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Crooked Fingers

After the end of Archers of Loaf, Eric Bachmann picked up an acoustic guitar. Then he used his gravelly voice to begin singing songs about wounded souls, drunken hazes, and sorrowful lovers. Crooked Fingers has been described more than once as the current generation's Neil Diamond with a dash of Tom Waits, and it's easy to see why. Bachmann's thoughtfully composed songs poise dark subject matter against hauntingly beautiful melodies. Crooked Fingers works best when he puts his hand at creating a backdrop of dark, lush orchestral pop punctuated with some expert finger-picking, swelling strings, sympathetic piano, hushed and soothing voices, and stately horn arrangements.

And Bachmann's gruff manner is merely a put on; you can tell as soon as you see him on stage, slightly awkward, creeping up the steps in his trademark beret. You see if further as he sings. He croons "You are fire / You are water / When you dance it is torture / Maybe some day on the bottom of the ocean we can meet" in "You Can Never Leave," as violins dance among the licking flames and are reflected in glittering eyes of pale, silent, troubled women who you can never truly rescue no matter how hard you try.

Both rough at the edges, and carefully crafted at the same time, Crooked Fingers evoke a bleary, melancholy dawn and a few glimmers of hope at the end of a dark tunnel.

Crooked Fingers - Under Sad Stars
Crooked Fingers - You Can Never Leave
Crooked Fingers - Sweet Marie
Crooked Fingers - Destroyer

Crooked Fingers official site. Buy Dignity & Shame from Merge Records, iTunes Music Store, or Amazon.

Posted by Queen of the Front Row on 03.05.05 at 10:30 AM | Comments (0), TrackBack (0)

Apollo Sunshine

Energetic and excitable, the aptly named Apollo Sunshine transport listeners back to the '60s, the age of the various Apollo spacecraft, and then bounce around like they were men on the moon.

Their trademark is sunshiny, youthful, exuberant songs. Rarely sitting still for more than a few seconds, they pack their songs with catchy hooks, sweet power pop harmonies, and fuzzed out guitar that harkens back to bands of yore. At their most joyful, the guitars are jangly as all get out and make me want to get out my old Posies, REM, Fastbacks, dBs, and Jellyfish records. It's like a big bag of ear candy containing of everything you ever wanted to order from Not Lame but never did, like those old Yellow Pills compilations. And Apollo Sunshine even dare to steal a few tricks from They Might Be Giants in a few numbers of jaunty nerd rock on Katonah, and also borrow a few quirky flourishes from masters of psych-pop The Flaming Lips (or a few of the Elephant 6 bands.)

Please bop your head along at will; grinning, while recommended, is entirely optional.

Apollo Sunshine - I Was On The Moon When You Were Born

Official site for Apollo Sunshine. Buy Katonah from spinART Records, iTunes Music Store, or Amazon.

Posted by Queen of the Front Row on 03.05.05 at 10:09 AM | Comments (0), TrackBack (0)

Spoon

Like them or not (and judging from the peanut gallery on a mailing list or two, many a vocal Austinite most certainly wish Britt Daniel and Co. would take a long walk off a short cliff), you can't really discuss the independent music scene in Austin without the subject of Spoon coming up.

With over a decade of experience under their belts, Spoon have traversed musical territory ranging from Pixies-esque rock throwaways on Telephono to the absolutely pure pop perfection visited time and time again on Girls Can Tell. They manage to jam in memorable melodies, killer instrumentation, Britt Daniel's urgent, compelling, rasp, and Jim Eno's excellently dark, spooky rythmns into tiny, individually-wrapped, bite-sized packages. Spoon make three minute creatures that squirm and widdle, straddling the edges of convention, expanding and contracting spaces within ramshackle song structures. The result? An assload of miniature sonic masterpieces that feel nearly three-dimensional. And all this while still retaining the essence of great pop songs.

I finally "got" Spoon when I realized the method this unique three piece approach music: in terms of empty rooms, open landscapes, and echoing spaces. It's what they leave in and what they choose to leave out that matters. Spoon are masters of restraint, holding back and diving in only when the moment is right, and then coming back up for air. Maybe it's a tambourine here, a whoosh there, a riff left hanging, an extra beat or an extra breath. Spoon albums are always short, usually clocking in at less than forty minutes, but there's always that singular gem that showcases a band that has nailed exactly what they were trying to accomplish.

And I must confess that I can't listen to any of my Spoon albums in the day time; it just feels wrong. It's entirely night-time music: gritty, sweaty, jagged at times, frayed around the edges, maybe a little distant, maybe a little too close for comfort.....And then the song's over, and you're left with a memory of a great hook and chills down your back, and the scent of something foreboding in the air.

Spoon - Car Radio
Spoon - I Turn My Camera On
Spoon - Everything Hits At Once
Spoon - The Way We Get By
Spoon - All The Pretty Girls Go To The City
Spoon - Nefarious

Spoon's official web site. Spoon's newest album, Gimme Fiction, comes out on May 10 on Merge Records.

Posted by Queen of the Front Row on 03.04.05 at 6:29 PM | Comments (1), TrackBack (0)

Voxtrot

(And now for another entry in our All-Austin-All-The-Time run, as Last Girl to the Party offers up some choice words on Voxtrot.)

I don't know much about Voxtrot besides the fact that I really like them. And that Ramesh Srivastava's name is more fun to say than Davendra Banhart's is. And also that Voxtrot might be the most exciting of Austin's cadre of local bands appearing at SXSW this year, possibly because they don't play live all that often. Rumor has it that Mr. Srivastava is living a trans-Atlantic existence, so the paucity of Voxtrot on the Austin Showlist just might be excusable. Maybe.

It's been said before that Voxtrot have "one foot in the library and the other on the dancefloor," and no description could be more apt in regards to their clever pop stylings. Like the lost offspring of the Smiths and the Pale Saints, Voxtrot, like the Dears, offer a hefty production, laden with multiple guitars, occasional strings, and the sweetest vocals since the early '90s brought twee delights and adolescent angst fresh from English towns.

Plainly stated, Voxtrot are a rich vocabularied romp in the school playground and feel as wholesome as a run through rain for the perfect cup of tea. But don't be fooled that they're naive or sugar-spun, because Voxtrot just might have teeth. And I aim to find out.

Voxtrot - The Start of Something
Voxtrot - Missing Pieces
Voxtrot - Raised by Wolves

Voxtrot's website. Grab their 7", The Start of Something, through Cult Hero Records through The Bus Stop Label.

Posted by Last Girl to the Party on 03.04.05 at 9:58 AM | Comments (2), TrackBack (0)

I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness

Another Austin band that is on the up and up, I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness are blessed not only with a memorable name but lots of high hat and hypnotic bass, tempered by echoing vocals, swirling guitars, and keyboards. Their dark-wave rock may be influenced by Joy Division, but they're got a lot more life in them than other similar bands and I could lose myself in "When You Go Out" for hours at a time, with my eyes closed, lying on my bedroom room.

Their brooding, expansive, atmospheric rock slides and grooves across the dance floor and between crowded rooms of well dressed hipsters; my only complaint is that the songs are too short, and the band seems focused on not overstaying their catchy hooks and mesmerizing guitar lines.

Sadly, ILYBICD has only got a single EP out right now, but trust me when I say they've got plenty of songs up their collective sleeves. The five-piece band put on an amazing live show, with musicianship that stands well above the indie rock pack, as the songs dance from moody, restrained rock to an all out wall of sound.

I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness - We're Still The Weaker Sex
I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness - When You Go Out

Official web site of I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness. Buy their self-titled EP from iTunes Music Store or Amazon.

Posted by Queen of the Front Row on 03.03.05 at 2:39 PM | Comments (3), TrackBack (0)

This Microwave World

(ed: Today's entry is brought to you by a friend of See You in the Pit. Last Girl to the Party is a C-list Austin scenester with a day job. She clings aggressively to the music of her formative years and digs dyed-black indie scrawn. She'd also like you to know that she knows that Little Miss Rock'n'Roll refuses to use the loo at Emo's.)

This Microwave World are loud. Of course, that's the last thing one would expect on first sight of frontman, Sean O'Neal, moving through a crowd of hipsters. What one would expect is music that is plaintive, softspoken, and sweet. But O'Neal is a bird of another feather entirely — manning a down-home post-punk behemoth that has slogged out Austin nights hot and cold alike, opening for Spoon, ...Trail of Dead, VHS or Beta, and I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness. On stage, he channels some inner beast that's an amalgam of The Fall's Mark E. Smith, Les Savy Fav's Tim Harrington, and a tiny bit of Trevor Tanner from the long gone Bolshoi. Live, TMW play a blistering set, as O'Neal's breathless speak/singing is punctuated by noisy guitar, harsh keyboard stabs, precise bass, and a drummer as punchy as the machine that used to back them.

I became a convert the first time I saw TMW; previously, I'd lumped them in with projects like Figurine and referred to them as a second-rate Faint. Bad idea on both counts, since the little guy with the big hair (O'Neal), the Vox Jaguar warrior (Evan Lawrence, armed with a mod-squad look as ubiquitous as that of indie rock's own Angus Young: Interpol's Carlos Dengler), and their straight man (Brandon Loe with the powerful punk funk) were bringing something big, something very big. Backed by Erin Mikulenka's Korg noodlings and drummer Kevin Bybee, This Microwave World touch on new wave, no wave, post-millennial meltdown, and coldwar childhood, putting a uniquely "Austin" spin on whatever passes for dance-punk these days.

That said, TMW aren't for the faint of heart. Nor are they for the weak of live show constitution! Throbbing bass, intentionally hot hot vocals, and even hotter guitar are occasionally wont for earplugs, but, in the live show, the band offers an immediacy of experience that lends something visceral and human; this stands in stark contract to their harsh and hip-ly frosty studio presence that's been served up across three self-produced and released EPs. If you desperately need a pop song to get you through the night, TMW won't offer deliverance, but if you need to scream with a bitter sneer, a buzz in your ear, and a bump in your rump, they are the band for you, especially if you like your music with a side of controlled substances and self-parodying depravity, leaving you wondering where the real stops and the pose begins.

This Microwave World - The Party Line
This Microwave World - Fun Fun Fun
This Microwave World - The Hours
This Microwave World - In Hospital

This Microwave World's website. Their debut album, Red States, is due in May on Tight Spot Records.

Posted by Last Girl to the Party on 03.02.05 at 1:36 PM | Comments (3), TrackBack (0)

The Thermals

The Thermals, I said to someone when I tried to convince them to attend the band's recent show at Emo's, have mastered the art of the one minute, 45 second song. And, okay, I was exaggerating -- most of the songs are over two minutes, probably -- but it made my point. Beholden to both The Minutemen and The Ramones, The Thermals' songs fly by in a danceable, blistering haze of catchy riffs and clever lyrics.

I've read too many reviews of the band's two albums (More Parts Per Million and Fuckin A) that chastise the band for being too derivative, too simple, too formulaic -- but forgive the Thermals these transgressions! Why? Because they bring the fun. I can't say I agree -- The Thermals are one of those deceptively simple bands whose songs ripen and blossom with each listen and stand up to prolonged analysis of the musical form and lyrical content. Oh yeah, and they totally bring the fun, and everybody loves joyful, lo-fi fuzzy pop music.

The Thermals - I Know the Pattern
The Thermals - A Stare Like Yours
The Thermals - How We Know
The Thermals - God and Country
The Thermals - No Culture Icons

The Thermals' website. Their latest album, Fuckin' A, is available from Amazon.

Posted by Little Miss Rock'n'Roll on 03.02.05 at 12:16 AM | Comments (1), TrackBack (0)

David Dondero

David Dondero is one of a dying breed: the wandering troubadour, hitting the open road with a clunky vehicle, the wind in his face, and acoustic guitar in hand. He's got the required protest anthems and laments about current events but to call him a folk singer would be to belittle his work. Mr. Dondero calls himself the anti-folk singer: "I can't think of anything worse than watching a guy get up there with his guitar who just wants to spew his guts out," he says. "It's painful for everybody."

Dondero has lived in more states than you have fingers, and turned away from the punk rock of his old band, Sunbrain, to his acoustic guitar after his first love died in a house fire. Which is not to say that he feels sorry for himself, no, not at all, otherwise why would one of his albums have the tongue-in-cheek name The Pity Party? He sings "I play the skinny indie white-boy blues" in "The Living and the Dead" and then goes on about our lost Tina Turners, murder-suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge, women who can only mean trouble, his parents' divorce, and people who cannot pronounce his name correctly, navigating the fine line between too much earnestness and laughability.

A consummate storyteller, David Dondero pairs his cutting, emotive, sometimes warbly voice with sparse country fingerpicking, straight out of the Appalachian mountains, the words practically spilling out of his mouth. He's bounced from label to label like he rambles from state to state, but I hear he's finally decided to call San Francisco his home.

(Future Farmer Records recently released Live at the Hemlock, a testament to how affecting his live performances are, and rumor has it that his next album also found a permanent home on a record label run by one of his biggest fans; in April, it will be released on Conor Oberst's Team Love.)

The first time I met David Dondero he was dragging his guitar and amp to down the street in Tribeca, after being the opener on a bill of umpteen bands, looking for a place to sleep for the night. That place turned out to be: the bed of his truck, a beat up Nissan that looked like it had seen one too many miles of highway. David was a little wild-eyed, a little worse for the wear, perhaps hopped up on too much shitty weed and cheap whiskey, and he was entirely flattered that someone even knew who he was, shaking my hand for just a little bit too long. But it didn't matter, because he was looking for what we all end up looking for in the end: a little recognition and a little kindness.

David Dondero - Outbound Sound
David Dondero - If You Break My Heart
David Dondero - Pre-Invasion Jitters
David Dondero - The Living and the Dead

Buy Live at the Hemlock from Future Farmer Records, Amazon, iTunes Music Store.

Posted by Queen of the Front Row on 03.01.05 at 3:41 PM | Comments (0), TrackBack (0)

The Kills

Listening to The Kills is kind of like overhearing your neighbors have a loud screamy fight through your apartment's thin walls -- only to be pummeled with the sound of a equally raucous reconciliation between the sheets a half hour later.

The Kills are the toast of the buzz-making machinery right now -- a transatlantic duo (she's American, he's English) with charming stage names (VV and Hotel, respectively) that churn out dirty, catchy, stripped-down bluesy rock songs reminiscent of The Velvet Underground and Royal Trux.

Often compared to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Kills share a greater kinship with the previously-profiled Death From Above 1979. Because there's more going on here than being loud for loudness' sake or passing off deconstructed guitar riffs as something new and exciting or the band's trendy, fashionable outfits -- these songs drip with an authentic depravity that Karen O., with her beer-spraying antics, only wishes she could pull off.

The Kills - The Good Ones
The Kills - Pull a U

The Kills' website. Their debut album, Keep on Your Mean Side, is available from Amazon. Their follow-up, No Wow, will be released on 3/8.

Posted by Little Miss Rock'n'Roll on 03.01.05 at 10:02 AM | Comments (0), TrackBack (0)

The Go! Team

This extraordinarily hyperactive Brighton, UK collective take remix culture and mash-ups to an extreme, all for the goal of fun, fun, fun. The Go! Team write and perform a significant portion of their "samples" and describe themselves as "an international 50/50 boy girl split" with guitars, two drummers, keyboards, bass, an MC, and "fucked up harmonica."

The first time I heard from cuts off of Thunder, Lightning, Strike I wasn't a believer. It's too crazy and nonsensical and busy, I said. It's giving me a headache, I said. Turn this off please so I can hear myself think, I said. But eventually, after enough listens, I finally came around. It may take a while to wrap your head around the Go! Team, given the sonic chaos they create at times. They do a fabulous job of combining the adventurous spirit of Sonic Youth meeting the feel-good vibes of Jackson 5 and sugary Saturday morning cartoon themes. Hip-hop, funk, electronica, soul, and bubblegum pop, all thrown into a blender, served up extra smooth with an infectious exuberance: these are your superhero theme songs for the modern age. The Go! Team are here to rock the microphone (and you, you stuffy disbeliever), so please, stand back, and let them.

The Go! Team - Ladyflash
The Go! Team - Junior Kickstart
The Go! Team - Bottle Rocket

The Go! Team official web site. Buy Thunder, Lightning, Strike from iTunes Music Store or via import on Amazon.

Posted by Queen of the Front Row on 02.28.05 at 4:47 PM | Comments (0), TrackBack (0)

The Frames

The Frames are huge in Ireland -- but not so much here in the US (even working with producer Steve Albini didn't seem to do the trick) -- which is unfortunate.

The band has a massive oeuvre -- they've been together since 1991. But it's their most recent albums, For the Birds and Burn the Maps, that have established the band as masters of deceptively low-key but highly emotional rock songs. These songs, taking cue from lead singer Glen Hansard's gravelly, growly voice, accelerate to crescendos of heartbreaking confessions as the guitar and fiddle clamor around Hansard's lyrics that are, at times, as bitter as they are sweet. The first time I heard "Fake" (included in the sample tracks below) my arms crawled with goosebumps and I couldn't stop listening to the song on repeat for a rather disturbing amount of time. It's one of the most heartwrenching paeans to lost love that I've ever heard. Ever.

I've heard though, that the linchpin of "getting" The Frames revolves around attending one of their shows. I've not had the pleasure of this experience -- but it's been reported to me that a Frames show is a singular thing -- a fierce, jubilant sing along that's a sort of massive group therapy. I can't wait to experience this in person.

The Frames - Fake
The Frames - Dream Awake
The Frames - Star Star (live)
The Frames - Lay Me Down (live)
The Frames - Fitzcarraldo

The Frames' official website. Their latest release, Burn The Maps, is available from Amazon.

Posted by Little Miss Rock'n'Roll on 02.28.05 at 3:25 AM | Comments (1), TrackBack (0)

The Deathray Davies

The lead singer of this six-piece Dallas band is blessed with a classic, sneering, snotty punk rock voice but chooses to pair it with sweet little melodies and big fat power pop harmonies, mixed up with touches of wacky theremin, fuzzed-out guitar lines, and more than a sprinkle of crashing drums, exuberant tambourine, and bouncy keyboards. Eminently danceable and tons of fun for those of you who appreciate retro-rock. It's lo-fi pop that meanders around, dreaming of being in the Kinks (or is that being the Kinks themselves?), hopping and bopping.

The Davies make good use of clever wordplay (one of my favorite lines of all time: "There's too much ulterior in your motive"), repeated motifs (check all the "They Stuck Me In A Box In The Ground" songs -- I think they're on "Part 9" by now), and an abundance of hooks ("I Regret The Day I Tried to Steal Daniel's Ego" and "Is This On?"). Their last album, Midnight at the Black Nail Polish Factory, was one of my favorites of 2003 which nobody else seems to have heard. The Deathray Davies are much like that obviously wasted skinny hipster boy in the corner booth of the bar who can't stop talking about the same three things but you still love them nonetheless because they're so adorable; it's nothing entirely ground-breaking, but the pure joy in these songs is apparent in the first listen.

The Deathray Davies - The Girl Who Stole The Eiffel Tower
The Deathray Davies - Is This On?
The Deathray Davies - I Regret The Day I Tried to Steal Daniel's Ego
The Deathray Davies - Maggie Doesn't Blink

The Deathray Davies official site. Buy Midnight at the Black Nail Polish Factory from the band's web store, iTunes Music Store, or Amazon.

Posted by Queen of the Front Row on 02.27.05 at 9:52 PM | Comments (1), TrackBack (0)

The Futureheads

Every time I listen to The Futureheads, I always get lost in some corner of a song (usually dancing like a fool!), wondering how the heck I ended up in that spot. I get tangled up in the mini vocal fugues rich with harmonies and counterpoint and walls of tricky, springy guitars. And the rhythm section, generally dependable in a pop song, is intent on trickery as well. Not that I'm complaining mind you -- I love getting lost in a songs that turn the traditional pop song infrastructure (y'know: verse/chorus/verse) on its head. I end up happily running through the labyrinth of each song looking for my favorite section of the vocals. (I challenge you to name a band active today, outside of TV on the Radio, that's got the same level of vocal prowess!)

I remember when pop songs with unconventional features like that really bothered me (well, save for XTC's) and left me nauseatingly disoriented (no, really!) -- but I was gently weaned into loving them by the likes of Spoon and The Arcade Fire, before kindly souls pointed me towards Wire. Now it's come full circle -- I can see the latter band's influence everywhere now! (You know how it is -- sometimes you just come late to something, and then when you finally do, can't get enough of it? Hence my love of The Futureheads!)

The hardest thing about this entry was picking representative tracks -- because, seriously, every track on The Futureheads' debut album is totally choice. (I hear they put on a great live show too; can't wait to see for myself!)

The Futureheads - First Day
The Futureheads - Danger of the Water
The Futureheads - Hounds of Love

The Futureheads' official website. Buy their self-titled debut album from Amazon.

Posted by Little Miss Rock'n'Roll on 02.27.05 at 4:37 AM | Comments (0), TrackBack (0)