Time to Rock...
Well, that's it from See You In the Pit this year. No schedule due to time constraints, but I sincerely hope you're using the scheduling tools online (both on SXSW.com and podbop.org).
I know, I know, it was a real short run, exacerbated by a full band list being announced quite late in the game, as well as complicated by various personal affairs and general lack of time. It'll be better next time, I promise.
Anyway, have a great SXSW. See you next year!
Posted by Queen of the Front Row on 03.13.07 at 11:00 PM
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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. They don't really need an introduction, but here goes, anyway....
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 - The Fitted Shirt
Spoon - I Turn My Camera On
Spoon - The Way We Get By
Spoon's official web site. Buy Gimme Fiction from Amazon or iTunes.
Posted by Queen of the Front Row on 03.13.07 at 6:35 PM
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Pompeii
Lots of bands aspire to make grandiose, room-filling pop-rock but few succeed because it's too easy to collapse into stereotypes and well-trodden cliches. Pompeii, unlike others, successfully propel its chiming, mid-tempo indie-pop well above the fray. They're a sweet, melodic but melancholy band, unabashedly bittersweet, with their hearts on their sleeves. Often compared to Death Cab for Cutie, Pompeii's work is a lot meatier and darker than that band's comparable early offerings; in the end, comparing these two bands doesn't give the whole sotry..
This sort of arms-wide rock depends on not just sophisticated, shimmering instrumentation and moody atmospherics, but both of those, done extremely well. And Pompeii has both of those items down pat, but with a unique slant. Singer Dean Stafford has a somber but warm tenor that works with the band's chiming guitars and clattering drums, as Caitlin Bailey's cello quietly fills the gaps. Bailey gives the band extra texture, and the interplay of the melodic bass lines and her rasping strings gives Pompeii's low end unexpected depth, with layers upon layers upon layers.
Pompeii's music is not indie pop, or indie rock, or straight up goth or emo. It's all these things, and in the end, you can't write them off as just another indie rock stereotype. That's probably why Pompeii's beautiful music is so affecting.
Pompeii - Assembly
Pompeii - Miracle Mile
Visit Pompeii's official site. Buy Assembly from Amazon.
Posted by Queen of the Front Row on 03.12.07 at 7:59 PM
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Tullycraft
Nobody listens to twee pop any more. Okay, well, maybe you'll find a little tweeness in Sufjan Steven's more precious moments, or the lush romanticism of Stars, or in the latest and greatest Belle and Sebastian, but I'm thinking of a different indie pop beast. The kind that's hopped up on pixie stix, played by cute boys and girls with tiny voices, rough-hewn at the edges, but hyper and endearing and unpretentious. Who cares if the voices are slightly out of tune and they can barely play their guitars when there's a lot of hollering and they've got choruses that jackhammer into your brain?
But I confess that even myself, a former Elephant 6 devotee, have left my Apples in Stereo and Minders albums sit, dusty, and unloved up on the shelf in favor of more recent, hipper trends: post-punk, indie-disco, dance-punk, alt-country, a host of gloomy singer-songwriters and all of those damn Canadian hippie cult bands. You can blame Jeff Mangum for going into hiding or Beulah for breaking up or the kids, those damn kids, for having an attention span that's only a single remix long.
Heavenly and Talulah Gosh, I have forsaken you. Aislers Set, I'm sorry. Ladybug Transistor, please forgive me. But there is still hope; my faith in twee pop has been resuscitated by bands like Voxtrot, Bishop Allen, and, finally, the return of the glorious Tullycraft with Disenchanted Hearts Unite. What used to be sloppy is not slightly less sloppy, but the lyrics are still wonderfully snarky, and the current configuration of band members shows a polish not found on earlier releases. I'm delighted to rediscover that long-forgotten pop rush of the ultra-catchy "Secretly Minnesotan" and singable "Our Days in Kansas." Never has the phrase "disco bloodbath for the ages" sounded quite so sweet. Shake the songs too hard, and joyful hooks will come tumbling out. And let's not forget the back catalog. The jangly "Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend Is Too Stupid to Know About" is a cult classic: chock full of references to other swoonworthy indie pop bands, it's a balm to dumped indie boys across the world. And the refrain of "Twee" is as infectious as it is sharp and self-affirming. Smile, it's Tullycraft! You can keep your punk rock, ska, rap beats, and house, fuck me, I'm twee! Doot-doot-doot-do.
Tullycraft - Secretly Minnesotan
Tullycraft - Twee
Tullycraft - Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend's Too Stupid to Know About
The official Tullycraft site. Buy Disenchanted Hearts Unite from Amazon or iTunes Music Store.
Posted by Queen of the Front Row on 03.12.07 at 10:37 AM
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Okkervil River
Some bands you find out about because they've been written up on some mp3blog or other, or you can't escape the insta-hype on the intarweb from weblogs or the big P, while other bands toil away in obscurity for years and years, picking up dedicated fans along the way. And along the way, they go down one alleyway or another, and slowly but surely grow and mature and get eons better, like Okkervil River.
When I first heard Okkervil River a few years back, I described them to as a friend as Neutral Milk Hotel's sensitivity meets Bright Eyes' pathos, with a dash of Wilco of the Being There era; now I even regret that those words came out of my mouth because this band is so much more than the sum of its influences. There's something familiar, heart-warming, and universal about Okkervil River.
Although some other bands may have unfairly stolen their literary-genre thunder (*cough*Decemberists*cough), Okkervil River spearheads a different kind of rock: hand-sewn but damaged, raw and cathartic but sincere, and bursting with energy and life. This is not music for the faint of heart; these are not songs meant for shy wallflowers and restrained librarians. In fact, when Okkervil were on tour with the aforementioned lit-loving, historically dramatic band, reports from the crowd told me that Okkervil River blew the tall-socks-and-black-rimmed-glasses college sophomores right to the back wall. Why so? First off, there is very little that is naive, twee, or precious about this band, nor are they dependent on the too-cool hordes of mini-genres that pop up all of the time. Frontman Will Sheff and his merry band of followers prefer instead to play pedal steel and banjo, and then go reference a rich tradition of old-timey folk pieces and dusty, neglected volumes of fragile classics.
The Okkervils make fucked up Americana/folk rock from Austin, Texas, built upon the foundation of the warped songwriting talent of Will Sheff, famous for his throaty, hoarse vocals, and ingenious turns of phrase. They have a penchant for lush but raw orchestration, caterwauling devastation, loud-soft-loud depression, and writing eerie murder ballads. The jaw-dropping "For Real" combines gulping, foreboding basslines and a sheer, ever-increasing dread, rising through layers of static and piercing, trembling voices. Listeners are caught unawares by the surprising twists and turns of "Westfall," chills running down their spines, or blindsided by the emotional, threatening climax of "Another Radio Song." Meanwhile songs like "Seas Too Far to Reach" drawn upon stately keyboards and plucky mandolin, to create memorable, lovingly arranged, yearning ballads of loss, love, cheating, and the vast terrain of the human heart. You can almost believe the unkempt, ragged Sheff as he croons "you still haven't lost her, you still haven't lost her, not yet" on the gorgeous and sad "Red."
And of course, I must also give my stamp of approval to the wonderful, heartbreaking "Okkervil River Song." The song they wrote just so you know how to pronounce the name also happens to be one of the best folk songs written this past decade: mournful, breath-taking, shattering, a classic. They've come a long way from the fledgling band that once played a show to all of a dozen people on a weeknight at 8PM in New York's Mercury Lounge: last year, their richly rewarding, tour de force Black Sheep Boy topped many a best-of list.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: we are entirely too lucky to have bands like Okkervil River even in existence. They brought the house down at SXSW in 2004, playing the very last showcase spot on Saturday night at a small club called Tambaleo, far from the throngs of Sixth Street. Most of Austin appeared there to enthusiastically cheer on their hometown heroes, who have finally come into their own. The band threw themselves into the songs, with every mandolin or accordion solo seeming too fiery, too passionate to have come from mere mortals. I'm fairly certain I stood next to the wildly intoxicated members of the band Zykos, who did their own part heckling Will, Jonathan, Travis, and the rest of the gang. Tambourines were thrown, beer was spilled, strings were broken, and lyrics were shouted at the top of their lungs. And, then, there at 2AM, shaking on worn feet and broken-down knees, weary but enthusiastic, the entire room erupted in a joyful chorus to the songs they knew by heart, each chorus reverberating into the empty parking lot outside. And everything was just as it should always be.
Okkervil River - Westfall
Okkervil River - Okkervil River Song
Okkervil River - It Ends With A Fall
Okkervil River - Black
Okkervil River - Another Radio Song
Okkervil River's official site. Buy Black Sheep Boy from Amazon or iTunes. I also recommend the Black Sheep Boy Appendix EP; you can also purchase that from Amazon or iTunes.
Posted by Queen of the Front Row on 03.11.07 at 10:26 PM
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The Rosebuds
So there's this guy and he's very earnest and his name is Ivan and he plays the guitar and he believes in rock'n'roll, because it's going to save his soul. And this guy, this guy loves this girl, Kelly, who plays the keyboard and shakes her head back and forth when she's playing and pumps her first in the air and sings along at the top her lungs. And there's this drummer who's their friend, and together they whip up the most amazingly catchy and sweet indie pop on the planet, like the kind they used to make back in the '50s.
They've got swooping drums, singalong choruses, and handclaps. The Rosebuds have got a little Motown, and a little Kinks, and a little Zombies, and a little Buddy Holly, and a whole lotta "yeah yeah yeah" and "la la la" and "ba da da" and "oh, whoa" all over the joint. It goes down quick and smooth, and leaves you in a sugary hazy of happiness with classy sweaters and rollerskates and the kids up at the Point on a Saturday night.
The formula is simple, the execution is flawless, and all the kids dig it. And now they're adding some synths and some danceable beats in Night of the Fudies, but it's all in good fun. It's like an 80s dance party meets The Rosebuds. Cool, confident, goes down smooth and it sounds good. Yeah? Yeah.
The Rosebuds - Kicks In The Schoolyard
The Rosebuds - Hold Your Hands And Fight
The Rosebuds - Get Up and Get Out
The Rosebuds official site. Pre-order Night of the Furies from Amazon.
Posted by Queen of the Front Row on 03.11.07 at 9:18 AM
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