and early teen. Along with Nirvana's Nevermind, Out of Time and Automatic For the People helped to open up a whole world of alternative rock, both directly and by opening up channels to music's mainstream for subsequent acts like Radiohead, the Breeders, Weezer, the Cranberries, etc. Until I moved to Madison I was never within 200 miles of the sort of venue they might play in the superstar phase of their career, so that I was planning to skip this show is kind of a big deal. When the show was announced, I was just starting to get into their new record, Accelerate, and while I appreciated that it was much better than their last three albums, it still wasn't great. On top of that, $45 upper deck tickets + $60 to drive to Chicago and park + we'd have to come back that night so Emily could work the next morning meant it was a non-starter. But then we found out a couple of friends were going, so travel costs were halved, and I found myself getting more and more into the album. I'd also been hearing good things about the career-spanning sets they've been playing and I thought, you know, they're on The List, and we should just do it, so we did. This was the first big single they played, the song that launched the hard rock version of the band and began their short reign as perhaps the world's biggest band. With the stage all lit up, the video quality on these clips is quite a bit better than those from the openers, thankfully. [ #remunited ]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:10:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: MODEST MOUSE (#410, JUN 6 2008).
I was looking forward to a rousing mid-show set from Modest Mouse, but something seemed off about them the whole time. Contra Muzzle of Bees, they sounded really thin to me, and even their newer, bigger arrangement stuff didn't fill up the arena the way it should have. I was also surprised at how much they didn't play from Good News -- not just hit single "Float On," which you'd think they'd play for an audience that probably doesn't know them for anything else, but also "The World at Large" and "Bury Me With It." Still, it left me curious what they could do in a smaller space, and the next time they come through to someplace like the Orpheum I may check them out.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:09:08:00. Monday. NO!: THE NATIONAL (#409, JUN 6 2008).
Even though I've been disappointed with so much of their material from the past decade, R.E.M. has long been on my list of bands to see if the opportunity came up. It finally did last Friday, and they had some pretty decent support on the bill in the National and Modest Mouse. The only problem is that big arena shows are no good for whipping out a camcorder and microphones, which meant I had to fall back on the old camera for this show. As a result, the sound is pretty good but the video largely stinks, especially from the opening sets before all of R.E.M.'s big lights came on. We got to the show just as the National began their set, and spent their first three songs wandering around and getting some really bad United Center food. Unfortunately, my two favorite songs of theirs, "Slow Show" and "Mistaken For Strangers," were in those three, but I like this one a lot too. They were really well received by the still-small crowd and got more applause than Modest Mouse did when Michael Stipe thanked them both near the end of the show.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:06:08:00. Friday. NO!: THE BOX SOCIAL (#408, MAY 31 2008).
As the show wore on, it got to be too loud and too hot to stay inside. Luckily, the sound carried out onto the sidewalk just fine, and I was able to record through the storefront windows. This set-closer actually sounds a little bit better than my clips from inside, I think.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:05:08:00. Thursday. NO!: THE BOX SOCIAL (#407, MAY 31 2008).
With gas prices going totally bananas these days, the Box Social is off the road for the summer. Instead they'll be sticking around Wisconsin and Illinois, including a June 28 set at Summerfest. They'll also be continuing to work on material for their next album -- this show had several new songs, including this one, that ought to become set staples as the summer wears on.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:04:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: THE BOX SOCIAL (#406, MAY 31 2008).
It tends to be hard to record these guys, because I've seen them so many times that there aren't many songs left that I haven't gotten yet. Both parts of this two-song medley qualify, though, so that helps.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:06:03:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: THE BOX SOCIAL (#405, MAY 31 2008).
So last Saturday we went to the Project Lodge for the first time to see the Box Social, whom I think we hadn't seen last fall. It turned out to be a pretty weird show, so it almost made sense that they opened with the theme song from The Kids in the Hall as a birthday request from somebody in the audience.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:05:30:08:00. Friday. NO!: WHATFOR (#404, MAY 23 2008).
The guys in Sleeping in the Aviary have many side projects, of which this is just one. Another is the Lark Voorhies, where this tune originates. Dig it!
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:05:29:08:00. Thursday. NO!: WHATFOR (#403, MAY 23 2008).
This is a little solo piano ballad, not on the album and possibly from one of Michael's other bands. It's a nice, soft piece about loss, but probably wouldn't have fit all that well on the record.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:05:28:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: WHATFOR (#402, MAY 23 2008).
Though billed, pretty accurately, as a Beatles/Kinks style affair, the Whatfor album also has a bit of sweet crooning on it. This one in particular stuck out, and I've been humming it all week.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:05:27:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: WHATFOR (#401, MAY 23 2008).
I was supposed to be in Montreal when this show happened, but at the end of the two-day drive home from New Orleans, I realized that getting back into a car for 16 hours right away, with a grading deadline looming, was probably going to be a bad idea. A great local band showcase for $5 was a terrific consolation prize. But since I was skipping what could have been a productive conference with the job market coming up for me next fall, I figured I shouldn't fritter the whole night away. Thus, I spent the first three sets -- from local favorites National Beekeepers Society, His & Her Vanities and Pale Young Gentlemen, the latter of which played a ton of new material -- sitting at the side bar, reading articles for my upcoming prelims. This also had the side-effect of helping me to not be thinking about recording the whole time, which was nice. That brings us to the stars of the evening, Whatfor, a Sleeping in the Aviary side-project made up of basically an instrument-shifted Sleeping in the Aviary. This song, for instance, is from the CD that was released at this show, but it's also been played at Sleeping in the Aviary shows at least as far back as the first time I saw them.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:05:16:08:00. Friday. NO!: 8889 (#400, MAY 10 2008).
(I got an e-mail yesterday from 8889's singer, Ross Benbow, and he says downloads for the new record are coming soon. Also, I just met Kris Hanson from National Beekeepers Society at the AAPOR conference in New Orleans, which is weird.) About three and a half years ago, I went to the release show for 8889's EP and recorded video footage for the first time -- the song, "An Introduction," is up on YouTube. It's kind of fitting, then, that the 400th episode of this podcast should be a rearranged acoustic version of another tune from their debut record. Also, it brings me full-circle and gets me to thinking about scaling this whole thing back. I've been realizing lately that I've been going to shows that I don't especially enjoy, even when I like the bands. The night before this show we went to see Margot & the Nuclear So and So's, whom I like a lot, but Emily got a bad headache and wanted to go home. For some reason, even though she wanted me to, I had no interest in going back. I've seen them twice fairly recently, and I don't know the new material they're playing; it just seemed like I'd enjoy myself more being at home doing something else. So I'll probably be getting more casual about all this pretty soon and probably posting more infrequently (and it doesn't help that there is literally nobody I've ever heard of playing in New Orleans while we're here). Hopefully what does go up will be more interesting stuff overall.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:05:15:08:00. Thursday. NO!: 8889 (#399, MAY 10 2008).
The band noted during the show that they only play one cover, and this is it. I don't know Snake River Conspiracy at all, but 8889's version of the song works well, so I assume it's a good fit.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:05:14:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: 8889 (#398, MAY 10 2008).
When Radiohead all but gave away an album last year, and when Nine Inch Nails made one totally free just a couple weeks ago, some scoffed at the idea that it could really represent a new business model for the music industry as a whole. Since both those bands are already so well-established, it seems that they could run off and do their own thing, making big bank from publishing and touring, but that smaller bands couldn't get by doing it on the smaller scale. Nonetheless, Madison guitar popsters 8889 are trying a similar approach with their new record. Copies were given out free at their $5 release show, and the liner notes indicate that they're not making any money from distribution of the record -- they're doing everything they can to get it to people free of charge. They've got something set up on their site for people to donate if they want to, though no download links as far as I can tell. A fair number of people showed up for the release show, and seemed to know the band pretty well, which surprised me a little. I saw them several years ago, but haven't heard much from them in the interim. They seem to still be going strong, though, and their new material came together quite nicely live.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:05:13:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: EVANGELICALS (#397, APR 2 2008).
I still have no idea what song this is -- I'm pretty sure it's not on either of their records, and it's not the unreleased "Halloween Song" that's in their Daytrotter session, so hopefully somebody out there knows. It's unfortunate, too, because it was probably my favorite bit in their set and I'd love to include it on this year's DVD. The song itself is a nice jump between loud and harsh and soft and melodic, and the singer's eye-cape gives it a nice visual touch.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:05:12:08:00. Monday. NO!: EVANGELICALS (#396, APR 2 2008).
This one I was finally able to figure out -- it's from the band's somewhat less crazed debut, So Gone. The live version sounds a bit more like the spacey tunes on The Evening Descends, part of a whole set drowning in smoke and reverb.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:05:08:08:00. Thursday. NO!: HEADLIGHTS (#395, APR 2 2008).
You can really hear the quietness of Headlights' new material on this song, even more so here than in the album version. I almost stopped recording after half a minute or so, because I wasn't sure they were actually beginning a song -- there was nothing but a low drone going, and the guitar players were down on the floor twiddling their knobs without any apparent regard for anything else that was going on. It's a nice one on the album, but it works somewhat less well like this, I think, because the acoustics aren't quite right for it and nobody seemed to know what was happening.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:05:07:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: HEADLIGHTS (#394, APR 2 2008).
Generally I post clips in the order they happened at the show. In this case, however, I'm having a hell of a time figuring out what songs I recorded from the Evangelicals set. In the hopes that a couple more days will lead me to the answer, I'm leading with the headliners, Headlights. The new Headlights record is lighter and quieter than their older stuff, which was quite a contrast with the Evangelicals set. This is a nice bit of lilting indie pop that almost feels like a throwback to part of the early 90's college rock scene. They've been slowing gaining some notoriety, but I wonder how they might fit if they were to break through to the indie rock mainstream.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:05:03:08:00. Saturday. NO!: THE BRAVERY (#393, APR 21 2008).
After I finished recording this clip, we went to the back of the room to get out of the mass of heat for a little while, and they immediately dove into a couple of my favorites from their first record, "An Honest Mistake" and "Swollen Summer." Still, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the same-y material from The Sun and the Moon and we bugged out not long after.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:05:02:08:00. Friday. NO!: THE BRAVERY (#392, APR 21 2008).
I guess the Bravery became kind of a big deal at some point, with their second record becoming a bit of a hit. I don't know if this song was a single, but I know I've heard it in commercials and promos. The crowd reacted well to it, leading me to believe I was in the minority in thinking they've stepped down from their first album.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:05:01:08:00. Thursday. NO!: THE BRAVERY (#391, APR 21 2008).
This very night, the New Pornographers (or some of them, at least) were at the Orpheum, and I assume that's a big part of why there wasn't quite a full house at this show. The Bravery came out with a lot of energy nonetheless and got a warm response from the crowd. Unfortunately for me, it took several songs before I could get a good view of the stage, during which time they played a bunch of stuff I really like from their first album. Luckily, this is one of the few from their second album that I enjoy.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:04:30:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: NORTHERN ROOM (#390, APR 21 2008).
So there was this dude at the show, Sully, who's pointed out at the beginning of this clip. Sully appeared to be Northern Room's number one fan, and also a big fan of Jack Daniel's. After a lot of shouting and jumping around during their set he got himself escorted from the venue during the intermission for something or other, possibly his constant attempts to get on the stage. Cheers, Sully! This is a new tune, and it continues to cue the main thought I have when I listen to these guys -- they sound a ton like Mute Math. That may have colored my perception of their stage show, too, since what they were reaching for reminded me a lot of the Mute Math show I saw last fall. It was interesting seeing this kind of thing at the High Noon, since it's usually such a low-key place at the shows I go to.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:04:29:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: NORTHERN ROOM (#389, APR 21 2008).
Last year's free Jack Daniel's show with OK Go was a lot of fun, but I was somewhat skeptical about this year's show featuring the Bravery. As much as I liked their first album, their second left me completely cold. But, it's a free show, and the opening act is a Milwaukee band I'd been hoping for the chance to see, and it was certainly worth a few hours of my time. If nothing else, we got some free Jack-branded drumsticks just in case our Rock Band sticks break. Opening the show was Northern Room, who were way too big for the venue. That is to say, their approach seemed like it was from a theater- or arena-style show, and a headlining gig at that. I think it worked for some of the crowd, but other seemed taken aback by the notion that they ought to know the songs or be singing along. I like their album well enough, and this was one of the tunes I was really interested in hearing (the other, "We're on Fire," was held for the closer).
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:04:25:08:00. Friday. NO!: KARMELLA'S GAME (#388, APR 20 2008).
I imagine that some of the biggish crowd that was on hand for this set was there, like me, to see Karmella's Game, but the rest of the bill was pretty attractive too -- local indie pop recluses His & Her Vanities, and well-liked touring electro-popsters Enon. On balance it would've been nice to see both of them, but Sunday night shows are poorly timed for me this semester. On top of that, this supposedly 8:00 show didn't even open it's doors until about 8:30. I thought about sticking around for just HHV, but as I often do with local bands, decided I could see them again later. Emily was home not feeling well, and I was getting tired after another long weekend, so I bugged out after KG got done one song after this one. They got a terrific reception, but for the new stuff and the old, and hopefully they're back soon touring a new record with all these songs on it.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:04:24:08:00. Thursday. NO!: KARMELLA'S GAME (#387, APR 20 2008).
Now that I've finally recorded Karmella's Game, my lone white whale is ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, whom I've failed to record twice. Throughout the KG set I actually found myself really worried that the battery in my mic pack would die, or some other disruption would happen to complete a trifecta of failure, but everything went smoothly. The audio for the new songs even came out decent enough to listen to on my iPod, though as an OCD ID3-tagger I'm loathe to mark something as "unknown new song."
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:04:23:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: KARMELLA'S GAME (#386, APR 20 2008).
More new stuff, with no title. It occurs to me that each time I've seen Karmella's Game they played a lot of new material. The first time the stuff I didn't know were probably the song that wound up on The Art of Distraction; last time about half their set was new, and could've been some of these same new songs. Either way, I'm really primed for a new record to come out now.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:04:22:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: KARMELLA'S GAME (#385, APR 20 2008).
In their eight-song set, Karmella's Game had five new tunes, of which this was the second. They've posted on their MySpace that they have six new demos done, so I'm hopeful this means a new album is on the way soon. The reception was good -- and who knows how much of the crowd was familiar with them to start with -- and I'm eager to hear how they sound on record.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:04:21:08:00. Monday. NO!: KARMELLA'S GAME (#384, APR 20 2008).
It took about a year and a half, but I've finally got some clips of one of my favorite bands, Karmella's Game. Both previous times I saw them something kept me from recording, but thankfully nothing weird happened at this show, unless an advertised 8:00 show not being open until 8:30 is "weird." With Enon and His & Her Vanities appearing later on the bill, I expected this to be a better attended show than the set KG played last August, which only four people showed up to. It was -- there were probably 30-40 people in the stage and bar areas, including a noticeable number who were really into songs like this one from their debut LP.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:04:17:08:00. Thursday. NO!: JAIL (#383, APR 4 2008).
I wasn't that surprised that I was able to lighten up the picture on these clips, but I was kind of surprised that the sound came out so well. The Corral Room is basically a bomb shelter underneath a downtown Madison steakhouse and I stood about 4-5 feet from the PA while recording -- I figured there'd be some significant wash-out issues, but since there's no stage it was the only way to get a decent show. The sound came out pretty good, though, I suppose due to the smaller power of the PA compared to bigger venues. I'm particularly glad because these are both new songs, and I hate posting new stuff that winds up being nothing but garble.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:04:14:08:00. Monday. NO!: JAIL (#382, APR 4 2008).
Time for a slight change. When I started shooting in widescreen at the beginning of 2007, there were no widescreen iPods and YouTube didn't properly support the 16:9 aspect ratio. Those things have both since changed (YT still doesn't actually support 16:9, but it does automatically letterbox now). So, as of this clip, I've moved from pre-letterboxed 320x240 to native widescreen at 480x270. I chose that size because I was pretty sure it would play on the iPod Video, but I'll be doing some testing to see if I can go a little bigger. You should notice somewhat better picture quality at this resolution, but any changes should be transparent if you're not watching on a widescreen display. So, this show. We zoomed over from the High Noon as soon as Vampire Weekend finished, and got to the Corral Room just as the band before Jail was tearing down. My only previous Corral Room experience was my first Karmella's Game show a few years ago, which I failed to record because it was so dark. Nothing's changed since then, except that now I know how to lighten up a dark image without losing too much detail. Case in point, this clip has been lightened up considerably and, despite the occasional weird color shift, it looks pretty much fine. There's a new Jail record out soon, and presumably the songs from this show will be on it. For the most part they're more insistent than the earlier material, with a generally fuzzier sound. The crowd -- I'd guess a mix of Madisonians and transplanted Milwaukeeans -- seemed to dig it, so hopefully it won't be years again before they're back.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:04:11:08:00. Friday. NO!: VAMPIRE WEEKEND (#381, APR 4 2008).
The fact that there was so much enthusiasm for these guys was kind of surprising, but even more surprising was the number of people who were literally falling down drunk at this show. It was almost certainly the drunkenest show I've ever seen at the High Noon, and I can't imagine those folks felt too good about this song. Before launching into it, the band asked us all to dance and challenged us to be better than the previous night's Minneapolis crowd. The resulting explosion of crowd movement was enjoying by most and I'd guess cursed by a few.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:04:10:08:00. Thursday. NO!: VAMPIRE WEEKEND (#380, APR 4 2008).
I always find myself a little frustrated with this song. The last few tracks on the record all have kind of similar intros, and every time it comes on I find myself thinking this is the next one, "Walcott," which is my favorite track on the album. Then it turns out not to be, and half the time I just skip forward. But when you can't skip forward, it's kind of a nice tune. Sounds kind of crummy in places, since I was a little close to the stage and it's bass-heavy, but most of it's OK.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:04:09:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: VAMPIRE WEEKEND (#379, APR 4 2008).
This is probably the last time we'll see Vampire Weekend, and I'm sure it's the last time in Madison. They're already too big to be playing the High Noon, frankly, but the show was booked a while back; next time they're out it's likely to be the Barrymore, or skipping Madison entirely. So with that in mind, this was a fun show. We skipped most of the opening act, but the sell-out crowd was mostly all there by the time we arrived. This tune was only the second in the set, but everybody got revved up pretty quickly. The high energy is one of things that makes me think they're on their way out of the level of shows I tend to go to -- they've only been in the spotlight for a few months and they've already got 400 Madisonians going nuts.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:04:08:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: HELIGOATS (#378, MAR 27 2008).
This was one of the songs that I recognized from the last Heligoats show, though I recognized it as much for the introductory description of it than for the song itself. It's about some older folks trying to relive their glory days by raiding their kids' medicine cabinet, which is kind of hard to forget. It's also one of many songs that have been posted on MySpace over the past few years, which hopefully will see some real release sometime soon.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:04:07:08:00. Monday. NO!: HELIGOATS (#377, MAR 27 2008). (Fixed? Seems that way. Hey Apple, Compressor still doesn't work right with Leopard, and it's been like six months. Hint, hint.) When we leave Madison -- even if we wind up in Chicago -- these Heligoats shows will be one of the things I miss the most. A couple times a year Chris Otepka comes to Indie Coffee with an acoustic guitar and plays through a bunch of mostly new material for an audience that's nothing but music-lovers. It's mostly the same bunch of us each time, I think, but it doesn't get old. This time Chris almost had a full band with him. He was accompanied by a violinist friend named Kara and would have had a drum-brusher, except he got caught by the bad whether between here and Chicago. They were stopping by on their way up to Michigan Tech of all places, where they had a show scheduled the next night in the black box theater where I played a number of shows as an undergrad. Hopefully it went well -- nobody ever came up there while I was in school, and it'd be nice to see it become something of a regional destination. Anyway, apropos of nothing, this is, I think, a new tune about a marathon-runner, which Chris introduced with a story somebody dying during the Chicago Marathon. Cheery stuff! But on the whole, the show was quite fun, as usual. Also, this was the first of these shows that we ate at instead of just getting coffee, and the waffles are great!
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:03:14:08:00. Friday. NO!: THE GUTTER TWINS (#376, MAR 9 2008).
I've heard Mark Lanegan described as a recluse, but I didn't realize just how true that was until this show -- I don't think he said a single word between songs and left the stage noticeably before the rest of the band. The intensity that he brought to the performance just made his presence darker. It was the same incredible effect that he had when I saw him a few years ago with Queens of the Stone Age; he came out mid-set, sang a few songs, and left after burning the stage down. By contrast, Greg Dulli totally ran the show on stage, talking a bit between songs and occasionally throwing in a solid rock-out maneuver. It's a striking difference from their album, which sounds dominated by Lanegan to me. I guess it's like the difference between watching or listening to the Kennedy/Nixon debate -- if all you can do is hear, Lanegan's voice destroys your mind, but if you can see, Dulli will pull you back from the brink while Lanegan hangs back in the shadows. This song is a great example of it. On the album, it follows the mostly-Lanegan barnburner "Idle Hands" (an early front-runner for my favorite song of the year) and sounds like a wind down while Lanegan refills his reservoir of horror. Live, Dulli makes a lot more of it and directs the energy of the show his way. I haven't seen that kind of record/live shift in quite a while, especially one that didn't involve some major instrumentation or personnel change.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:03:12:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: THE GUTTER TWINS (#375, MAR 9 2008).
So, where to start? Last year, I certainly wouldn't have expected to care about either this act or this show, but once I got hold of their record, well, there is was. I couldn't get enough. I've been an on-and-off fan of Mark Lanegan for a while (Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone Age, mostly yes; anything with his name on the front of the record, mostly no), but Greg Dulli and his various projects have always left me cold. Something about the collaboration just clicks incredibly well for me. You may notice that this clip is extremely dark, despite a bit of lightening-up in post-processing. In addition ot the general lack of stage lighting, there was a "no flash photography" sign on the door, which leads me to think somebody in the band is either light-sensitive or just really likes hanging around in the dark. On top of that, I was probably standing a bit too close to the stage and caught a lot of distortion. Though, their sound is so bass-heavy -- Lanegan's voice alone is probably enough to cause some fuzz at the bottom end of the spectrum -- that it may not have mattered how far back I was. This tune is a cover of a Massive Attack song that first appeared on a Twilight Singers EP with Lanegan doing a guest appearance. They turn into a kind of down-tempo rock assault that fits in surprisingly well with the rest of their set. I wouldn't have expected a couple of early 90's Sub Pop survivors to do that kind of thing with a Massive Attack song, but there you go.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:03:11:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: GREAT NORTHERN (#374, MAR 9 2008).
There's a lot to say about this show, and probably not enough room to say it, but here goes. This was one of my most anticipated shows in a while, with the Gutter Twins record not just having spent a ton of time playing on my iPod, but also sounding like it had to be majestic live. On top of that, I really enjoyed Great Northern's debut LP and figured this to be a terrific Sunday-night double-bill. For the most part it was, but I must say I was disappointed to find that Great Northern didn't play as a full band, but as a coffeehouse two-piece, with occasional soft rhythm support. This song, as an example, has a really full, boisterous sound on the record that's not captured in this live setting. In general I can't fault small-time acts for cost-cutting on the road, but it was a step down from what I'd hoped. They were well-received by the crowd, though, which was probably the most attentive audience I've ever seen at a skewing-older High Noon show. There was no ubiquitous layer of chatter, no constant picture-taking, no cellphone douchery -- a nice surprise, to be sure.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:03:08:08:00. Saturday. NO!: THE GERMAN ART STUDENTS (#373, FEB 26 2008).
The highlight of this set was the block of new material that they played, kicked off by this new tune. It sounds somehow different from their previous stuff, maybe fuller, I can't quite describe it. I really think the little hitch that permeates the opening guitar line is a great touch -- at first it sounds like the opening lick has just been blown, but then it keeps going and fits the song well. The couple songs that came after this one will soon be released on 7" vinyl, with hopefully a new record to follow.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:03:07:08:00. Friday. NO!: THE GERMAN ART STUDENTS (#372, FEB 26 2008).
Even though I forgot that I'd recorded "Hear It" before, I did have a mental list of songs to skip at this show because I'd previously recorded them -- the result was that the second song I got, "MENSA Girl," was something like the sixth song in the set. Luckily they've got some new material on the way, including one song in my next clip, so at upcoming shows it'll be easier to get unique stuff, but it's always a challenge thinking about the podcast with my favorite local bands because I see them so frequently.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:03:06:08:00. Thursday. NO!: THE GERMAN ART STUDENTS (#371, FEB 26 2008).
Normally I try not to record songs I've already gotten at previous shows. Unfortunately, I forgot to check and see what I'd recorded at the G.A.S. Terrace show from last fall before going out to last week's happy hour set, and wasn't on the ball enough to realize that I'd probably recorded their standard set-opener in the past. But, it's a good tune, it's a high-energy performance, and I think it might be the stage debut of Andy Larson's beard, so it's certainly worth a peek.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:03:04:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: THE WRONG WAYS (#370, FEB 26 2008).
I was planning to record just the one song from the Wrong Ways set, until Lisa pulled out a pair of scissors and said she'd be "playing" them on the next tune. I don't want to say she used them as a percussion instrument because the snipping sound isn't especially "percussive," but she and drummer Peter Kaesburg used them to provide rhythm both going in, coming out, and during the body of the song. It added a pretty cool sound and visual effect to the song, but I couldn't help but wonder at what point she was going to accidentally cut her mic cable.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:03:03:08:00. Monday. NO!: THE WRONG WAYS (#369, FEB 26 2008).
The Wrong Ways used to be MaeRae, and their lilting alt. country never really did much for me. I wasn't expecting to enjoy them -- same band, new name -- at this show, but it turns out the name change is accompanied by a significant stylistic change. The material they played in this set was all a kind of hard-edged college rock, which I liked much more than I would've guessed. Singer Lisa Marine, despite a foot injury, had a big stage presence that really drove the whole set and got the happy hour crowd going.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:02:29:08:00. Friday. NO!: THE DAN ANDREAS FAULT (#368, FEB 24 2008).
Things come together nicely with this contemplative duet originally by Ben Harper. The harmonica line gives it kind of a wandering feeling which fits the song really well. Fun fact! I was recently in a bar in Pittsburgh and heard the original version of one of the DAF's tunes, but had no idea until it was pointed out to me. Their version is much more enjoyable.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:02:27:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: THE DAN ANDREAS FAULT (#367, FEB 24 2008).
You might not think a brief McCartney Beatles tune would be the best feature platform for bright female vocals, but here you go. Singer/guitarist Andrea Ward brings a sunny tunefulness to their collection of covers, and I suspect will be a major focal point once they start debuting original material.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:02:26:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: THE DAN ANDREAS FAULT (#366, FEB 24 2008).
My pals in the Dan Andreas Fault -- headliners at my last ever King Club show -- are back out for a few shows over the next month or so. I imagine they're on their way to becoming well liked by local clubs, as they put about 40 people in the High Noon for a Sunday night show last weekend. They've got two March shows coming up at the Crystal Corner, which might burst if that kind of crowd shows up.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:02:15:08:00. Friday. NO!: RA RA RIOT (#365, FEB 2 2008).
When I first heard Ra Ra Riot's demo, I thought this song was by far and away the best one. The one thing I didn't like about it was that it was over six minutes long, and ready didn't need to be -- I always find myself thinking it's time to wrap up at about the four-minute mark. Well, luckily for me, this is one of the few songs in the set that didn't come with some extra flourishes and instead came in a couple minutes shorter than the recorded version. So enjoy the tight little melody line, and don't fret about any extended noodling sections, because it's already been excised.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:02:14:08:00. Thursday. NO!: RA RA RIOT (#364, FEB 2 2008).
This tune hadn't really grabbed my attention on the EP, but I found it really compelling live for some reason. The deep, dark opening really resonated in the concrete box that is Club 770, bringing some nice ominous atmosphere to the latter part of the set.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:02:13:08:00. Wednesday. NO!: RA RA RIOT (#363, FEB 2 2008).
By my count, Ra Ra Riot have released eight full songs -- their six-track EP and another two songs from their Daytrotter Session. This set was much longer than that, I'd guess about a dozen songs, and this was one of the new ones they played. I would assume they have a full-length album in the works, and this will make a nice addition, particularly if it has some of the live flourishes that the EP songs had in this set, but don't on the record.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:02:12:08:00. Tuesday. NO!: RA RA RIOT (#362, FEB 2 2008).
If there were enough hi-hat-and-strings bands out there to constitute a trend, Ra Ra Riot would be the latest contender to rise in what would surely be a blog-fueled genre. They add a little string intro to the live rendition of this song, the opener from their self-titled EP, which all but dares you not to focus on the soaring strings throughout the tune.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2008:02:11:08:00. Monday. NO!: THE VIRGINS (#361, FEB 2 2008).
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