Monthly Archive for September, 2007

The Shins Fall 2007 Tour Dates

Published
by
tom
on September 27, 2007
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The Shins
Sub Pop Page
The Shins - Australia.mp3
Buy It

United States
Oct 05 The Greek Theatre (Berkeley), Berkeley, CA
Oct 06 Santa Barbara Bowl, Santa Barbara, CA
Oct 07 The Greek Theatre, Los Angeles, CA
Oct 09 Mesa Amphitheatre, Mesa, AZ
Oct 10 Popejoy Hall: University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
Oct 17 Atlanta Civic Center Theater, Atlanta, GA
Oct 18 Plex, Charleston, SC
Oct 19 Raleigh Civic Center, Raleigh, NC
Oct 20 Norva, Norfolk, VA
Oct 22 Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD
Oct 23 Terminal Five, New York, NY
Oct 24 Terminal Five, New York, NY
Oct 27 Vegoose Festival, Las Vegas, NV
Oct 28 Joint, Las Vegas, NV

Europe
Nov 05 La Cigale, Paris, France (The Shins performing in Paris)
Nov 07 Hammersmith Apollo, London, United Kingdom
Nov 08 Manchester Academy, Manchester, United Kingdom
Nov 09 Barrowlands, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Japan
Nov 12 Club Quattro Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Nov 13 Club Quattro Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Nov 14 Club Quattro Nagoya, Nagoya, Japan
Nov 15 Club Quattro Osaka, Osaka, Japan

Okkervil River

Published
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tom
on September 22, 2007
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It’s a good song.


Okkervil River - Our Life is not a Movie or Maybe.mp3

Buy It

Archers of Loaf!

Published
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tom
on September 20, 2007
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Fredericksburg Church

When Archers of Loaf broke up, they released a final live album of tracks taken from their final tour. It was my first real exposure to the band. Prior, I recall making fun of a friend’s older college-age sister, because she had an Archers album titled “Speed of Cattle.” I lived in the suburbs, and my musical exposure was mainstream DC radio. Finding music in the “Alternative” section of the music store in the mall, for some reason really does make suburban kids think that they are “Alternative.” But, I guess reading indie-rock blogs and minor label reviews are really no different.

I still enjoy Archers’ live album, “Seconds Before the Accident,” because of the power and recklessness that is lacking on their studio albums. I prefer many of these live tracks to their earlier studio equivalents. Most of the tracks open with playful ad-libbing with the audience. The recordings were taken from the sound board, so they have the flavor of a one-take in the studio. Best of all, the album feels like the South, which is (at the moment) a severely under-represented indie-rock region.

Archers of Loaf - Web In Front.mp3 (Live)
Archers of Loaf - South Carolina.mp3 (Live)

Buy It

And, an excellent live performance on Australian TV:

Neutral Milk in Hindsight

Published
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tom
on September 12, 2007
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Neutral Milk In the Aeroplane Shirt

Neutral Milk Hotel’s second album is a landmark, influential work, and not much can be said about it that hasn’t been said before. The album continues to be cited as a great influence on popular indie bands today, bands - such as The Arcade Fire - who enjoy much more success than Neutral Milk ever has.

I remember listening to the album in college, at a time when growing internet bandwidth began to open access to smaller releases, and communities had started to form around smaller bands and labels. The labels that comprise the RIAA began their reactionary legal battles, and less scrupulous bands (read: sellouts), like Metallica started the embarrassing fight for the wrong side. I doubt that any major label executives listened to the album at its release. But, if they did, I imagine that the beauty of the album was shadowed by fear in the knowledge that distribution wasn’t the only thing to worry about. Complete, beautiful albums could be produced, marketed and distributed without a rich uncle. These things, with NMH’s unceremonious hiatus a few years later, reflect a purity that was hard to find at a time when media label consolidation and overwrought music and images were stripping away the soul of popular art. When Mangum yells “how strange it is, to be anything at all” at then end of the title track, I believe that he means it. That lyric, in any other context, would be discounted as Hallmark verse.

If you like the songs, buy the album.

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.mp3

Also:
Neutral Milk Hotel - Two Headed Boy.mp3 live in Aukland, 2001

Expressions of the Unknown

Published
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carla
on September 11, 2007
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You’ve all had that feeling. You know, that unsettling feeling when you start to think about concepts like eternity or infinity or space (as in the final frontier). Every once and a while I find a song that evokes that exact same emotion, an emotion (is that the right word?) that I am never able to describe in a way that is satisfactory.

“Gideon” is one of these songs. And it happens when Jim James’ releases the primal yell that follows the lyrics.

I’m not sure why “Gideon” is so existentially unsettling in this way. Perhaps it is because the yell appears to be the “this” he is referring to when he asks you to “listen, listen . . . what does this remind you of.” Perhaps it is because the answer is elusive.

The yell seems to me to be the most perfect expression of “I don’t know.”

Maybe.

My Morning Jacket - Gideon.mp3

Pitchfork Gives Music 6.8

Published
by
tom
on September 10, 2007
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“Music, a mode of creative expression consisting of sound and silence expressed through time, was given a 6.8 out of 10 rating in an review published Monday on Pitchfork Media, a well-known music-criticism website.”

I LOLed.